Hansen gets Extreme E drive. Polish RX at Slomczyn. Hell RX updates. Arendonk wins appeal.

24 September    The Glosso Circuit at Arendonk in Belgium is granted a permit to begin work on restoring the full circuit ahead of a planned returned to racing 2021. At the end of March the circuit won its long running campaign to reinstate the full circuit. However, an appeal was then launched against that permission and the long-running battle to re-open the track was on again. The 120 day apeal period has now passed, and ten official bodies all reported in favour of the permission being upheld.

27 September    The third round of the Polish Rallycross Championship takes place Autodrom Slomczyn where Zbigniew Staniszewski (Ford Fiesta) took the win ahead of the Peugeot 208 of Jakub Przygonski, the latter’s race frustrated after contact from Robert Czarnecki (Mitsubishi Lancer) who was penalised for the incident. Third place went to Maciej Manejkowksi (Mitsubishi Lancer E10) who also placed second in the Supercar Light final which was won by Bartosz Idzowski (Lancer E9) with Czarnecki third. Staniszewski continues to lead the series by two points with one round remaining. That final event is schedule to take place at the Slovakiaring as part of a CEZ event on 24-25 October but with increasing restrictions on travel, discussions are now going on with a view to moving that event to Slomczyn… Damian Litwinowicz (Honda Civic) took the over 2000cc Supernational category ahead of Slawomir Woloch (BMW M3) and Tomasz Lyskowicz (BMW E36). Lukasz Tyskiewicz (Opel Astra OPC) defeated Roman Castoral (Opel Astra OPC) to the win the up to 2000cc category and Alan Wisniewski (Citroen C2) was best of the 1600cc class. In the combined final, Lyszkowicz took the win ahead of Castoral and Wisniewski. Lukas Swiatowski won the RWD Cup for BMWs and Konrad Wobel was best of the 41 Fiat Sceicento Cup runners.

27 September    Newcomer Ilari Lamminsivu won the opening round of the iRacing Rallycross World Championship. Lamminsivu held off the field after saving his joker for the final lap in a hard-fought season opener from Hell. “The race went well! In practice, I had way better lap times, but after qualification, I just thought it was all or nothing. In European-style rallycross, it’s usually best if you take the joker on the last lap, so I just tried to hang on until the last lap and take the joker then. I just tried to focus on the driving, I didn’t focus on where the others were,” said Lamminsivu. Mitchell deJong placed second in the final but scored more points across the event and leads the championship which continues on 10 October at Daytona.

27 September    Rallycross drivers were to the fore in all classes in the Norwegian Hillclimb Championship at Lillehammer, but the headlines belonged to David Nordgaard who claimed the championship title with his Ford Fiesta Supercar. Morten Bermingrud placed second.

28 September    FIA World Rallycross Champion Timmy Hansen is announced as one of the drivers for Andretti United Extreme E. Hansen will partner with Catie Munnings in the new five-event series. “Going into Extreme E will be a new chapter in my career and one that I am extremely excited about. It is something brand new, not only for me, but the whole of motorsport. The format is something we’ve never seen before,” said Hansen.

29 September    The organiser of ‘Rallycross in Hell’, the Norwegian round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship says that in the wake of this year’s COVID-19 cancellation of the event it has been busy planning upgrades to its venue. “We want to improve the course and facilities for the athletes. More kerbs and safety fences will improve safety, the course will be modified somewhat and we are looking at the possibility of building a new tower,” said Annette Tollefsen Jensen (centre below), General Manager of Hell RX.

30 September   World RX competitor Ferratum Team adds a Projekt E car to its stable. The Finnish squad has run Jani Paasonen in the first six rounds of the FIA World Rallycross Championship but will switch drivers for rounds seven and eight in Barcelona where Juha Rytkonen will drive. The teamhas now acquired the Projekt E car raced by Janis Baumanis in Latvia recently and will run it in the remaining rounds of the series in Belgium and Germany.

This weekend     The Estonian season for Rallikross Esti comes to a conclusion at Kulbilohu on Saturday. Norway’s NM Rallycross runs across the weekend at Momarken and the Irish Rallycross Championship, IRX is scheduled to get underway again at Mondello Park on Sunday. We are doing the best to keep our calendar of events and where you can watch rallycross in 2020 up to date for you. Postponed and cancelled events remain shown but marked as a record of the carnage wrought on the 2020 schedule by Covid-19.