Nitro Rallycross. Murray Walker. Rallycrossers dominate Finnish Ice Racing.

10 March  /  Nitro Rallycross announces a calendar of five events for its 2021 season. All events are in the US with the first three rounds taking place on consecutive weekends. The series will begin at Utah Motorsport Campus on 24-25 September, the scene of the Nitro Rallycross events in 2018 and 2019, before moving to Wild West Motorsports Park on 2-3 October and ERX Motor Park on 9-10 October.  Wildhorse Pass Motorsports Park, 13-14 November and The Firm on 4-5 December complete the calendar.

12 March  /  Former FIA World Rallycross Championship Mattias Ekstrom undertakes an arctic tour with one of Audi S1 Supercars, during which he hooks up with photographer Jaanus Ree to record a spectacular set of images of the car on a frozen lake at night beneath the northern lights.  Shot at Muonio in Finland, Ekstrom drove the car in near total darkness: “I had the lights [in the sky] above me and also the flash from Jaanus’s camera, but it was pretty dark out there most of the time I was driving. At times it was pitch black!” said Ekstrom.

13-14 March  /  The Finnish Ice Racing Championship takes place at Kuusamo and features a number of Rallicross SM regulars among the racers and winners. Jere Kalliokoski regained the Finnish title he last held in 2017 by winning the four-wheel drive category in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. Rasmus Tuominen (Skoda Octavia) placed third behind second-placed Jari Tuuri (Skoda Fabia). Mika Liimitainen (Porsche) won the Super saloon category for ‘standard spikes’ while the category using ‘special spikes’ was won by Tero Tukiainen (Toyota MR2). The ever-present Joni-Pekka Rajala was second in both of rthe Super Saloon categories and had the distinction of racing three different cars over the weekend. Starting in his Escort Estate, he switched to a Datsun Finn and then Liimitainen’s Porsche after a series of car problems.

15 March  /  Renault Customer Racing announces that its Clio RX  cars will be used in the Catalan Rallycross Championship and also in the Clio Ice Trophy in  Andorra next winter. The controlled specification Clio RX is already a part of Rallycross France (although its debut 2020 season was wiped out). The Clio RX Trophy will run over four events in the RXCAT series, all of them to take place at the Circuit de Calafat. After a ‘prologue’ on 16 May, the first event is planned for 13 June, with following events on 23 October, 20 November and 21 November. The Credit Andorra GSeries is schedule to run over four events in January and February 2022 at Pas de la Casa.

15 March  /  Ecurie Terre du Berry, the organiser at Chateauroux publish a video to show the upgrades and improvements at its Circuit de Tourneix. Rallycross France visits Chateauroux on 5-6 June and the circuit also hosts a Fol ‘Car event on 2-3 October. As well as a resurfaced grid and safety improvements, the track now has a joker lap running on the old circuit after the hairpin at turn two with a new section  of the standard lap forming a straighter route to turn three.

Murray Walker  /  Motor sport commentary legend Murray Walker died on 13 March, he was 97-years-old. Best known, of course, for his standard-setting F1 commentary, in our world he was also an excellent rallycross commentator. When the BBC started to broadcast rallycross at the end of 1968 (the sport had been created for and pioneered by ITV, Britain’s independent commercial network), walker was already established as its motor sport commentator. Rallycross was a staple of Saturday afternoon TV in Britain throughout the 1970s and Walker was the regular commentator for BBC. His role continued all the time that BBC broadcast the British round of the FIA European Rallycross Championship and, for a whole new generation, throughout the winter runnings of the British Rallycross Grand Prix at Brands Hatch up to and including the 1991 version. With a recently published book to promote, Walker visited Lydden in 2009 when the circuit hosted the return of the FIA European Rallycross Championship to Britain and the ‘home of rallycross’. In that visit he briefly joined event commentator Arthur Debenham in the commentary box. On top of all of that, as anyone who met him will vouch, he was a lovely person with a deep and genuine enthusiasm for motor sport.

2021 season  /  This week we have added the Nitro Rallycross calendar and the updated calendar for the Finnish Rallycross Championship (Rallicross SM) which has a new event at Ouluzone in August. Check out our guide of rallycross events for 2021. We will keep this as up to date as possible and add further dates and events as details become available. We hope that everyone has the chance to get out there and see some rallycross this year.