Xracing Chinese rallycross. CARX runs three supercar prototypes. DA Racing’s Zoe.

22 November    The organiser of the China Touring Car Championship runs its first Xracing event, a pilot intended to precede a full season of rallycross in China in 2020. The event is billed as “…breaking the traditional Chinese racing competition form, presenting a richer and more diverse motorsport audiovisual feast for the audience. Cross-border venues in different cities, mixed asphalt and stone track …  music party, special racing stunt show, young trend culture cross-border interaction to create a super racing weekend.” Three classes are planned: Super SUV, Chinese SUV and Open Enthuiast. The Super SUV group is for modified cars with 450bhp and 700Nm torque. There were cars from Audi, MG and Nissan in the pilot event which was run at Xiamen. STARD is the technical development partner for the series. Recently crowned Asia Pacific Rally Champion Dewei Lin is the winner ahead of his MG Xpower team mates Rui Wang and Li Wei. The event also includes Touring Car and GT racer Sunny Wong (Audi) and American Collete Davis (Nissan). The event is not the first rallycross in China, a previous attempt to create a national series failed after just one event was run at Junchi in June 2017.

23 November    The penultimate round of the iRacing Rallycross World Championship is run on a virtual course at Daytona where Mitchell deJong takes his fourth win of the series for Coanda Simsports. Sami-Matti Trogen (SET Esports) placed second to move to within touching distance of the championship title. Third place went to deJong’s Coanda teammate Bobby Zalenski. Trogen needs just three points from the qualifying stages in Saturday’s final race at Atlanta to clinch the title. “I saw cars crash in front of me going into the first corner, and I just stayed calm,” said Trogen. “I tried to really push in the first two laps, but I made one mistake, so it was just an okay race. I was good at Atlanta last time, so I’m confident I can take the championship in qualifying. I know I’m fast there, so we’ll see what happens.”

24 November    The Irish Rallycross Championship completes its season at Mondello Park with a full day of racing that concludes with finals run in darkness. The event starts by running finals from round one of the series which was abandoned in March when snow made the track unsafe. Derek Tohill (Supercar), Michael Coyne (Modified) and Jack Byrne (Junior) take class wins. Padraic McHale (Buggy), Thomas O’Rafferty (Rally Car) and Denis McCrudden also take wins, the latter the best of just two qualifiers in the Fiesta Zetec category. Tohill (Fiesta) then wins the Superfinal ahead of Supercar rival Noel Greene (Mitsubishi Mirage) and Pearse Browne (BMW Compact) who is best of the two-wheel drive Modified runners.

Tohill adds another win and secures the Irish Championship during the final round run later in the day. Noel Greene (Mitsubishi Mirage) beats Tohill in the second qualifier but cannot match the Fiesta driver after that. Darragh Morris (Subaru Impreza) has a strong run before retiring in the final. Willie Coyne (Vauxhall Corsa0 leads the Modified class all day but loses out to Gavin O’Connell (Ford Fiesta) in the final where Peter McGarry (Vauxhall VX220) is third. Mark Menehan is best of a full grid of Fiestas and Michael Ryan (Fiesta) wins the Junior final. The Buggy class is won by Pa Bellew, Shane Stanley (Honda Civic) wins the Rally Car class and David Crockett wins the Retro Rallycross final in his Vauxhall Chevette before Tohill ends the day by taking the Superfinal win ahead of Greene and O’Connell.

24 November    The Argentine-based CARX series gets back into action after a break with the sixth round of the championship at Alta Gracia, Cordoba. The Maxi Rally Turbo category brings a first victory for Gaston Gonzales (VW Polo) who beats Nicholas Fuchs (Ford Fiesta) in a close final. Norberto Fontana (Kia) wins the Maxi Rally Light final. The event also includes a demonstration race for the CARX SupercarX category. Now with three spaceframe, mid-engined V8 cars up and running the proposed new top class for the championship is gathering attention.

25 November    Holten Motorsport is announced as the first to commit to the new Projekt E series. The Norwegian team will use a Ford Fiesta-based car in the five-event series which starts at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium next May. “Projekt E is a ground-breaking undertaking and enables private teams to enter the world of electric motorsport with an unmatched level of road car electric powertrain relevance thanks to STARD´s technical concept which is as simple as it is innovative and affordable,” said team manager Svein Bjarte Holten. A driver has not yet been named, but Holten Motorsport has enjoyed its best results with Daniel Holten who has raced Supercars and World and European championship level. Absent from the highest level of competition this year, Daniel Holten has won the 2019 Norwegian Rallycross Championship using a TouringCar spec Ford Fiesta run by the family team.

26 November    DA Racing unveils its new Renault Zoe Trophee Andros car at a reception in Paris. Lead driver JB Dubourg won his fourth Andros Trophy title in the 2018-2019 season in which he drove a naturally aspirated car. This season the series has made the move to be exclusively for electric cars and DA Racing has official backing from Renault for its new Zoe. Dubourg will be joined in the driver line up by Nicolas Prost and Emmanuel Moinel with a fourth driver to be confirmed. The six-event Trophee Andros begins at Val Thorens on 7-8 December. 

26 November    If you’ve ever wondered just how emotionally invested World RX TV commentator Andrew Coley is in what he does, just take a look at this piece of video from the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Running the title deciding final from the last round of the World Championship with a synchronised playback from the camera in the commentary box you can see how Coley and co-commentator Dan Rooke live every second of the dramatic last six laps of the year.

28 November    RallyX Nordic publishes its 2020 calendar which details eight events run over five weekends. The series will include events in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Supercar, Supercar Lites (RX2) and CrossCar/Crosskarts are the featured classes.RallyX Nordic 2020: 1 & 2, 23-24 May – Holjes (SWE); 3 & 4, 06-07 June – Nysum (DNK); 5 & 6, 25-26 June – Finnskog (NOR); 7 29-30 August – TBC (FIN); 8 26-27 September – Tierp (SWE).