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| What the hell is a Skoda? We were vaguely familiar with the manufacturer as being a crappy car made behind the iron curtain in the cold war era, but in 2000 they were purchased by VW. Apparently they now make a pretty damed fast rally car. Swede Michael Jernberg was ultra fast until a mechanical failure took him out. |
Drivers competed in a head-to-head format on Friday, and took on aggressive, multi-car rallycross racing on Saturday that culminated in a six-car final race for the win.
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| Rhys Millen would stop our hearts by barely clearing the jump every time but he never missed a beat and that was actually the smoothest and fastest way over the thing. |
Among the notable guests on-hand to watch Saturday’s contest were Monster World Rally Team driver Ken Block, NASCAR driver AJ Allmendinger and Motocross pro Brian Deegan. Although they weren’t competing, these stars were in the stands to cheer on the action trackside and they all said they were looking forward to having a chance to race in the series.
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| Jimmy Keeney is a privateer whose claim to fame in this event was the biggest crash ever. We hurt for him because we know that a lot of his personal money went down the tubes when he crashed. |
Top X Games athletes including Travis Pastrana and Deegan have described rally car competition as “action sport, with a roll cage,” and both days of competition lived up to that reputation. In a spectacular Friday crash, Colorado driver Jimmy Keeney flipped his Subaru WRX STI while attempting to claw back lost time over Hyundai driver Dodd in his rallycross Veloster. Keeney emerged unharmed and said he hoped his privateer team would be able to find the budget to rebuild and return to the series later in the year.
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Jimmy Keeney killed his Subaru WRX STI when he cased it going over the gap. Fortunately he was unhurt even though his car was a goner.
Joseph Burke also rolled his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX while navigating the tight path underneath the gap jump early Saturday, drawing an enthusiastic reaction from the fans in the grandstands. Burke was unharmed and was able to regain the race by Saturday’s afternoon competition.
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| Joseph Burke rolled his EVO in a spectacular way but his crew did a great job to fix it and get it back in the action. |
