Subaru Motorsports USA has unveiled another one-off creation built off the back of its domestic rallying and rallycross success, that it will be taking to the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend. Dubbed ‘Project Midnight’, the car builds on the …
Subaru Motorsports USA has unveiled another one-off creation built off the back of its domestic rallying and rallycross success, that it will be taking to the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend.
Dubbed ‘Project Midnight’, the car builds on the team’s previous one-offs, the ‘Airslayer’, and the ‘Family Huckster’, both produced for Hoonigan’s Gymkhana series, and has the sole aim of being the fastest car that Subaru’s motorsport partner Vermont SportsCar has ever produced.
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It’s the first special project car based on the current generation of WRX , which the team already competes with in the American Rally Association series. The all carbon Fiber car weighs in at “well under 2,500 pounds”, which is almost 300 lbs lighter than the comparable Airslayer and 1,000 lighter than the showroom-ready WRX.
To keep the car glued to the track, a bigger version of the rally car’s rear wing is employed, while 18×11 inch OZ Racing wheels wrapped in super-sticky Yokohama slick tires provide the mechanical grip.
Project Midnight draws on lessons learned with its ARA car (back, right), the Airslayer (back, center), and Family Huckster (back, right). Matt Stryker/Subaru Motorsports USA
Power is provided by the latest in a line of turbocharged boxer engines, that can trace their roots back to Subaru’s shelved rallycross program which won four rounds from six of the 2019 Americas Rallycross championship, and took a one-two finish in the inaugural full Nitrocross championship in 2021. The two-liter unit revs to a 9,500 rp redline, pushes out 670 horsepower and 680 lb-ft of torque.
“Subaru Motorsports USA and the team at Vermont SportsCar have delivered an absolute beast,” said Subaru factory driver and former-Formula 1 racer Scott Speed. “When driving the car it clearly has rallycross roots, but the wider tires, track, and geometry give it a very unique feel and incredible grip. The ultimate driving machine; half RX, half sports car – a true joy to drive.”
The car will debut at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in the hands of Speed, who will be taking to the hillclimb alongside teammate Travis Pastrana who returns to the event for the fourth consecutive year, third behind the wheel of the Family Huckster. Pastrana finished second in the timed shootout last year with the 1983 GL Wagon-inspired Huckster, being beaten only by Marvin Kirchhofer in the track-ready McLaren Solus GT, matching the Airslayer’s best from 2021 when it just missed out of the top spot to Rob Bell in a McLaren 720S GT3X.
But Goodwood will be just the first of many outings for Project Midnight, with Subaru confirming that Speed and the Subaru Motorsports USA team will continue to develop the car to “take on new challenges and set new records”.
It’s been five months since the Extreme E season opener in Saudi Arabia, where Gray Leadbetter made her debut with Legacy Motor Club, but this weekend she’ll be back in action. It was a strong first showing for the American teenager, who was …
It’s been five months since the Extreme E season opener in Saudi Arabia, where Gray Leadbetter made her debut with Legacy Motor Club, but this weekend she’ll be back in action.
It was a strong first showing for the American teenager, who was competing internationally for the first time. Despite a lack of seat time ahead of the event, she helped the team to a pair of sixth place finishes, and this time around she’ll be racing in the mud, gravel, and grasslands of Scotland where she’s aiming to build on a positive first experience in the all-electric off-road series.
“It was quite funny actually as none of us had driven the Odyssey 21 before,” she says. “We were all stepping into the unknown a little bit, so we had to learn together once we got in the car for the first time.
“We got as much input as we could from the mechanics and from speaking to those around the paddock, but we had not driven in the series before so it was all new. Between Travis [Pastrana] and I we managed to get on the pace pretty quickly, which was great.
“For our first event we focused on staying out of trouble and bringing the car back in one piece, which we accomplished and not by being slow,” she adds. “We did it with plenty of pace as we showed with our Continental Traction Challenge times in Round 2. For a first weekend in an all-new series we were pretty happy with our performance.
Leadbetter had a familiar face in Pastrana – who was filling in for team boss Jimmie Johnson – alongside her. The 19-year-old is seen as something of an heir to Pastrana’s throne in the off-road world, and has competed with the action sports icon in Nitrocross’ side-by-side division.
“I got a message from Travis asking if I wanted to take part and race in the series! It was incredible. He said, ‘do you want to go racing in Saudi Arabia?’ and kept it pretty vague – but I was really up for it,” Leadbetter says. “Jimmie had asked Travis to fill in because Jimmie was competing at Daytona over the same week, and so Travis played a big part in helping me get that seat at Legacy Motor Club. It was all a shock and it happened so quickly, but I was so excited to get to Saudi Arabia and race for the team.”
Pastrana and Leadbetter debuted together in Rounds 1 and 2. Sam Bagnall/Extreme E
Leadbetter admits that after a busy 2023 competing in Nitrocross and other categories in the U.S. off-road world, the idea of competing in Extreme E had been put “little bit on the backburner”, but while the opportunity came “out of the blue”, the championship wasn’t entirely alien to her.
“I had been to the Season 2 finale in Uruguay to check out the series previously with the Chip Ganassi Racing team, so I had always been interested in Extreme E,” she says. “I had such a blast when I went to that event – I knew quite a few people within that team already and straight away I just loved how the racing worked. It was very different from anything I had ever seen.
“I thought the male and female driver dynamic was really cool, and I always kept an eye on what was happening in the series. I have always been interested in it, but I was just looking for the right opportunity to get into it.”
Her vast experience, despite her age, and that brief venture into the paddock in 2022, helped Leadbetter get up to speed in what is regarded as a very challenging series for newcomers.
“As a driver you have to be pretty adaptable when you get behind the wheel to maximize the amount of seat time you get and in Extreme E it is no different,” says Leadbetter. “We made the most of our sessions beforehand, and then it was about tweaking what worked best for us as we went along. I think we managed to do that pretty well.
“Driving off-road cars before, and especially side-by-sides, helped me hugely to get up to speed. There are some similarities in how the car moves out on course and how it is weighted. It’s similar with the sprint cars I’ve driven in terms of track time and preparation. As a driver you have to do your best to nail it down as quickly as possible and then maximize your performance from there.
“Essentially though, everything I’ve taken part in before has been a big help, because at the end of the day it is all about driving the car as best as you can.”
But while Leadbetter shined, much of the attention was on her wildcard teammate, who had NEOM McLaren’s Mattias Ekstom in his crosshairs for the whole event. It was Leadbetter, however, who was the one to cross swords with him on-track, putting up a strong fight against the two-time DTM and 2016 World RX champion on the second race day – a day where Legacy Motor Club went on to set the fastest ‘super sector’ time of the weekend.
“It was so cool. If you take Travis’ goal of beating Mattias for the first time as an example, who would have thought it would come down to pairing up with a female teammate in electric cars in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert to do it?” she says. “It was just an incredible opportunity. Getting to race with such a talented driver line-up was amazing.
“We were a little bit unlucky with the red flag situation as Travis only got one lap out on course in the Round 2 Redemption Race. That definitely shook things up. However, being that close to beating not only NEOM McLaren, but winning a race on our first time out, was an incredible feeling.
Scotland will provide a wildly different challenge to the sands of Saudi Arabia. Andrew Ferraro/Motorsport Images
“Although it did not finish how we wanted it to, it was so reassuring for us that we were up to speed and on the pace with the more established teams after just a couple of days in the car.”
Extreme E has provided a strong platform for female racers, both rising stars and established competitors, to compete on an equal footing with legendary male names of the sport, and it’s something Leadbetter has taken in her stride.
“I would never have thought there would be a series out there like this which would have everybody from this type of racing,” she says. “There are people out there who so many have looked up to for years and years, so to put them all on the grid, and then add in the most talented female racers to the line-up, means there are so many different aspects of racing and motorsport rolled into one championship, which is incredible.”
Attention now turns to this weekend, where Legacy Motor Club and Leadbetter will continue to learn the series. This time she will have another debutant alongside her in the form of Patrick O’Donovan, with Johnson heading back Stateside to prepare for next week’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Johnson will race in Extreme E, but not until September’s races in Sardinia.
“Jimmie has not competed in off-road racing for a number of years so that is an exciting prospect,” Leadbetter says. “He’s one of the best there is in the world and so it is going to be interesting to see him behind the wheel with an off-road racing mindset. We’ll be working hard to get our car in the optimum window and as fast as possible.”
Then, the series heads to North America for the first time, with the series set to conclude in Phoenix in November.
“I am so excited for it! It is going to be a really cool event and I am hoping the track will be awesome,” she says. “Getting the Extreme E car to the U.S. is long overdue and will make for a pretty amazing spectacle.
“Getting behind the wheel of a racing car is exciting no matter what and the racing in Extreme E has shown that. To know that we are driving a car like the Odyssey 21, which has the speed out on track, is pretty cool. That is especially so for my generation I guess because of what’s happening around the world right now in terms of climate change. It is definitely so cool to see how motorsport is growing and adapting to the health of the planet.”
Dana White set tongues wagging earlier this week when he let spill on the Flagrant podcast that plans were afoot to partner Nitrocross – Travis Pastrana’s rallycross-like series which White is a major investor in, and is headlined by the …
Dana White set tongues wagging earlier this week when he let spill on the Flagrant podcast that plans were afoot to partner Nitrocross – Travis Pastrana’s rallycross-like series which White is a major investor in, and is headlined by the all-electric “Group E” category – with NASCAR.
“I’m flying to NASCAR and we’re doing a deal with NASCAR,” White stated. “We’re going to be the electric series for NASCAR. We’re working on that deal right now.”
Interesting comments from Dana White on the Flagrant podcast:
“I’m flying to NASCAR and we’re doing a deal with NASCAR. We’re going to be the electric series for NASCAR. Yeah, we’re working on that deal right now.” pic.twitter.com/2TyEUGEykO
RACER can confirm that talks between both sides have been ongoing for several months, but while initial reactions immediately assumed Nitrocross would be a NASCAR-branded electric series, or that the team behind Nitrocross would be about to put together an all-new series, it turns out neither will be the case.
Speaking to RACER on Friday, the championship’s general manager Chip Pankow confirmed the talks by saying, “Is Nitrocross talking to NASCAR? yes. We’re absolutely talking to NASCAR,” but stressed that it would be an “alliance” between both sides, which will remain standing alone in their own right.
“A friendly alliance is what we’re looking to do,” he said. “We’ll always stand on our own.
“We’d like to have a relationship with them. What that looks like, we don’t know, but we’re having a lot of talks and trying to understand what that could look like.”
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The move will allow NASCAR to dip its toes in the electric space, without having its own standalone all-electric series, much like how it has involvement in sports car racing through its IMSA ownership, although conversely, the partnership with Nitrocross would not involve any ownership or rebranding.
Speaking to RACER before Friday evening’s super special stage at the Southern Ohio Forest Rally in Chillicothe, Ohio Pastrana added his take on how much is going into the alliance.
“A lot,” he said, not giving away much. “[White] wasn’t supposed to [talk about it] either, but he likes to talk before anything’s out there.”
He did open up a bit when pressed about when we might hear more.
“Hopefully really soon,” Pastrana said. “Ben Kennedy (NASCAR’s director of Racing Development and Strategy), all the guys…they’re definitely looking into seeing how they can bring in a younger audience, make electric cool, and what they can do with the manufacturers, and Dana’s got some answers for them.”
While a prospective alliance between both parties has been long in the making, the first fruits of it will be seen later this year when Nitrocross’ 2024-25 season begins at the NASCAR-owned Richmond Raceway on September 7-8.
A number of NASCAR drivers have sampled Nitrocross already, too. Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott raced in the 2021 season when its top class still ran to an internal combustion “Supercar” format. Elliott returned for a guest appearance in Group E in 2022, along with Austin Cindric, while Joey Logano has also sampled the FC1-X raced in Group E in a brief test.
Three-time Truck series champion Matt Crafton also raced in the championship’s side-by-side category at the 2023-24 season finale in Las Vegas – an event that was attended by multiple NASCAR drivers as onlookers, including reigning Cup series champion Ryan Blaney.
NASCAR Cup series team Legacy Motor Club will expand into Extreme E this season, with Jimmie Johnson and Gray Leadbetter driving in the all-electric international off-road series. It marks something of a return to his roots for Johnson, who raced …
NASCAR Cup series team Legacy Motor Club will expand into Extreme E this season, with Jimmie Johnson and Gray Leadbetter driving in the all-electric international off-road series.
It marks something of a return to his roots for Johnson, who raced off-road trucks before his stock car career. He was a rookie of the year in Mickey Thompson’s series, the Short-course Off-road Drivers Association series, and SCORE International in the 1990s, and won more than 20 races across all three series, racking up 100 podiums, too.
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“The opportunity for Legacy Motor Club to field an off-road vehicle in the Extreme E championship is exciting in many ways,” said seven-time Cup series champion and NASCAR Hall of Famer Johnson. “We are essentially representing America in this unique and very competitive series and we are committed to the challenge.
“Our goal is to learn as much as we can and see what the future might bring. The fact this series competes globally, focuses on sustainably, inclusion, and gender equality really perks our interest.
“From a technical standpoint the changeover to hydrogen in 2025 is really intriguing and the entire motorsports community is watching closely. Personally for me as a driver, going back to my off-road roots and to the type of racing I started my career with is going to be a blast.”
Travis Pastrana (left) will fill in for Johnson for the opening two rounds in Saudi Arabia. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images
The 2024 season begins this weekend in Saudi Arabia, the same weekend as the Daytona 500, meaning Johnson will be absent as he makes his 21st start in the Cup series opener. His place in the No. 84 Odyssey 21 will be taken by six-time U.S. rally champion and 2021 Nitrocross champion Travis Pastrana.
“This all came together pretty quick, but I’m really excited,” said Pastrana. “I have quite a bit of experience in electric vehicles, although I’ve never been in an Extreme E Odyssey 21 before. I compete in a lot of off-road events and some desert stuff – mostly on two wheels – but this should be really fun for us.
“I believe in Jimmie Johnson and in Legacy Motor Club and all he is doing with the Club, so when he asked me it was a no-brainer.”
Both drivers will be partnered by Leadbetter, who will be making her Extreme E debut, having previously spent time in the paddock as an observer with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2022. Leadbetter races in the Nitrocross Side-by-Side championship, where she currently sits third in the standings, one spot ahead of Pastrana (who competes part-time), with eight top-four finishes from eight starts, including podium finishes in Phoenix and Southern California.
Off-road prodigy Leadbetter has been a frontrunner in Nitrocross’ Side-by-Side category. Qnigan/Nitrocross
“I’m super excited and thankful for this opportunity,” said Leadbetter who, at 19 years old, will be the second-youngest driver to compete in Extreme E after fellow Nitrocross racer Lia Block, who made her debut last year aged 16. “I’ve always been interested in Extreme E, but just never found the right opportunity to step foot in it.
“When Travis texted me last week that there might be a chance to race with Jimmie Johnson and Legacy Motor Club, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I’ve never driven these cars so it’s sure to be an adventure, but I will be in great company. This is a dream come true.”
Patrana added: “I’ve worked with Gray before and she is a huge talent, so overall it is just a great opportunity for both of us to compete in this championship series together. She’s the top female young up-and-coming talent in Nitrocross and has the speed, so hopefully as Americans, we will do our country proud and return home with a win and some smiles on our faces.”
Nitrocross’ announcement that it will start its 2024-25 season at Richmond Raceway is one that takes the series back to its origins. Before Nitrocross there was Global Rallycross, which – between 2011-17 – raced at a number of NASCAR facilities, …
Nitrocross’ announcement that it will start its 2024-25 season at Richmond Raceway is one that takes the series back to its origins.
Before Nitrocross there was Global Rallycross, which – between 2011-17 – raced at a number of NASCAR facilities, including Charlotte, New Hampshire, Bristol, Texas, Atlanta and Daytona. Until now, Nitrocross hadn’t followed the same path, instead largely adopting rallycross and off-road facilities.
Speaking of the decision to add Richmond to its roster of events, Nitrocross general manager Chip Pankow said that the venue’s existing infrastructure, along with NASCAR’s market-leading position in U.S. motorsport, made it an attractive proposition.
“NASCAR has been a mainstay in American racing, and as a part of that, they’ve built amazing facilities,” he said. “One of the things we have with Nitrocross is we don’t lock ourselves into any particular formula of track. Here [in Phoenix] we’re on mostly dirt, we’ll race on snow and ice, and Travis [Pastrana] and I traveled to a NASCAR race and we started looking around and [realized] this could be a really really cool event.
Pastrana wheeling his Global Rallycross Dodge around Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2012. Stellantis Media
“So you take all of that infrastructure that’s there, and we think we can take a really really great race to the fans. That’s the most important thing — to have a great fan experience.”
The Richmond event will also serve as something of a home race for Nitrocross pioneer and occasional NASCAR racer Travis Pastrana, who hails from Maryland.
“For me, Richmond was always one of the tracks we went to as kids, as a family – usually Dover and Richmond were the two closest to the house,” he said. “It’s so cool to be back on the East Coast. We always want to do something north east, everything from Charlotte on up, and we’ve had some good rallycross races in past series up in the northeast. Really excited to go back there, excited to bring all of my family – my dad doesn’t go anywhere he can’t ride his Harley to so it’s going to be good to get him to one of these.”
The agreement with Richmond is a multi-year deal. The track itself is only expected to take 10-12 days to build, and will be a balanced mix of loose and sealed surfaces, according to Pankow.
“We’ve gotten very efficient at building these tracks, so that’s going to be probably a 10-12 day build,” he said. “Richmond has so many great resources and assets already there. We’re going to bring some dirt into the facility – we like that hybrid dirt and pavement – but when we’re done with that one it will probably come out to being about a 50-50 dirt/pavement mix. Just because of where everything is at Richmond, it lays out very well; it really lends itself to one of our tracks.”
Kevin Eriksson hit out at the driving standards of his Nitrocross rivals after multiple instances of contact ended his podium run at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Phoenix. The Olsbergs MSE driver was in second behind Dreyer & Reinbold JC RX …
Kevin Eriksson hit out at the driving standards of his Nitrocross rivals after multiple instances of contact ended his podium run at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Phoenix.
The Olsbergs MSE driver was in second behind Dreyer & Reinbold JC RX Cartel man Robin Larsson going into the final lap, where both were hit by Travis Pastrana, before Andreas Bakkerud sent him climbing up a bank after making contact going into Turn 3.
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Pastrana’s contact with the lead pair came in after closed in on the pair in the second turn, both being slowed by point man Larsson’s puncture
“Even if he has a puncture, Robin is leading, he dictates the pace,” Eriksson said after the final. “For me Travis overshot it way too hot — that’s a penalty every day of the year, and what Bakkerud did, it’s a hundred times worse than a penalty.”
Remaining on Vermont SportsCar driver Pastrana’s tail going into the next turn — a 90-degree left-hander through the gap of the jump that follows Turn 1 — Bakkerud attempted a pass up the inside of Eriksson. The move resulted in a collision, with Eriksson being fired up the track-lining dirt bank.
“For me, it’s one of the worst things I’ve seen on a rallycross track,” said Eriksson. “He doesn’t do anything [except] just trying to take me off.
“You see how much later Bakkerud brakes. He’s not even close to managing the corner. Not even close. There’s a reason why he’s not respected by the top drivers in Europe and the top drivers here. There’s a reason.”
After an impassioned and expletive rant where he hit out at the series’ all-electric cars, Bakkerud shared his side of the story, blaming the car’s electric power steering for him being unable to avoid the collision, and suggesting his frustration was less about the contact, and more to do with his winless streak which now sits at six races — his longest in the series to-date
“I had the fastest lap time but it’s so hard to predict everything out there. I should be happy with third but I’m still bummed that I can’t win,” said Bakkerud. “He hit my steering and the steering just popped out of my hands and we both ended up way up there.”
Eriksson and Bakkerud also collided in a semifinal earlier in the day. Qnigan/Nitrocross
After reflecting, Bakkerud walked back his stance, saying, “I will say I’m sorry — what I said earlier was in the heat of the moment. I gave some s*** there, but at the same time, there’s lots of stuff going on and I just want to win like everybody else and these guys are so good at this stuff and it takes a lot .
“There’s nothing you can do with electric power steering. When you hit wheel to wheel, it just snaps. It does what it wants, you can’t hold it.”
The final collision between Eriksson and Bakkerud was their second of the day, with both coming together in the second semifinal on the Joker merge. While admitting he had concerns about the joker merge before taking to the track, Eriksson suggested there may have been intent on Bakkerud’s part to collect him once they both hit.
“The most dangerous thing is Bakkerud when he’s spinning in the middle of the track and stopping there,” Eriksson said. “He would have spun either way, but he made sure to spin in the middle of the road so all of us others couldn’t really avoid him. That’s the most dangerous thing.”
Fraser McConnell was classified as the winner of round four of the 2022-24 Nitrocross season at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park after on-the-road winner Travis Pastrana was hit with a penalty. Vermont SportsCar driver Pastrana was demoted two …
Fraser McConnell was classified as the winner of round four of the 2022-24 Nitrocross season at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park after on-the-road winner Travis Pastrana was hit with a penalty.
Vermont SportsCar driver Pastrana was demoted two positions for making contact with Dreyer & Reinbold JC RX Cartel driver Robin Larsson and Olsbergs MSE’s Kevin Eriksson on the last lap of the final.
Pastrana had previously attempted to grab the lead on the opening lap. Starting on the front row of the grid alongside Larsson — both being the most recent winners this season, as well as the victors from last year’s visit to Phoenix — Pastrana swung sideways across the front of Larsson’s car in the first turn, but the Swede resisted.
Larsson ceded the lead at Turn 2, before taking the joker shortcut to move ahead moments later. Pastrana then unusually opted for the joker on the second lap, rather than waiting for his last tour, as is customary when against someone who took it on the first. But Larsson’s pace in the opening part of the race allowed him to remain ahead when the Joker strategies had played out in full.
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Going into that last lap, the top five were covered by 1.5s, with Pastrana third behind leaders Larsson and Eriksson. He had a look up the inside of Eriksson going into Turn 1, but it was Turn 2 where things really kicked off.
Eriksson swept up the inside of Larsson — who was nursing a puncture sustained the lap before — with the pair making light contact. As they squabbled, Pastrana came into the turn fast, hitting both before snatching the lead on the corner exit.
When the pack got to Turn 3, Larsson’s RX Cartel teammate Andreas Bakkerud closed into the leaders, making contact with Eriksson, sending him up the bank on the outside of the turn — a move he would also get a two-place penalty for.
Pastrana emerged from the mayhem in the lead ahead of DRR JC man McConnell, who capitalized on Eriksson and Bakkerud’s shunt to move into a podium position, while Bakkerud held on for third.
Larsson nursed his car home to fourth, ahead of Kevin Eriksson, while his brother and teammate Oliver Eriksson – who dropped out of contention due to lap 1 contact with VSC’s Conner Martell – was sixth.
The win for McConnell is his second on the season, and came after a rotten start to the day where, due to mechanical issues, he only completed three full laps before his Last Chance Qualifier race, which he won.
Meanwhile, the last-lap carnage ended Kevin Eriksson’s podium run. The points leader has finished in the top three at every round so far and was set to continue that streak before his coming together with Bakkerud in the final.
Kevin Eriksson began the day as the top qualifier. Qnigan/Nitrocross
The clash wasn’t their first of the day, either, with the pair colliding in the second semifinal. They came together on the joker merge, taking both out of contention and handing an easy win to Pastrana. Robin Larsson won the earlier semi ahead of Martell who snuck past Oliver Eriksson on the final turn of the final lap.
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Brian Deegan, driving a fourth DRR JC entry, was the only driver to not make the eight-car final. He began the day with a heat win over McConnell after the Jamaican suffered the first of his three retirements in the preliminary rounds.
That put Deegan in the top qualifier race along with fellow heat winners Bakkerud, Larsson, and Kevin Eriksson — Eriksson going on to win and claim his third Top Qualifier result of the season. But Deegan’s day was undone with a fourth place in the first last chance qualifier. Despite a strong start, late Jokers from Martell and Bakkerud dropped him down the order.
Casper Jansson, who finished seventh in the Group E final won the first Nitrocross NEXT round of the weekend, taking the lead on lap four of the six lap contest to leapfrog Lane Vacala after a quiet run up to that point.
Vacala eventually finished second, 5.755s back, with Lia Block claiming her first podium in the category after her previous top three finishes this season were rescinded through penalties.
In Side-by-Sides, Kainan Baker returned to the winners’ circle after his 10th place in the last round ended a three-race victory streak.
It was very nearly a different story, though, after he was bettered by Pastrana — another driver racing in two categories — at the start. Pastrana dominated until lap four when he pulled off the course at Turn 1 with a technical issue.
Baker was ultimately unchallenged after Ben Maier, his nearest challenger, also retired late on. Second went to Tyler Remmereid with Gray Leadbetter completing the podium.
In the first Baja Bugs final of the weekend, Ryan Rodriguez took his third win of the year after a tense battle with Blake Wilkey, while Kyle Zirkus — in his Herbie-liveried Beetle — took third after a last-lap pass on Donny Donnovan.
Nitrocross has confirmed that its 2023-24 season finale will take place under the lights in Las Vegas on March 1-2 at a new, purpose-built facility. The doubleheader event will be held at a venue built on Koval Lane, near Formula 1’s new paddock …
Nitrocross has confirmed that its 2023-24 season finale will take place under the lights in Las Vegas on March 1-2 at a new, purpose-built facility.
The doubleheader event will be held at a venue built on Koval Lane, near Formula 1’s new paddock building, and will be on a track designed by series pioneer and 2021 champion Travis Pastrana. While the mixed-surface track layout is yet to be revealed, the presence of a 130-foot gap jump has been confirmed, along with Nitrocross’ customary “big jumps, banked corners, and steep berms.”
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“With Nitrocross, we are developing an all-new motorsport, one that drives innovation, elevates performance and is wall-to-wall entertainment from start to finish,” said Nitrocross general manager Chip Pankow. “We’re here to show fans the incredible performance from our 1,000+ hp electric cars on a track that is unlike anything they’ve seen before.
“Las Vegas is all about having a great time and is the perfect venue for our 2023-24 season finale.”
Rallycross-like motorsport has a long history in Las Vegas, with it hosting the now-defunct Global Rallycross series’ season finale from 2012 to 2015. Las Vegas Motor Speedway also hosted a round of the 2012 season. Tanner Foust and the late Ken Block share two wins apiece in the city, Block getting his first-ever rallycross victory there in 2013, while Joni Wiman secured his only top-level U.S. round victory there in 2015, a year after securing the season title in a four-way showdown at the same venue.
Joni Wiman leads Scott Speed at the 2015 Global Rallycross season finale in Las Vegas. Chris Tedesco/Red Bull Content Pool
For Nitrocross, though, it will be a long-awaited first visit, although the wider business has strong ties to the city. Last year, Nitrocross’ parent company, Thrill One Sports & Entertainment, was acquired by an investment group led by Las Vegas-based Fiume Capital, while in 2018 Pastrana recreated three of Evel Knievel’s most famous jumps in front of more than 25,000 people, as well as a live TV audience in what was the most-watched cable special of that year.
“This season has been the start of something truly amazing as we take Nitrocross to the next level, and I’m so excited to put an exclamation mark on it in Las Vegas,” said Pastrana. “After feeling the incredible energy from all the fans who lined The Strip as we honored Evel Knievel, there is no better place to send it.
“While without a doubt it’s a global entertainment capital, this city is also passionate about motorsports, hosting huge races by F1, NASCAR, the Mint 400, and more. As we grow Nitrocross with amazing partners like the Fertitta brothers at Fiume and Dana White, I look forward to what we can build here.”
Before that, the Nitrocross season will resume at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park with a double-header event on November 10-11. Olsbergs MSE driver Kevin Eriksson currently leads the standings as the only driver to finish on the podium in all three rounds so far. He heads defending champion Robin Larsson, who won the most recent round at the Utah Motorsports Campus.
Travis Pastrana held off a charging Kevin Eriksson to claim his first win of the 2023-24 Nitrocross season at Utah Motorsports Campus. After both got their longer joker lap out of the way early, they engaged in a tense fight for the round win, but …
Travis Pastrana held off a charging Kevin Eriksson to claim his first win of the 2023-24 Nitrocross season at Utah Motorsports Campus.
After both got their longer joker lap out of the way early, they engaged in a tense fight for the round win, but despite his best efforts, the elder Eriksson brother couldn’t get by the 2021 series champion.
While the joker was said to equate to a two-second deficit to the main lap, Pastrana grabbed an early lead. That came after Vermont SportsCar teammate Conner Martell led the field onto the main lap, but a mechanical issue brought him to a halt on the exit of Turn 1. That resulted in an accordion throughout the rest of the field which claimed Oliver Eriksson, who sustained heavy front-end damage after hitting Conor Daly.
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing JC RX Cartel driver Andreas Bakkerud would have been in the box seat to take the lap one lead were it not for the traffic — he jokered on the second lap and immediately set about hunting down the lead pair of Pastrana and Kevin Eriksson.
There was little to choose between the trio over the final two laps of the four-lap final, with Kevin Eriksson closing to within half a second heading onto the last lap. That gap continued to come down to the point where Eriksson was making contact with Pastrana heading into the last paved section of the track, but he couldn’t find a way past.
Bakkerud similarly held station for the second half of the race, coming home third, while Benito Guerra took his career-best finish in fourth, having mirrored Pastrana and Kevin Eriksson’s joker strategy.
Daly also took a best result to-date with fifth, matching the top four drivers’ lap times, and bettering them on the final lap of the race, despite starting the day by missing both practice sessions. Reigning champion Robin Larsson was a distant sixth after sustaining a puncture in the opening lap melee, while Martell was able to get going after his stoppage, but finished over a minute adrift of race winner Pastrana.
Mechanical issues prevented Conor Martell from converting a career-best qualifying performance into a strong overall result. Tyler Tate/Nitrocross
Martell’s disappointing final was a stark contrast to the rest of the day, where he looked set to claim a landmark result.
He started off with his first-ever Top Qualifier result, beating Kevin Eriksson and Bakkerud in the deciding race. He then won his semifinal, Pastrana and Larsson winning the other two.
Pre-event points leader Fraser McConnell had a torrid round, which started with him being excluded from his heat race for a technical infringement after winning on the road. After that, a second-place finish behind Martell in his semifinal wasn’t enough for a final berth, meaning he needed a strong result in his Last Chance Qualifier to make it. However, there he made contact with a wall and broke a driveshaft, leaving him on the sidelines for the main, along with XITE Energy Racing duo Tanner Foust and Oliver Bennett who were the other drivers who didn’t advance through the heats, semis, and LCQs.
As a result of his troubles, McConnell tumbled to fifth in the points, with Kevin Eriksson assuming the lead, ahead of Pastrana and Bakkerud.
In Nitrocross NEXT, Casper Jansson dominated the five-lap final to win ahead of points leader Lane Vacala, but Vacala was later declared winner for the third round in a row after Jansson failed a ride height check post-race.
Jimmy Henderson was therefore awarded second after finishing third on the road, with series newcomer Patrick Gruszka classified third. Lia Block finished second initially, but was also excluded for the same ride height infraction as her Olsbergs MSE teammate Jansson.
Kainan Baker was once again the victor in Side-by-Sides, claiming his third win from three starts so far this season. The 15-year-old beat Tyler Remmereid, while Chip Ganassi Extreme E racer Amanda Sorensen rounded out the podium, despite contact with Mika Block on lap three that resulted in the 12-year-old son of rallying legend Ken Block retiring from the race.
In Baja Bugs, Blake Wilkey was the winner with Ryan Rodriguez and Greg Shapiro completing the podium.
Nitro Rallycross will rebrand as “Nitrocross” for the upcoming season, with the series keen to promote its uniqueness and distance itself from more traditional rallycross, RACER can reveal. The series began in 2018 as a single event at the Nitro …
Nitro Rallycross will rebrand as “Nitrocross” for the upcoming season, with the series keen to promote its uniqueness and distance itself from more traditional rallycross, RACER can reveal.
The series began in 2018 as a single event at the Nitro World Games action sports competition before expanding into a fully-fledged, multi-round racing championship in 2021. But while it has attracted international talent in the form of both drivers and teams, Nitrocross has always presented itself as being an evolution of rallycross rather than simply another series of the mixed-surface racing discipline that has roots in Europe.
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As such, courses used in the series have been primarily dirt-based, with high banked turns and large gap jumps, with the tracks all coming from the mind of motocross star-turned-racing and rally driver Travis Pastrana.
“I love rallycross, with its action-packed sprint racing and door-to-door action,” said Pastrana. “That core hasn’t changed. But we can’t be relegated to the rules historically in place for rallycross.
“The Nitro Circus ‘full-send’ mentality is also a big part of our DNA. We wanted to make sure that attitude came through loud and clear. We are looking for nothing less than to raise the bar of our events. We need custom-built tracks and better entertainment at the venues. We want Nitrocross to be exciting for the competitors and for fans around the world.”
The 2023-24 Nitrocross season will kick off at the “Visions Off-Road” festival in Oklahoma on June 16-17 on an all-new course designed by Pastrana, said to be his definitive idea for the ultimate racing track. Pastrana had originally planned to build the track in his home state of Maryland but the “Circuit 199” plan, as it was known, was scrapped after local opposition prevented the project from moving forward.
Instead, Pastrana focused on building a track in Oklahoma, at the MidAmerica Outdoors off-road facility in Jay. The track will feature 150 feet of overall elevation change, along with steep S-turns, a tight hairpin, a 120-foot gap jump, and a triple jump.
The series will then return to Utah for the first time since 2021 for a round at Utah Motorsports Campus — the original Nitro Rallycross venue that hosted the 2018 and ’19 contests as part of the Nitro World Games, as well as the 2021 season opener — in August.
From there, the season will continue at Wild Horse Pass in Arizona (November 11-12), Glen Helen Raceway in California (December 9-10), and a snow and ice event at Stampede Park in Calgary on February 2-3, which will feature on the championship schedule this year after inclement weather forced it to switch to an exhibition event last season. The championship will wrap up in either late February or early March at a venue that will be announced at a later date.
Last season there were stops in England and Sweden but series owner Thrill One is opting to solidify its U.S. market position after a string of well-attended events in the second half of last season. One U.S. venue that won’t be returning, however, is the popular ERX Motor Park in Minnesota.
“Any time you are mapping out scheduling, you always have to contend with availability, which is all the more challenging with an event of this scope (both on and off the track),” Brett Clarke, president of Nitrocross, told RACER. “For two years, ERX was a favorite venue for the drivers, particularly with its renowned dirt course, which lead to some of the biggest moments of the series to date.
“We knew, though, going into this season, that we wanted to return to Utah Motorsports Campus. It is the birthplace of both Nitrocross and the area is the spiritual home of Nitro Circus. It’s like our Indy Motor Speedway.
“We also wanted to look at the balance of surfaces across the various events, we knew we needed to add more pavement to the series to create more variety and challenge for the drivers.
“Taking all of those factors into account, unfortunately we just were not able to make ERX work for this season. But we look forward to having an opportunity to return in future.”
2023-24 Nitrocross schedule
June 16-17 – Oklahoma
August 18-19 – Utah*
November 10-11 – Phoenix*
December 9-10 – California*
February 2-3 Calgary
Late February/Early March – TBA Location*
* Doubleheader event
The season will be broadcast live and free globally on the Rumble streaming service, while for those looking to attend in-person, tickets for the opening round of the season are on sale now, with tickets for the Utah, Phoenix, and California events going on sale on May 23.
All-electric Group E class
The 2023-24 season will also be the second campaign that the series’ premier Group E class has exclusively used the FC1-X all-electric car. Producing the equivalent of 1,000hp, the FC1-X is capable of accelerating to 60mph in less than 1.5 seconds and onto a top speed of 180mph. The car was co-developed by Swedish rallycross team Olsbergs MSE and Spanish electromobility specialists QEV Technologies, the same partnership that produced World Rallycross’ RX2e development class vehicle.
Last season, the championship had five different winners from 10 rounds, with Kevin Eriksson also winning the non-championship “Nitro Stampede” in Calgary to take that tally to six from 11. Robin Larsson clinched the championship with his third round win of the year at the season-ending triple-header at Glen Helen, beating Dreyer & Reinbold JC teammates Andreas Bakkerud and Fraser McConnell, as well as 2021 champion Travis Pastrana to the title.
It also attracted a number of star names over the course of the season, with 2009 Formula 1 champion Jenson Button, 2020 NASCAR Cup champion Chase Elliott, 2022 Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric, five-time World Rally winner Kris Meeke, and five-time World RX champion Johan Kristoffersson all appearing over the course of the season.
