Visitors and new cars

As the European Rallycross Championship regroups for the second ‘half’ of its season – actually there are just four of the ten events left – there are one or two visitors to the series in the paddock, as well as a new car for home competitor Jochen Coox whose VW Scirocco broke cover at scrutineering.

Belgian rally hero François Duval is back for what is now an annual outing in his home round of the ERC. The former World Rally Championship driver will race a Pailler Competition Peugeot 207 in this weekend’s event. Notably, however, the livery of brewer Gordons that backed his outings over the last three years is absent from the car now. Duval will drive alongside team boss Jean-Luc Pailler, the former European champion a regular in the Benelux events even in years like this when he does not have a full ERC schedule in his diary.

A more unexpected participant is French championship front runner Jerome Grosset-Janin. The Chanoine Renault team that runs Grosset-Janin in the French series is here with both its Supercar Clio and the Super1600 Dacia raced by Fabien Chanoine. For the French team this is a one off outing, “No, we are not not going to Holland. We are busy in the French championship so we will only do this event, this is part of our holiday!” said team boss Philippe Chanoine.

Since selling his Skoda Fabia to Swedish team Hedstroms Motorsport last winter, Belgian driver Coox has been waiting for the completion of his new Scirocco Supercar. The third such car to be built, after the version of fellow Belgian Ronny Scheveneels and the as yet unraced example owned by Swedish team Kristoffersson Motorsport, Coox car was seen in public or the first time when it was presented at scrutineering for the Belgian ERC round on Friday afternoon. All being well, Coox will also race the car in next weekend’s Dutch event at the Eurocircuit, Valkenswaard.

The other new car present is Pauwels Motorsport’s Focus III Supercar. The immaculate new Ford, however, is destined to remain in the paddock this weekend. “We have a lot of interest in the car and it’s still possible that someone will rent the car to race next week, but there wasn’t time to get a deal done for this event,” said team boss Koen Pauwels.

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