Mendez top in Spain. Staniszewski’s Sedlcany. Rallycross Mustang.

14 July / Ford reveals the Mustang Mach-E Rally at Goodwood Festival of Speed. The official press release says”Ford is taking Mustang where it never has gone before – where the tarmac ends and the dirt road begins – with the rally-inspired electric Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally”. British magazine Autocar expands on the details and says the car is rallycross inspired: “…we have heritage in this car. What if we do a rallycross version, because it fits with what we’ve done in the past.

16 July / Calaft was the scene for the second round of Spain’s CERX season in which Roberto Mendez emerged as the winner of the headlining CERX1 class for ‘N5’ cars. Mendez worked hard for his win, fending off challenges from Tino Inglesias and Inaki Barredo to take the victory. Iago Rodriguez was the winner of the Junior class, Diego Martinez placing second while Yesica Lorenzo placed third and, in the short history of the Spanish series, became the first female to take a podium finish. The series will go to Portugal for its round, visiting Sever do Vouga in October.

16 July / The CEZ, Czech and Slovakian championships linked to form an event at Sedlcany in the Czech Republic. Zbyszek Staniszewski rejoined his combat with Ales Fucik. This time Staniszewski was dominant, fastest in all four heats and the winner of the final. Fucik challenged in the first day, but in heats three and four also out to Miroslav Neumann and Alois Holler before recovering to take second place in the final. Super1600 had just four starters of which Lukas Pech (VW Polo) was the best, this compared to 12 in the Czech championship’s national 1600 where Marik Honzik (Renault Twingo) was the winner and seven in the SuperTouringCar 1600cc section which was won by Jiri Cermak (Honda Civic). The STC-2000 section was also thin, Roman Castoral best of the four starters to claim yet another win in his Opel Astra while among the +2000 runners, who numbered five, Ondrej Senk (Skoda Fabia) was the best. There were 17 starters in Kartcross, Josef Svorc the best of them. Down the order in eighth place but worthy of note was former Supercar racer Peter Ramler. The Historic championship was also in action, the 1600cc class (10 starters) won by Pavel Koutny’s Skoda 130LR while Michal Vyhnal (VW Golf) was best of the six over 1600cc starters and Lubos Cizek (Ausi S2) topped the three-car 4×4 field.

This weekend / World RX returns to Britain for the first time since 2019 and to Lydden Hill for the first time since 2017 for the fourth event in its ten-round 2023 season. RX2e is also on the bill at Lydden as is the Motorsport UK British Championship. It’s holiday time in Sweden, and the national championship will be in action at Lycksele on Monday and Tuesday next week.

pics: World RX, CERX, Rallycross.cz,