The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb organization released this compilation of highlights from this year’s event. 2012 was exciting since the road surface was fully paved for the first time resulting in many broken records. There was also a very strong showing in the electric vehicle class from Monster Tajima, Toyota, Yokohama and EV West. Hit our “Pikes Peak” tag to see all of our coverage.
The 2012 World Rally Championship season wrapped up in Spain over the weekend. Catalunya also marked the end of Ford being a full works sponsor of a WRC team. Ford announced their decision to withdraw last month citing the slow European economy. They will still be providing technical backing to Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport team who helps field several Ford Fiestas at multiple levels of the sport. The team put together this video looking back at some of their best moments through the eyes of the mechanics, staff and drivers.
Round 5 of this year’s Global Rallycross Championship had the guys competing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The course looked pretty fun with the traditional jumps and features as well as a banked dirt turn and really tight chicane to set it apart from the other rounds. The last round of the season will take place at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. Hit the “GRC” tag to see the first four rounds. The coverage of round 5 is broken up into three parts:
Part 1:
There’s big news coming out of the World Rally Championship here at the end of the 2012 season. Sebastien Loeb has won his 9th World Championship and Ford will be withdrawing as a title sponsor next year due to a slow European economy. Malcolm Wilson’s M-Sport team will continue to campaign Ford Fiestas at the highest level with technical support from Ford. Jari-Matti Latvalla has announced that he will be leaving the Ford team next year to join Sebastien Ogier on the Volkswagen factory team that should be debuting their Polo WRC next year. Ogier has been helping develop the car this year and racing in a Skoda Fabia Super 2000 car.
Putting all of that aside for now, here’s what makes rally fun to watch. This is on-board footage of Jari-Matti Latvalla competing in the Lahti Historic Rally in a Ford Escort MK2. The car has a traditional H-pattern transmission and is rear wheel drive only. A flamboyant modern rally driver in a historic car makes for some excellent action. Sit back and enjoy:
Mike Ryan’s race team posted the video of their adventures from this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Mike drives a custom Frieghtliner race truck and is a Hollywood stunt driver and veteran truck racer. He was undoubtedly trying to set the big rig record now that the entire course has been paved.