Seven days in rallycross, January 16

The sudden death of John Button on January 12 began the week on a sad note. These days well known as the ever present father of former F1 world champion Jenson, Button Snr. was a rallycross driver of note throughout the 1970s. Perhaps best remembered for his black and yellow striped VW Beetle, nicknamed the Colorado Beetle, Button was among the first group of rallycross stars who found fame as stars of Britain’s Saturday afternoon televised rallycross events. A VW dealer whose Autoconti trading name became familiar in rallycross, Button switched to the new VW Golf as the Beetle faded, outings becoming less frequent as the decade changed. Button, who was 70, died of a suspected heart attack at his home in France.

Swedish rally driver Patrik Flodin is set to compete in the new Rally X Scandinavia series in Sweden this year and will race in the Supercar Lites category. Flodin has a strong track record in Group N rally cars and last year was named Rookie of the Year in V8 Thunder Cars series, so he comes to rallycross with racing experience under his belt too. “I believe that this combination of rally and racing is a good mix and fits like a glove. There has always been a bit of a dream to drive rallycross and I’m really grateful that Brings Racing has offered me this chance,” said Flodin who is set to get his first run in the car during this weekend’s SM Veckan event at Umea.

Toomas Heikkinen’s debut in the Andros Trophy series resulted in a good fourth place finish at Isola 2000. Driving a Fiesta with the Sainteloc team, Heikkinen impressed rivals with the speed he adapted to the specialist series, “I have to admit that when I heard the end result after the last final at Isola 2000 I thought to myself at first: ‘fourth…that’s not so great’. But then I had a bit of time to think about it and I talked to some other people as well and I realised it was not so bad. Particularly because this was at Isola 2000, which is well known for being a really tight and technical track even by the most experienced Andros Trophy drivers,” said Heikkinen, “You basically have to be completely sideways all of the time and that was actually quite disorientating: sometimes you didn’t know exactly which direction you should be pointing in,” he concluded. “The key thing is to have the car perfectly set up before each corner, so this is a championship where experience definitely helps a lot.”

Rallycross was also high on the agenda at last week’s Autosport International with everything from World championship stars, through the MSA British Rallycross Championship to the rejuvenated BTRDA Clubmans Rallycross Championship in evidence.

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[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha0JoWz4EaM[/tube]