2016 World RX calendar announced as Tohill reveals Euro RX plans

The calendar for the 2016 FIA World Rallycross Championship has been revealed by promoters IMG. The season beings at Montalegre, Portugal before again joining the DTM at Hockenheim in early May. Belgium, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden follow before the first flyaway event of the season in Canada. Loheac, France and Barcelona, Spain retrain their September slots, while a new event in Riga, Latvia will take place on the first weekend in October. The Estering, Germany returns to a more traditional date in mid-November before the championship again concludes in Argentina at Rosario. The events in Italy and Turkey won’t run in 2016. The FIA European Rallycross will again run over five rounds and visit Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Latvia and Germany while Super1600 will visit six events and TouringCar will visit five. The RX Lites schedule is yet to be announced.

1. PORTUGAL – MONTALEGRE – 16/17 APRIL
2. GERMANY – HOCKENHEIM – 7/8 MAY
3. BELGIUM – METTET – 14/15 MAY
4. UK – LYDDEN HILL – 28/29 MAY
5. NORWAY – HELL – 11/12 JUNE
6. SWEDEN – HOLJES – 2/3 JULY
7. CANADA – TROIS-RIVIERES – 6/7 AUGUST
8. FRANCE – LOHEAC – 3/4 SEPTEMBER
9. SPAIN – BARCELONA – 17/18 SEPTEMBER
10.    LATVIA – RIGA – 1/2 OCTOBER
11.    GERMANY – ESTERING – 15/16 OCTOBER
12.    ARGENTINA – ROSARIO – 26/27 NOVEMBER

In addition to the 2016 calendar announcement, the World Rallycross Championship has signed a new three-year deal with Holjes to host the Swedish round of World RX. The agreement was announced at a press conference on Thursday. “We are delighted to continue our co-operation with IMG.  Our goal is to make rallycross the most popular form of motorsport in Sweden and I firmly believe we have all the ingredients now in place to make this happen,” said Finnskoga MK Chairman, Morgan Ostlund.

Double European Rallycross Touring Champion Derek Tohill will compete in the FIA European Rallycross Championship next year in Supercar. The Irish driver raced in a full World RX campaign in 2014 in an LD Motorsports Citroen DS3 and has spent 2015 on the side lines preparing for 2016. He will drive a freshly rebuilt OlsbergsMSE Ford Fiesta, and make his debut in the car at the penultimate round of the Irish Rallycross Championship at Mondello Park this weekend. “We had a very successful shakedown and test at Strangnas this week. We got excellent training and support from Andreas Eriksson and the OMSE team. We know we’ve a lot to learn but I’m really excited to be able to prepare through the winter for the 2016 season. I really believe we can compete for finals in the European Championship,” said Tohill. “I’ve dreamt all my life about racing my own Supercar at Mondello and it’s about to happen. We want to go and have some fun in the remaining two rounds of IRX and recapture some of the Fiesta magic that took us to two European TouringCar Championship titles.”

MSA British Rallycross Rallycross SuperNational champion Dan Rooke is planning to graduate to the FIA European Rallycross Championship Super1600 division in 2016. The Devon driver won the British series in his maiden rallycross season driving a self-run Citroen AX and tested a Renault Twingo Super1600 run by Finnish squad Set Promotion in Italy recently. “This was just a one-off test with Set Promotion for now. We’re currently talking to several teams about next season and still have options to stay in the British Championship too,” said Rooke. “We’re evaluating what will benefit me in the long run. The European Championship is clearly a very good stepping-stone to the World Championship. I’m very excited about the future. On my last run, in the Twingo I was within a second of the pace of the Set Promotion drivers, so with limited kilometers, I was happy with that.”

American rallycross and rally driver Ken Block ran his unique ‘Hoonicorn’ Ford Mustang at Gymkhana GRiD, The European Gauntlet at Santa Pod in the UK, where Ryan Tueruk also drove Block’s new Ford Escort Mk2. In the Grand AWD final, Block was beaten by Dmitrij Sribnyj while Tuerck won in RWD over Luke Woodham.

Woodham also claimed victory in the RX150 athlete category, beating Liam Doran on Saturday’s final in wet condition. Riku Takho finished third. On Sunday, Euro RX driver Tahko won over Andre Villa and Doran. Downhill mountain bike star Steve Peat also competed, as did British Touring Car Championship driver Nicolas Hamilton and former Boyzone turned drift star, Shane Lynch.

The Australian-based Extreme Rallycross Championship has been abandoned after just one event due to a lack of entries. The second round of the series in Sydney had originally been cancelled before the series was canned altogether. Mitsubishi Evo driver Steve Glenney won the inaugural Extreme Rallycross event ahead of former-WRC driver Alister McRae in a sole Supercar Lites machine. Series owner David Ridden remains confident that the series has a future. “Rallycross is here to stay and we know there is a definite future for rallycross here in Australia. We are working behind the scenes with our partners on a very exciting rallycross event in 2016 showcasing modern day rallycross, with the announcement for this event due in December” said Ridden.

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