It's a great day for Rallycross on the stripGlobal Rallycross Supercars Final: Las Vegas
Global Rallycross is wheel to wheel racing on a combo dirt/pavement course. Anytime you put a crazy extreme athlete behind the wheel of a rally-prepped car, the driving antics will be interesting to watch.
The Track
Tracks are a mix of dirt and asphalt and typically between 0.5-1 miles long full of sharp corners, sweepers, and a jump. The Las Vegas track specifically used a wide start and long straightaway with two paved sweepers and a hairpin corner before going into the jump and the joker shortcut on the dirt. A wide right hander led up to the finish line.
The joker lap is shorter in distance. Each driver can take one joker lap during their race making strategy key in a heat as taking a shorter lap earlier on may get the driver out in front of the group while taking it on the last lap may help a driver overtake a position at the end.
Your Las Vegas Global Rallycross track. The start line was positioned in the top left quadrant with the finish line to the right of that. The course followed a clockwise pattern with the jump in the middle and the joker lap at the far left- inside lane the joker lap, outside the guard rail the normal route.Penalty Box
The penalty box is new for 2013 and keeps officials from having to red flag a race or restart for on-track infractions. When signaled, an offender must sit in a 50m lane off track as their penalty until an official says that they can proceed. This played a huge roll in the final race in Vegas.
The Cars
The cars are rated around 600hp and can go from 0-60mph in less than 2 seconds. Besides power, they're built to handle like rally cars and can withstand jumps up to 70 feet. They also must deal with car-to-car contact. Rallycross cars are not equipped with electronic traction aids.
“Sure you want to do this? That jump looked pretty gnarly!”The Drivers
Proven thrill seekers from other extreme sports. For the most part, these guys are former BMX bikers, motocross riders, and skateboarders but with age comes cage!
Qualifying/Heats
Drivers are broken into heats of 4 cars with seeding determined by the drivers' qualifying speed. Heats are 6 laps long and the winner of each heat gets 1 bonus point towards the championship standings. The top 2 finishers in each heat move on to the main event and can go pit and let their crews work on their cars. The bottom 2 finishers of each heat go into a last chance qualifier race where the top 2 finishers of the LCQ move up to the final. In the end, 10 cars compete in the main event.
Toomas Heikkinen already clinched the championship before Vegas so he was probably just contemplating dinner.Points
The top 16 finishers each race are awarded points based on a table. 1st place gets 20 points, 2nd place 17 points, 3rd place 15 points, 4th place 13 points and then it goes down by 1 point until the 16th place gets 1 point towards the championship.
1 bonus point is also awarded to the winner of each heat.
The top 2 cars per manufacturer are also awarded points in the manufacturer's championship.
Tanner Foust gives the thumbs up to keep the radio on gangsta rap.
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