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With a celebrity found and exactly no years in existence, this rally turned out to be more than impressive!
If Nitro Rallycross seems familiar that's because it was an event as part of the Nitro World Series starting in 2018, but now is its own thing! This sort of Rallycross stands apart from anything we've seen so far and stays true to its roots in America, as it is fast, loud, casual, and made for just about anybody! Low cost of entry, races all over the States, and ties to other sports including halftime stunts, junker races, and even public entry events make it a people's sport. Granted, this being the very early stages (so to speak), it seems to have a lot more presence from some carmakers like the dominating Subaru WRX's. And yet we also see such variety as a Honda Civic, an Audi A1 Sportback, and a whole division just for cars we wouldn't be able to recognize anyways! Custome builds in a series with no designated manufacturers called "NEXT."
It was started by someone you almost certainly know the name of, and it has already seen great amounts of success. All we know is that it's incredibly fun to watch and designed in an incredibly exciting format. We couldn't have thought up a more interesting and enjoyable race if we had years to plan it out! The fact that this race came together so quickly and so smoothly is very impressive, and they already have incredible promises for next year that guarantee that we will be watching!
In 2018 Rallycross was just a small part of natural world games and took part on one motorsports campus. In 2020 a stuntman/motocross pro with a dream became the spokesperson/spearhead for the first inaugural season of what would be Nitro Rallycross.
Travis Pastrana pulled some strings and used his connections with sponsors like Red Bull and Subaru to put together a lot of the structure of the race, and while it might look familiar to some, this is the first time such a race has ever happened in a series! In fact, this type of Rallycross is incredibly unique in its own right.
From 2018 until 2020, this rallycross race is hosted by Nitro or part of a series that took place in Erda, Utah at the Utah motorsports campus. This isn’t very surprising considering that it was a great flexible and inexpensive playground for the likes of motocross and even had an accessible street track around it.
In fact, the likes of Travis Pastrana and Ken block spend a lot of time around Utah, and even though there’s not a lot of car culture, there is a lot of extreme sports from St. George to Park city, mostly in conjecture with skiing and mountain biking. Off-roading also certainly has its place with the Jeep capital of the world being in the southern corner; Moab.
As we may already have mentioned, Travis Pastrana was the person who took a charge and created this series for Nitro. He pulled some strings with manufacturers like Ford, Volkswagen, and Subaru. He also uses ties with Red Bull and with enough sponsors gathered he then proceeded to create a series in a bold and frankly, unproven fashion that many would call risky. He also proceeded to race in it, and (since it might be embarrassing otherwise) he did snag some podium wins!
Was it a success? It’s been less than a month since the finale in Florida so there’s really no data to say, but we can be certain that it is an exciting sport! It's molded exactly to the type of person that Travis Pastrana is, with excitement, daring, and a chauvinistic flare. Frankly, it’s what we all hoped rallycross could be, with multiple cars pitted against each other inciting drama and complicated courses that even include jumping over the track! What more could you want in a race?
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Anyone who has watched motocross will instantly recognize the style of this course. Though it doesn’t have the same steep angle of jumps or berms or crazy things like washboards, it does have rollers, cambered, and off-cambered turns, and more than one jump that requires you to catch air or crash.
Also, like motocross, there are different divisions to racing, and although there are only two categories right now, they’re broken up by the car's ability and may soon also be broken up by the driver's points, like Moto X. Sending multiple cars head-to-head has always been a risky and dangerous idea, but all the more fun to watch! If they can do it with unprotected humans on 700-pound bikes, why not in cars with seatbelts and roll cages?
Travis‘s initial design was to create a motorsport that was not to be run by manufacturers, something like the opposite of F1. His goal was to have manufacturers work together to develop cars or to offer their cars without the promise of major sponsorships. The whole goal of Nitro Rallycross was to make something that had a very low cost of entry for what it was, and while most couldn't buy a team, many more could than previously ever allowed in professional rallies.
That’s not to say that the cars or racing in them is very cheap, and as of now there’s not an official budget, but overall the discipline is inexpensive and doesn’t rely on manufacturer support. So laid-back and casual is the barrier of entry that between races they would show footage of Travis Pastrana walking through a NASCAR pit lane and asking random drivers if they wanted to come to Rallycross. Many of them did!
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Nitro, despite having very little history with Nitro Rallycross, and without much traction, has already decided to unveil a universal electric car platform co-develop by Ford, Subaru, and Volkswagen. The electric platform is based on all-electric SUVs and has a peak horsepower of 1,000 that can get it to 60 mph in 1.5 seconds!
The platform is called FC1 – X and it is made specifically for Nitro Rallycross. The category of race is going to be called "Group E," even though the other two existing classes are called Supercar and NEXT, so no pattern there. To develop an entire car platform just for your brand new rally race seems very bold, but the fact is we are the love it and it can only take Nitro Rallycross further into the future and into the limelight, which we love even more because it brings more of the sport to the United States.
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Typical old rally races drivers lineup and are spaced out enough that they never have to see each other, then timed to see how fast they can do a certain trail/course. Occasionally there are races where they go head-to-head, but very few boast so much competition and so much driving time! The race was designed to have racers in their cars driving in circles as often as possible. It was intentionally made to be less abusive for vehicles, and the track is even watered down to lessen the grip which preserves the cars.
One session of nitro Rallycross lasts two whole days including qualifying and several hours from start to finish, normally racing the sunset. By the end of the two days, the drivers undoubtedly have much more experience and have become very familiar with the track making the final brackets all the more exciting.
There’s a reason you don’t see very many jumps in Rallycross, and anytime there is a car touching air it becomes a unique wallpaper photography moment. In fact, most Rallycross is designed to keep a car on the ground, and the only races that tend to break this are for short course trucks with almost 30 inches of travel or more! Naturally, the jumps were going to be dangerous and hard to move past the
United States auto club, the sanctioning group of the race but with much persuasion and a loud public voice, as well as plenty of safety measures to ensure a soft and smooth landing and almost 0% failure, they were able to push it through by the seat of their pants.
Bonus events took place while pit cruise tuned their cars for the finale. Sponsors would provide the vehicles, and all you had to do was show up, pay the entry fee, and sign up. Frankly, you have to be pretty crazy to do any of these races as the cars had zero extra safety measures except your mandatory helmet.
Two of our favorite races were when they took minivans on the course, many of them being excited amateurs who flew over the first jump and ended up setting off airbags in almost every single car! The next race featured strictly PT Cruisers and was unofficially named the “Cruiser Bruiser.” Less than half of the cars finished and they didn’t even hit the gap jump, that would just be unsafe! Hilariously, many of them spun out or got stuck, but most of them just broke down after less than a lap of abuse.
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Having multiple cars go at once it’s not only unique, it is also extremely entertaining! This was a big push for Travis Pastrana despite the need for extra safety measures and the complications of safety rules including shoving and pushing to protect the drivers. The outcome is worth it, as there are very few races in such rugged and unpredictable conditions with such inconsistent driving as Rallycross, that would ever allow for more cars than one or two at a time.
Was there drama? Absolutely! These drivers aren’t necessarily used to such quick upsetting of the podium positions during just one or two laps, and what started out as a sophisticated trash car race soon turned into a chess game. Some drivers lost points and even were kicked out of the championship because of questionable techniques, and openly aggressive behaviors fanned the flame.
Despite some heated moments, the entire vibe of the race day was extremely laid-back as the announcers welcomed up almost anyone worth talking to into the announcer booth to talk to the audience and everyone watching at home. We got to hear a lot from Travis Pastrana as well as some people we’ve never heard of. Would be recommended to support it in the future? Absolutely! If Nitro Rallycross were to fail anytime soon we would be very sad indeed.
Wyatt is from Utah and likes to bike, ski, and drive too fast. He's written articles on motorcycles and cars for years, and especially likes Japanese cars and off-road vehicles. He has been featured in DriveTribe more than once and some of his content has had over 6.5 million views. He loves Formula 1, Formula Drift, the Baja 1000, and World Rally Cross!