Seven days, September 4

World championship promoter IMG announced that there will be no Finnish event in the 2015 series. The decision, taken in agreement with the Finnish event organiser AKK, comes shortly after the announcement of a new World RX event in Spain. The break in Finland is intended to be short term, with indications being that a Finnish event will return at a new venue. Organisationally one of the strongest events in the calendar, the Finnish event was complicated the lack of permanent infrastructure at Kouvola.

The CEZ series moved to Horn Fuglau in Austria where home driver Alois Holler (Focus) won the day ahead of compatriots Jurgen Weiss (Focus) and Max Pucher (Fiesta). Hungarian “Luigi” took the Super1600 win and Roman Castoral reverted to his old Astra and claimed another Supernational victory.

The first FIA World Rally Champion, Bjorn Waldegaard died on August 29.

Much has been written about the Swede who won the first WRC in 1979 and who remained a competitive rally driver until the last year or so, becoming a regular in historic events after his professional career had ended. Waldegaard’s adaptability allowed him to gain some notable results in racing, but his career in rallycross has been largely overlooked. Along with compatriots Stig Blomqvist and Per Eklund, Waldegaard maintained a privately owned rallycross car and was, of course, always competitive when he raced it. A Porsche 911 was his weapon of choice and he has three European championship event wins to his credit; Germany and Finland in 1974 (when he ended the year second in the championship), and Sweden in 1976.

Rally and rallycross driver Pat Flynn died on September 3. A fast and flamboyant driver in Stock Hatch, Flynn also brought the BMW rally series he created to rallycross and later oversaw the successful Junior career of his son, Connor.

As the Rally X Scandinavia/Swedish Rallycross Championship heads into its final event of the year at Solvalla on Saturday, the prospect is of a close battle. Sebastien Eriksson leads the series by five points over Johan Kristoffersson with 18 points available for a maximum score. The supporting Lites series is led by Kevin Hansen who has a non-point lead over Kevin Eriksson.

Olsbergs MSE is running operations in Sweden and the World RX event in France, while Team Peugeot-Hansen is in France and the linked Hansen Junior Team in Sweden. PSRX also has one eye on home ground this weekend, where Oliver Solberg, now leading the Crosskart championship is also in action.

Centre of attention, though, will be Loheac where the battle for both drivers and teams titles is sharply in focus as the FIA World Rallycross Championship lines for the eighth of its 12 events. Petter Solberg leads the drivers scoring, 20 points ahead of Toomas Heikkinen while in the teams series Ford OMSE and VW Marklund Motorsport are equal at the top of the table. Ahead of the battle, most World RX teams have been in France testing and trying to find that optimal racecar setup that most agree is the key to good performance on the flat track at Loheac. For PSRX and Albatec Racing that testing also includes introducing new drivers, Italian rally champion Simone Romagna making his rallycross debut with PSRX while David Binks returns to rallycross action after almost two years out and subs for Jacques Villeneuve at Albatec.

Without the obligation to be at all world events this year, the new EKS squad has been busy testing and honing its new Audis, and released a slick video review of its first half year on the eve of the French event.

[tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=073V8ahLlDw[/tube]

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