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| Grönholm jumps the gap. The event proved to be very hard on cars. Many retired due to mechanical failure. Nearly every heat had at least one car retire due to something breaking. |
“We broke a lot of ground this weekend at this first event,” said Foust Saturday. “The final was crazy: When I saw Grönholm’s car right over my head on the jump, I knew he had it.”
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| The gap was really hard on some cars. |
Third-place overall went to Formula DRIFT regular Stephan Verdier, who put in consistently fast times all weekend in his Subaru WRX STI. Verdier’s car was prepped by MotoIQ regular Costa Gialamas of GTI Technical Innovations. The build of his car was featured in MotoIQ last week. Verdier’s car also carried MotoIQ cameras during the event so look forward to that very soon!
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| Tanner Foust and Stephan Verdier runing head to toe in the main. |
Running on a shoestring privateer’s budget, Verdier proved that driving skill and good prep can go toe to toe with big dollar factory teams.
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| “We will miss Tanner in Formula D but we won’t miss running against him” -Dai Yoshihara, who was a spectator this weekend. |
“The last round was insane,” said Verdier. “I can’t wait to do it again at the next one.”
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| This photo best shows just how crazy a jump the gap was. Marcus Dodd jumps here. |
The two-day Global RallyCross Championship race featured a roster of top drivers from around the world, including Subaru Rally Team USA driver Dave Mirra – a freestyle BMX star with more X Games medals than any other athlete in the world – European rallycross veteran Michael Jernberg, from Sweden, and the Hyundai team of two time Formula D drift and Pikes Peak hillclimb champ Rhys Millen and five-time British rally champion Marcus Dodd.
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| Joseph Burke lost control of his EVO in the semifinals and rolled while going under the big jump. His car ended up on top of the concrete K rails in what was probably the second most spectacular crash of the weekend as seen in the video below |
