viva Espana

The opening round of the 2020 FIA World Rallycross Championship has been postponed, probably until late July. Events at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya have formed a popular part of World RX since 2015 and the postponement because of measures to try and deal with Coronavirus Covid-19 are outside the control of anyone involved in organising the event.Spain’s previous entry to FIA Championship rallycross encompassed three events at Sils-Girona in 1987, ’88 and ’89. While the first two runnings passed without great problem they were never particularly great events and by 1989 teams and drivers in the series, as well as other organisers, had lost patience with the Spanish organiser.When the majority of Norwegian drivers decided not attend in 1989 attempts were made to have the event cancelled. It eventually went ahead as planned, but with a much reduced entry, just 26 cars starting practice on Saturday before a few extras were conjured up overnight to get the field over the minimum of 30 starters which at the time was necessary for the event to qualify for points. The ’star’ names that made the start were basically those with sponsorship contracts that required them to attend. Finn Matti Alamaki had won the 1987 event with his Lancia Delta S4 and then repeated the victory in 1988 with his new Peugeot 205 T16 E2. He then romped through the 1989 version to complete the hat-trick. Norwegian Bjorn Skogstad also went unbeaten through those three events in Division One (two-wheel drive Group A) with his Ford Sierra Cosworth. In that last and slightly odd running of the 20th century Spanish event Austrian Herbert Breiteneder (Audi Sport Quatro S1) and Martin Schanche (Ford RS200) completed the podium.In the ’88 event Englishman Mark Rennison had been the lead challenger to Alamaki, although in the final Norwegian Thor Holm split the pair with his RS200.Since its return to Spain, World RX has completed five events at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, four different drivers taking victories. Petter Solberg won on the first visit, Mattias Ekstrom then winning back-to-back events in 2016 and 2017 before Johan Kristoffersson won in 2018 and Timmy Hansen took the 2019 victory.There is a lesser known link between these events; in the crowd in the 1980s was a young man called Jordi Roquer who fell in love with rallycross and who is now the promoter of the World RX events at Barcelona.