Ford announced today that they will be making available in the U.S. the R2 Rally kit (in gravel or tarmac trim). The kit was designed by M-Sport, Ford’s WRC partner. The kit includes a bump in power to 168HP and 134 lb/ft of torque, a new suspension, roll cage, 4 pot brakes, limited slip diff, sequential gearbox and more. The kit will be available exclusively from Team O’Neil Motorsports. Also available will be a Stage 1 kit that will be somewhat less ‘hardcore’, for rally enthusiasts.
The new 168 HP Ford Fiesta R2 Rally Kit
I’m fairly certain this Ford kit should make the ford Fiesta somewhat close to what is currently running in the S-WRC (minus the AWD) and has been fairly impressive. Henning Solberg has been driving one for much of the season and has made a few finishes in the top 10 in the very under-powered Fiesta.
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I thought it might be fun to make a year in photos type thing and post some of the great GotCone? photos from 2010. I will be adding photos as I have time to find them, so this is a work in progress. If you have any favorites that you would like included please leave a comment, as I have A LOT of photos from the year, so will be hard to pick out the best ones! Click on the photos to see the photo in a much larger size and of course all the photos from the events can be found in the GotCone Photo Gallery
A Subaru WRX wagon slides in the snow at the Febraury 2010 Nebraska Region snow rallycross
There wasn’t much drama for Sebastien Loeb at this years Rally in Spain, also known as the Catalunya Rally. Loeb wrapped up his 61st victory, leading from stage 1 all the way through the entire rally. “It was another very good result for us in Spain and I’m very happy,” said Loeb. “We had no pressure for the championship on this event, so we were just able to drive as we wanted. We pushed hard on the gravel on Friday and from then it was a little bit easier to control the advantage.” Even after backing off on the final few stages, Loeb finished the rally with a 35.3 second lead over runner-up Petter Solberg.
Loeb drove his Citroen C4 to another victory in Spain
Solberg on the other hand, had a real battle for 2nd place with Loeb’s teammate and Spanish countryman Dani Sordo. Solberg finished only 5.8 seconds ahead of Sordo, but was happy with his 2nd place finish. “I went really sideways on the final stage: maybe too much,” said Solberg. “I wasn’t sure if I could do it. This means so much to me to beat the factory cars because our car really isn’t the same.” The finish inched Solberg ever closer to the 3rd spot in the driver’s standings, now just 5 points behind Jari-Matti Latvala who finished 4th in Spain. The finish also put the privateer in reach of catching 2nd place Sebastien Ogier, who finished in 10th, putting him just 16 points ahead of Petter. More…
That’s right the long awaited Top Gear USA show is set to debut on The History Channel on November 21. I’m personally interested to see what the show will be like. Hopefully they will do a better job then Top Gear Australia did. I’m not a big fan of Tanner Foust as a TV personality, so hopefully he won’t get on my nerves too bad.
Also recently announced the ‘Reasonably Priced Car’ will be a Suzuki SX4 and will be driven around the Top Gear USA Test Track by such stars as; Tim Allen, Buzz Aldrin, Ty Burrell, Tony Hawk, Bret Michaels, Dominic Monaghan, Kid Rock and Michelle Rodriguez.
To keep your curiosities peaked a couple teaser videos released by The History Channel below.
Disclaimer: This rumor is just that a rumor and has no real concrete backing what so ever, but I thought it would be interesting to share. If anyone would like to provide any sort of confirmation or real information please do so. 🙂
So, the rumor is this; that Travis Pastrana will be leaving Subaru and joining the Red Bull Citroen Junior Team in the WRC for the 2011 season. The rumor is that he would be taking Kimi Raikkonen’s spot on the team, as Red Bull currently favors Pastrana over Kimi, as they see the following and popularity that Ken Block has garnered and think Pastrana would be able to bring that same kind of following and excitement.
Travis Pastrana #199 driving his Subaru Rally Team STi during the 2010 Rally America Season
In the 5th installment of Ford’s 43 Fiestas series, Ford asks the question ‘Who can do the better burnout?’ To answer this question they have pitted Nascar driver AJ Allmendinger in his V8 rear-wheel drive Nascar against WRC, Rally America and Gymkhana extraordinaire Ken Block in his Monster Energy Ford Fiesta Rally car as Nascar legend Richard Petty looks on. Allmendinger is up first and produces a big cloud of tire smoke, but Ken Block, fresh off completing his Gymkhana 3 video, falls back on his old trick of spinning around a fixed object, and lighting em up around Allmendinger’s stopped car. I’m not sure who won the Challenge, but Block sure held his own and Richard Petty seemed to approve of both efforts.
Watch Ken Block and AJ Allmendinger produce large clouds of tire smoke in Ford’s ‘Burnout Challenge’ below.
Zach over at Speedway Motors put together some video from this year’s Solo Nationals at Lincoln Air Park. He did a great job capturing some of the action and excitement of the 4 days of the event. Watch the video below.
Last weekend marked the 2nd ever RallyCar Rallycross event, held again at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, NJ. Tanner Foust after dominating the first event and walking away with the win in the AWD class, was looking to do the same this time. Some rain during the final event made for an interesting finish.
Dave Mirra was out to an early lead in the final in his Subaru USA Rally Team STi, before Liam Doran crashed his Citroen C4 into a tire wall. The crash prompted a red flag and officials decided to regrid the cars and restart the final. Tanner Foust then jumped out ahead of Mirra on the restart and was able to hold off Mirra the rest of the way to secure his 2nd victory in as many events. Foust said, “It was chaos, but that’s what this sport’s about. It’s even more rewarding to come out on top when there’s so much going on. It was good fun, though!”
Tanner Foust drove his Rockstar Energy Ford Fiesta to his 2nd Rallycar Rallycross victory of the year.
Let’s admit it, this WRC Rallye de France was about one person, Frenchmen Sebastien Loeb. With his 60th overall WRC rally victory under his belt at his home rally, Rallye de France, Sebastien Loeb also wrapped up his 7th World Rally Championship driver’s title. “This is fantastic,” said Loeb. “This has been a very impressive rally. It has been very difficult and I didn’t expect so many people to be here. This is the best result for me to win the championship here in France.”
Sebastien Loeb wrapped up his 7th World Rally Driver's Points Championship with a victory at the 2010 WRC Rallye De France
Things could not have been much more perfect for Loeb, as he wrapped up the victory on the final stage in Haguenau, the town where Loeb was born. Loeb led the rally from the beginning to the end dominating yet another tarmac rally.
A couple weeks ago Red Bull & Travis Pastrana ran the Mt. Washington Hill Climb in a Subaru STi Rally Car to create a promotional/advertisement video. Well, in the process Travis unofficially broke the hill climb record with a time of 6 minutes 20.47 seconds, besting Frank Sprongl’s time of 6 minutes 41.99 seconds that he set in 1998 in his 1983 Quattro S2 completely equipped with everything he needed for this run and even with new car audio systems. Although the time wasn’t official, since it wasn’t a timed run, it’s still a great run and good promotion for the Climb To The Clouds race up Mt. Washington for 2011. This is the first time the race will be run in 10 years.
See the entire run up the hill by Travis Pastrana from many different angles, in HD nonetheless, below as well as Sprongl’s record setting run from 1998.
