June 2012
36 posts
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Heikkinen’s X Games Jump Crash Represents Growing... →
In the wake of Toomas Heikkinen’s major accident in jump practice during the buildup to Sunday’s X Games, the Global Rallycross Championship has some serious decisions to make regarding the steel construction of its ramps. The Mega Ramp, as it is dubbed, may simply be too “mega” in its current configuration to safely allow for competition.
The extension of nine feet may...
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X Games Preview: Team Red Bull (US Race Report) →
Breaking down the X Games prospects of Team Red Bull, which will field entries for Sebastien Loeb (through Citroen World Rally Team) and Travis Pastrana and Bryce Menzies (through Pastrana199 Racing) in Sunday’s Global Rallycross Championship event.
The name “Team Red Bull” may be sort of an anomaly here, as one of these three cars will be prepared independently from the others. Travis...
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X Games Preview: Olsbergs MSE (US Race Report) →
Breaking down the X Games prospects of Olsbergs MSE, which will field entries for Marcus Gronholm, Tanner Foust, David Binks, Brian Deegan, and Toomas Heikkinen in Sunday’s Global Rallycross Championship event.
Olsbergs MSE has been the hottest team on the Global Rallycross circuit all season, primarily behind the strength of drivers Marcus Gronholm and Tanner Foust. Gronholm has paced the...
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X Games Preview: Single-Car Teams (US Race Report) →
Breaking down the X Games prospects of single-car teams, which will be campaigned by Liam Doran, Ken Block, and Pat Moro in Sunday’s Global Rallycross Championship event.
Though the majority of the entries in this year’s X Games are part of multi-car operations, a good portion of entries will come from independent camps. Of course, the four names involved are some of the biggest in the sport....
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X Games Preview: Rhys Millen Racing (US Race... →
Breaking down the X Games prospects of Rhys Millen Racing, which will field entries for Stephan Verdier and Rhys Millen in Sunday’s Global Rallycross Championship event.
Rhys Millen Racing took the Hyundai Veloster into Global Rallycross competition last year, running two cars at X Games for Millen himself and motocross star Robbie Maddison. This year, armed with a new engine and a new...
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X Games Preview: Scott-Eklund Racing (US Race... →
Breaking down the X Games prospects of Scott-Eklund Racing, which will field entries for Samuel Hubinette and Andy Scott in Sunday’s Global Rallycross Championship event.
Per Eklund has been a rally and rallycross legend for four decades now, but outside of two triumphs in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, the majority of his greatest accomplishments have come across the pond. But...
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X Games Checkpoint: Stephan Verdier (US Race... →
Currently third in Global Rallycross Championship points, Stephan Verdier remains the only non-Ford driver in the series to score a podium finish, quickly becoming the expert of alternate strategy by running clean laps by himself at Charlotte. Despite some rotten luck at Texas and an engine built for stage rally rather than rallycross, Verdier’s early-season performance has him confident...
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NASCAR: Top 10 Races with the Best Fan Experience... →
Counting down, from the start of the season in February to the thrilling conclusion in November, the 10 race weekends that any true NASCAR fan should attend at least once. From the Daytona 500 to Ford Championship Weekend in Homestead, there should be something at each of these events to satisfy even the most casual fan.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (July): Stock cars breaking into open wheel...
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GRC Roundtable: Meeting (And Defeating) The... →
Marcus Gronholm and Tanner Foust come into X Games first and second in Global Rallycross points, making them two of the favorites to win it all this weekend. But eight-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb will also come to the event in a brand-new Citroen DS3. Drivers Stephan Verdier, Samuel Hubinette, and Andy Scott, and legendary technical director Per Eklund discuss what it will take to...
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X Games Checkpoint: Samuel Hubinette (US Race... →
Drifting champion and stunt driving expert Samuel Hubinette only landed a ride in the Global Rallycross Championship two days before the first event of the season, but thus far he’s made the most of it. Driving for privateer Scott-Eklund Racing, Hubinette has scored two heat wins, one top-five finish, and nearly scored a second-place finish at Texas despite having car trouble through the...
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GRC Roundtable: Dirt, Pavement, Air, and Los... →
An expert panel of Per Eklund, Samuel Hubinette, Andy Scott, and Stephan Verdier unite once again to discuss some of the details of this year’s course at X Games, as well as the differences in the car that will come from the long-awaited addition of dirt. Though the course is based on last year’s layout, the series has made some significant changes.
SCOTT: The jump that they’re...
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X Games Checkpoint: Andy Scott (US Race Report) →
A pre-X Games interview with driver Andy Scott, who currently sits seventh in points heading into the premier event of the Global Rallycross Championship. The 55-year-old owner-driver will be the oldest competitor in X Games history, an event that he’s likened to the “Olympics of Motorsport,” and has had plenty of reason to smile after showing his Scott-Eklund Racing Saabs are...
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Jeff Gordon: Why He's Struggling so Much This... →
Looking at the first 16 races of Jeff Gordon’s Sprint Cup season and analyzing why the four-time champion has fallen to a dismal 18th in points. Bad luck began for Gordon all the way back at Daytona Speedweeks, and even now he’s only finished sixth or better three times despite leading laps in 11 events.
Gordon had strong runs at both Bristol and Martinsville, only to be wrecked in...
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GRC Roundtable: The Prestige (And Format) of X... →
Four Global Rallycross experts - drivers Stephan Verdier (third in points), Samuel Hubinette (fifth), and Andy Scott (seventh), and Scott-Eklund Racing technical director Per Eklund - discuss the series’ upcoming marquee event at X Games in the first of a multi-part series. In this installment, the panelists discuss the prestige of the event, as well as this year’s decision to...
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X Games Checkpoint: Per Eklund (US Race Report) →
Scott-Eklund Racing technical director Per Eklund talks about his team’s preparation for this weekend’s X Games. A tough weekend for the team at Texas Motor Speedway’s Hoon Kaboom meant that the team spent most of the past two weeks hard at work in their Florida shop.
“We had to change the car,” Eklund said. “We know it’s going to be tough. We made the...
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Victory Lap: NASCAR Week In Review, 6-25-2012... →
Recapping the past week in NASCAR action, which saw two ultra competitive road course races end with surprise winners. Saturday saw ex-Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr. take his first career Nationwide Series win at Road America, while former Kansas dirt track standout Clint Bowyer dominated Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Sonoma Raceway.
As with last year, Jacques Villeneuve appeared in a...
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NASCAR: 10 Best Sprint Cup Drivers from Northern... →
While NASCAR still retains a southern-based image in some parts of the country, its base of drivers has become decidedly national in the past 15 years. In fact, some of the sport’s top contenders (half of the current Chase for the Sprint Cup) hailed from northern states.
Matt Kenseth, the current Sprint Cup points leader, honed his skills on local tracks in his home state of Wisconsin,...
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Kurt Busch: Why Sprint Cup Sponsors Are Afraid of... →
Analyzing the reasons behind sponsors’ hesitation to get behind 2004 Chase for the Cup winner Kurt Busch. Aside from the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona and Sprint All-Star Race, Busch’s car has carried sponsorship in only two points-paying events this season.
The biggest problem with Busch is that his behavior attracts the type of sponsorship that NASCAR would likely rather avoid....
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NASCAR: "Our Long National Nightmare Is Over":... →
With today’s win in the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. scored the 19th win of his Sprint Cup career and snapped a career-worst 143-race winless drought. Needless to say, plenty of folks had words of congratulation all over the NASCAR paddock, and many of them made their way to Twitter.
The congratulations extended long beyond the fraternity of...
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NASCAR: Eury Misses Mark with "Beat by a Girl"... →
Addressing Tony Eury Jr.’s post-race comments from yesterday’s Nationwide Series 200 at Michigan International Speedway. Eury insisted that drivers race Danica Patrick harder than they need to because of their hate for being “beat by a girl,” threatening to initiate some serious setbacks for his driver as the season continues.
Eury Jr. is toeing a fine line by saying...
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Understanding (And Working) The System
[[MORE]]The past week or so has been a busy one for me, in that I’ve been trying to keep up some work, maintain a travel blog (yeah, about that - I may have to catch up once I get back home), and most importantly, enjoy my vacation. Of course, an opportunity to interview Travis Pastrana doesn’t come along every day, and you have to take it whenever it comes, especially when...
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NASCAR: Travis Pastrana Making Progress in Switch... →
Travis Pastrana talks about his transition to NASCAR from dirt-based racing in motocross and rally. He admits to the new discipline being a challenge, but is coming along well thanks to a strong devotion to his new craft.
After all, “it’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever started in,” Pastrana said, in a phone interview that took place before last week’s Global...
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GRC Insider: Understanding The Points System (US... →
Explaining the Global Rallycross Championship points system to first-time viewers. This system influences the points in both the overall championship and the three-race Discount Tire/America’s Tire Cup, of which Texas Motor Speedway’s Hoon Kaboom was the first event.
Strangely, many of the season points totals listed on ESPN differ from this explanation. For example, Gronholm...
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GRC Instant Reaction: Texas (US Race Report) →
Recapping the second round of this year’s Global Rallycross Championship at Texas Motor Speedway. Marcus Gronholm, Tanner Foust, and Brian Deegan completed a sweep of the podium for Olsbergs MSE and Ford.
The biggest question mark of the weekend was the new gap jump, and it caused its share of problems for most competitors. Travis Pastrana destroyed the front end of his car in practice,...
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GRC Preview: Texas (US Race Report)
Tonight’s Hoon Kaboom at Texas Motor Speedway, the second event in the Global Rallycross Championship and the first of the Discount Tire/America’s Tire Cup, will take place at 1 AM ET on ESPN2. If you’re looking to catch up on the series before tonight’s event, here are some US Race Report pieces from this week:
On Monday, we talked to Scott-Eklund Racing owner-driver...
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Guess Who I Interviewed?
Thanks to a tip from Danielle Nuzzo on behalf of Discount Tire and a little bit of pursuit of some interview time, I had the chance to speak with the one and only Travis Pastrana on the phone yesterday. The interview came together over the course of about 48 hours, and I’m incredibly grateful to Ms. Nuzzo, Travis Clarke at Wasserman Media Group, and Travis’ team manager Blair Stopnik...
Coming Soon:
An interview with a man who has won many, many X Games gold medals.
Not saying who… yet.
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Life as a Tourist: Seattle, Day 2
While at a family dinner, I was relating a story about a communications research class that I had taken over a year ago. The subject of the class had been advertising on Facebook, particularly the use of the “Like” button, and we had to assemble a focus group for the class. I related that many of the participants frequently failed to distinguish between “Like” as a...
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Life as a Tourist: Seattle, Day 1
The wonderful thing about still having a summer “vacation” from college (and, I suppose, unemployment and a family willing to host you) is the ability to get out and see some other places in the world. Right now, I’m in Seattle, after having spent months and months in Boston. Coastal differences mean more than just time zones, though, and it’s good to get out in a strange...
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NASCAR: Drivers on the Move after Dover... →
Filling in for Luke Krmpotich on this week’s “Drivers on the Move” column after a busy weekend at Dover International Speedway. Johnson’s third win in four weeks has him on the upswing, while Kurt Busch’s latest media meltdown has him in hot water with owner James Finch.
Down: Winning polesitters
Quick, name the last time a polesitter won a NASCAR race....
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Victory Lap: NASCAR Week In Review, 6-4-2012... →
Reviewing the past week in NASCAR, which featured a national series tripleheader at Dover International Speedway. Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano, and Todd Bodine were this weekend’s Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Truck winners, respectively.
Kurt Busch became the Nationwide race’s biggest story when he gave threatening comments to reporter Bob Pockrass in post-race...
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NASCAR: Ryan Truex Cements Status as Next Big... →
Introduction to Ryan Truex, Joe Gibbs Racing development driver, and Saturday’s runner-up finisher in the Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway. Truex led 43 laps from the pole and only lost the lead to teammate Joey Logano with six laps to go in the race.
The younger Truex won the Dover pole with a speed of 154.746 miles per hour. Truex stayed toward the front of the...
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