Skip to main content

Scott Speed and the VW Beetle are the First Ever Amercas Rallycross Champions

Scott Speed today earned his fourth straight rallycross driver’s championship title, taking the inaugural season of the Americas Rallycross series.

The series, which takes over from the now-defunct Red Bull Global Rallycross, had a four-event season, which Speed led coming into the final race weekend at Austin, Texas’s Circuit of the Americas.

Scott’s main competition came from his Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross teammate, Tanner Foust, who was in second place. And although Foust won the event this weekend’s final race, Speed had earned enough points over the course of this weekend to be guaranteed the title if he started the weekend’s final heat.

The Beetles finished first and second ahead of Loenbro Hoonigan’s Steve Arpin in a Ford and two Subarus.

The one-two finish in the race and, indeed, the driver’s championship will be familiar to anyone who has kept up with American rallycross racing in the last couple of years. Having won the final three seasons of Red Bull Global Rallycross, Speed has lived up to his name, despite a less than speedy mantra.

“Our mantra for the weekend will be to stay consistent and out of trouble,” said Foust ahead of the weekend. “This is the first chance my family’s had to come to a race this year, so I’m looking forward to enjoying it with them.”

With no official word on the series fate next year, this weekend may have been a finale as well a final for Americas Rallycross. For its part, though, Volkswagen has indicated that it would be interested in racing again next year if the series returns.

[lead image by ARX Rallycross]

The post Scott Speed and the VW Beetle are the First Ever Amercas Rallycross Champions appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2NSesvD
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway

Waterfest 24 will be held at Atco Dragway, in Atco, New Jersey. The summer event will take place at its new venue on July 21 and 22. Long held in Englishtown, New Jersey, the festival has been such a large part of the VW scene that the latest iteration of the Golf even comes with optional “Englishtown” wheels . The new venue, however, is an NHRA drag track a scant 52 miles southwest of Englishtown. The ¼ mile drag track opened in 1960, which makes it the oldest drag strip in New Jersey. The announcement came today on a social media post that announced the new location. Waterfest is North America’s largest VW/Audi show. As many 20,000 people show up for the annual show, making the second largest show in the world—with Worthersee being number one. 2018 will be Waterfest’s 24 th year in existence. The post Waterfest Moves to Atco Dragway appeared first on VWVortex . from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2GQjkuc via IFTTT

Macau Gets Messy with 16-Car Pileup

The Macau Grand Prix is always good for an accident or two or 16— you may remember Audi’s race ending crash last year —and this year’s event didn’t disappoint. It didn’t take long for things to get messy on the tight road circuit. On the opening lap of the qualifying race a 16-car pileup caused the race to be suspended. Things kicked off when Daniel Juncadella hit a wall on the exit of Police bend, one of the tightest parts of the already tight circuit. The following car of Raffaele Marciello was able to avoid the carnage, but Laurens Vanthoor, who was in the upside-down Audi that ended the race last year, could not avoid Juncadella and together they blocked up the road pretty much completely. “I couldn’t see him [Juncadella] at first. Then I saw the car standing still,” Vanthoor told Motorsport. “I tried to brake but it was just understeering and I couldn’t do anything. There’s room for one car there and you’re blind.” Fourteen more cars would eventually crash into the corner c

The First of its Kind: Integrated Engineering Releases Highly-Anticipated IE450T MK6 Golf R Turbo Kit

After two long years of development, the team at Integrated Engineering has finally announced the release of their IE450T kit for the MK6 Golf R. With their turbo kit bolted on right out of the box, the sport AWD hatch is transformed into a 450bhp monster, with hardly any noticeable increase in spool time. In fact, 435 ft-lbs of torque are achieved at all four wheels, at a mere 3300rpm! By now you are probably asking yourself how this is even possible on a 2.0L engine that made nearly half that power from the factory. By employing true twin-scroll technology into the cast turbo manifold and pairing it with a state-of-the-art BorgWarner EFR turbocharger, IE was able to keep spool time at a minimum and bring the fastest-spooling big turbo setup to the market. “We wanted to offer a kit that would dramatically increase the power output without making the car lose its amazing street-friendly drivability,” mentioned one of the IE engineers. We are told the IE450T leaves the car driving jus