Rallycross
Rallycross is a form of sprint style motorsport, held on a closed mixed-surface racing circuit, with modified production or specially built touring cars.
The first true rallycross was organised by Bud Smith (d. 1994) and the Tunbridge Wells Centre of the 750 MC, with the aid of Lydden Circuit owner Bill Chesson (d. 1999), and was won by later Formula One driver as well as 1968 Rally Monte Carlo winner Vic Elford in a showroom Porsche 911 of the British importer AFN, ahead of Brian Melia in his Ford Lotus Cortina and Tony Fall in a BMC Mini Cooper S. After that inaugural event there were another two test rallycrosses at Lydden, on 11 March and 29 July, before the new World of Sport Rallycross Championship for the ABC TV viewers started with round one on 23 September, to be followed by round two on 7 October.
However, the true birth of rallycross is often wrongly connected with the cancellation of the 1967 RAC Rally, due to foot-and-mouth disease, in November 1967, about ten months after the maiden event.
RAC Rally stage number one by then, Camberley, was on Ministry of Defence land and not affected by movement restrictions caused by the disease in rural areas.
Subsequently, only British drivers competed in the maiden international rallycross event one week later, which was eventually won by Andrew Cowan and his Hillman Imp.
It opened up the new rally drivers' fun-sport to many amateur competitors, proved very successful and thereby paved the way for the first generation of real rallycross specialists, many of them coming from the ranges of autocross and autograss racing.
Rob Herzet (AVRO), a Dutch counterpart to Robert Reed, discovered rallycross during a visit to Great Britain in 1968 and immediately understood its potential for the television viewers.
Although the soft heath soil and the muddy hollow hampered most of the two dozen or so competitors, or at least their mostly rather aged cars, the event produced much fun for all concerned as well as the TV audience.
On October 4 1969 Holland saw its last Rallycross event of the first season, a stand-alone one-off race organised on a temporary track that was quickly set up on pastureland near the ‘Europahal’ at the town of Elst, halfway between Arnhem and Nijmegen.
The Eurocircuit opened on Saturday 17 April with a race that was won by Jan de Rooy and his famous DAF 555 Coupé 4WD and became the first track in the World that was especially designed and built purely for rallycross purposes.
[2] The inaugural Australian Rallycross Championship was held at the Tailem Bend circuit on 24 June 1979 and was won by Larry Perkins, driving a 2.0-litre Volkswagen Beetle for Kruger Motors.
In 1970s and 1980s autocross was among most popular autosport disciplines in Soviet Union with hundreds of racing tracks and various classes of trucks, light cars and purpose built buggies competing.
[9] In October 2009 Rally America (for two years operating under the tag RallyCar) announced it would begin sanctioning European style rallycross events in the United States.
This event involved heavily modified production cars with turbocharged engines running at 600 hp, all-wheel drive, sequential gearboxes, and offroad style suspension tuned for long jumps.
The series had several popular drivers such as Tanner Foust, Ken Block, Travis Pastrana, Finn Marcus Grönholm, Kiwi Rhys Millen, Dave Mirra, Frenchman Stéphane Verdier, Swede Michael Jernberg and Briton Liam Doran.
In 2013, GRC Lites made their debut in Loudon, New Hampshire, with the series most exciting race held at Atlanta Motor Speedway pitting professional European rallycross drivers against newcomer, American Mitchell DeJong.
American newcomer, Mitchell deJong joined the series and made history as the youngest to win the Silver Medal in X-Games in his first attempt at age 16.
[16] The series traveled to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas where American driver, Mitchell deJong made history again when he became the youngest to be invited and to win the Gold Medal in X-Games.
