Ice! Foust & Beetle R to GP Ice Race; Trophee Andros title decider. Nurburgring track preview.

24 January    Tanner Foust announces that he will drive a Volkswagen Beetle R rallycross car in the GP Ice Race. The Americas Rallycross Champion will use one of the four Beetles built for US rallycross and rarely seen in europe. The event takes place at Zell am See in Austria this weekend. EKS will also have a rallycross Supercar at the event, one of its Audi S1s to be driven by downhill skier Marcel Hirscher

25 January    The penultimate weekend of Trophee Andros racing takes place in Lans en Vercors and leaves the series finely poised entering this weekend’s final round at Super Besse. Former rallycrosser Benjamin Riviere (Peugeot 208) took victory in the first day with Aurelien Panis and Andreas Bakkerud joining him on the podium in their Sainteloc Racing Audis. Yann Ehrlacher (Yvan Muller Racing – Duplessy) is the winner on the second day in which Bakkerud – enjoying his best event of the series so far – places second ahead of Nathanael Berthon (Peugeot 208). JB Dubourg (Renault Zoe) starts the weekend in the lead of the series but finishes fifth and seventh over the two days. Panis leads the championship into this weekend’s final, 13 points ahead of Dubourg with Ehrlacher a further five points behind in third place.

29 January    Swedish racer Martin Enlund will race in the RX2 series with Olsbergs MSE. The 18-year-old Swedish crosskart champion raced in RX2 at Holjes last July, acquitting himself well and narrowly missing out on a place in the final after being spun in the first corner. He will dovetail his RX2 season with a full RallyX Nordic programme in the Supercar Lites category. “It’s definitely going to be a busy season, and it will be so much fun to contest both series! Driving as much as possible will be great for my career development and progression. I’ve dreamt about competing on the World RX package since I was a child – RX2 is a series I have looked up to for many years – and now that dream has come true. It will be awesome to benefit from the World Championship spotlight and race in full view of all the Supercar teams. Hopefully that will open up even more doors moving forward,” he said.

29 January    A first glimpse of work being carried out to create a rallycross track at the Nurburgring comes from YouTuber Misha Charoudin who includes it in his pre-season view of the circuit.

29 January    Andreas Carlsson is set to race his Renault Clio in the FIA European Rallycross Championship. After a year in RallyX Nordic the Swedish graduate of the crosskart is to replace the car’s five-cylinder engine with a new custom motor in preparation for the step up to Euro Supercar.