Event Coverage: Red Bull Global Rallycross Indianapolis

by David Zipf

MotoIQ and Global Rallycross go quite a way back. In fact, all the way back in 2009 Dave Coleman gave us a peek at the Olsebergs Fiesta engines and just a couple years ago our chief nerd was in the pits at the Long Beach GRC race and brought us An Inside Look at mountune's GRC Ford Duratec Engine. GRC is much like the circus: they pop-up in town, put on a show, and leave without a trace. Well, if you don’t count a bunch of skid marks as a trace. GRC has hosted a ton of new events in the Midwest this year including in Louisville, Memphis, and Indianapolis. I'm in Kentucky so attending the Louisville race would have made much more sense for me, but I was a bit preoccupied that weekend covering the IndyCar Grand Prix. So to get my rallying fix, I took the drive north to Indianapolis.

The cars get unloaded bright and early. Tanner Foust has gone from being a Toyota driver in Formula Drift, to a Subaru driver in X-Games Rally, to a Ford GRC driver. Now he is a full-time VW driver for the Andretti Autosport Rallycross team. Yup, this is the same Andretti Autosport that won the last two Indy 500s.

Tanner himself is always in high demand. He was quite literally running around his paddock, signing autographs or working with his team to prepare his car before and after heats.

GRC was at one time dominated by Ford Fiestas and Subaru WRXs. Not only has VW joined with their incredible Beetles, but Honda has joined with an FC generation Civic coupe. The Beetles have been the cars to beat since 2016, though the Fiestas and Civics have snuck in wins in 2017. Heading into the Indy round, Tanner Foust and Scott Speed were leading the points with Steve Arpin and Mitchell deJong close behind.

The Indy GRC even was a two day affair and turnout was great for Saturday and pretty good for Sunday. Fans all lined up for autograph sessions, including this little dude, who has an awesome pop. His dad built him this sweet replica of Ken Block’s Hoonicorn. Tanner even signed the hood! #lifetimefan.

GRC Lites were the first cars on the track. We’ve looked at these sweet little mid-engine Rally cars before, and they put on a great show. Lites is for up and coming drivers to cut their teeth before hopping into the bigger, faster Supercar class. The event was held at Lucas Oil Raceway, home of the NHRA’s US Nationals event, along with a ? mile oval for short track racing. GRC ran on the oval, using turns 1, 3, and 4 of the oval, as well as the pit lane and the service road in Turn 1.

Event Coverage: Red Bull Global Rallycross Indianapolis