“X” Marks the Spot The Summer X Games
and the sport of rallying share an exciting past
– and a promising – and possibly transforming future
By David Gee
4,690 feet of asphalt…2,160 feet of
ramps…1,000 feet of dirt.
Photo By:
CHRISTIAN PONDELLA/Shazamm/ESPN Images
That’s all it took to transform the
ancient sport of rallying into something a little more, shall we say, extreme.
Okay, the sport isn’t ancient. I mean,
the Romans weren’t doing stage races with their chariots through the
countryside, although their wheel banging laps around the dirt tracks
at their coliseums did bear some resemblance to what will take place
on Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
But that’s looking ahead. First, let’s
take a look back, specifically to when rallying became an X Games event
on August 4, 2006.
“X Games took this quirky little sport
out of the woods and gave it a bigger stage,” says J.B. Niday, managing
director for Rally America, the sanctioning body for rally racing in
the United States. “It tied us to the demographic we want to be tied
to and helped us get connected to other extreme sports.”
ESPN, the worldwide leader
in action sports, first developed its X Games franchise in 1995. Today
the X Games and Winter X Games are the biggest action sports events
in the world.
“Rally Car Racing is a sport
we have been watching for some time,” said Ron Semiao when they made
the original announcement back in 2006. Semiao is an ESPN senior vice
president and creator of the X Games. “We feel it matches our
existing X Games audience, while having the ability to attract new viewers
as well. Rally Car Racing is incredibly dynamic and exciting.”
“Ever since they introduced
it, X Games has been the halo event of the Rally America calendar from
a marketing perspective,” says Tanner Foust, the drifting star and
2007 X Games rally champion. “X Games is always a highlight of the year for me. It is a truly unique
and exciting event with high visibility for all the participants.”
The visibility that X Games
brought to rallying came courtesy of helicopter-mounted cameras that
flew directly over the drivers out on the course, and cable-mounted
cameras inside the stadium that could follow the competitors’ cars
at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. Other pieces of the ABC/ESPN television
production package, combined with the backdrop of the nation’s second
largest media market, created some buzz and gave the sport a well-needed
boost.
“It’s the biggest thing
I have ever seen in the sport here in the US, and I have been involved
for over 20 years,” stated veteran co-driver Scott Putnam, who teamed
with Lauchlin O’Sullivan at the inaugural X Games rally event. “I
mean we got to compete against my hero and rally icon Colin McRae. It
was five days of being treated like a rock star, and then it was back
to reality, and my day job selling Subarus.”
That first event was more like
a traditional stage rally, with six scenic stages in a desert-like area
north of Los Angeles, and then the “Super Special” timed event at
Home Depot Center stadium on the following day.
It was the stadium stuff that
was really made-for-TV though, particularly when the late, great former
world rally champion Colin McRae put on such a show.
Each car had one lap in that
inaugural event, starting at one end of the soccer stadium bowl and
driving through a second time for the checkered. In between the drivers
would negotiate the 150-foot entrance ramp and the jump in the stadium
twice. And that’s where one of the most dramatic moments imaginable
took place.
The cars ran the course one
at a time and the stadium spectators could see the times go down with
each subsequent competitor.
The assembled crowd, and millions
more on TV, watched anxiously as Travis Pastrana, one of the most successful
and beloved figures in action sports history, ran next-to-last and put
his #199 Subaru through with the fastest time.
Then it was McRae’s turn.
Intermediate times showed his gold Subaru increasingly faster than Pastrana,
and in fact he was leading as he entered the stadium the second
time. That’s when it happened.
Photo By:
Eric Lars Bakke
“We just tried to turn too
sharply in the air,” said McRae’s co-driver Nicky Grist, following
their full roll-over two corners from the finish. “This was definitely
the fast way around the track, and we had tried it before in practice.
In fact, it would have worked this time except the tire rolled off the
wheel and caused us to flip.”
The car settled back on the
dirt floor of the stadium on all fours though, and McRae put it in gear
and flung the car across the finish line just 0.52 seconds behind the
gold medal-winning Pastrana and co-driver Christian Edstrom.
Sadly, McRae lost his life
in a helicopter accident in his native Scotland on September 15, 2007.
Pastrana dedicated his next X Games rally victory in X Games 14 to McRae,
whom he had developed a close personal friendship with.
Though Carson, California’s
Home Depot Center will always be associated with special moments –
and memories – such as those of McRae, this year the X Games rally
cars move north up the 110 freeway to the historic Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum.
The venerable facility, which
opened in 1923, has the distinction of being the only stadium in the
world to have hosted the Olympic Games twice, as well as Super Bowls,
World Series and now X Games rally events.
Yes, I said events plural.
The venue isn’t the only thing that’s new for 2010.
“We’re adding a new discipline
called SuperRally for the first time,” stated Rally America’s J.B.
Niday excitedly. “It’s basically European-style rallycross that
features a mix of different types of racing surfaces, as well as jumps,
and four or five-minute-long races with a lot of contact. People who
otherwise might have no interest in motorsports just might love this
and we feel it will be wildly popular.”
The cars will grid four at
a time, and drivers run a prescribed number of laps through the stadium
course that actually has them going up and down the seating sections,
and out of – and back in to – the stadium underneath the historic
peristyle arched towers.
There will also be an extra,
longer lap known as the "joker lap" that a driver will choose
during the race at their discretion, creating an increased element of
strategy.
“Rallycross is simply better
for the fans than typical stage rallies because you can see the whole
thing,” says Niday, who will soon announce a new American rallycross
series. “We are generating interest from car manufacturers, tire manufacturers
and others who can see the potential of rallycross. We’re not abandoning
traditional stage rallies though, they’re still the foundation of
what we do, but we have to figure out new and exciting ways to monetize
the sport so we can support and sustain stage rallying.”
The drivers are certainly excited
about rallycross coming to America for the first time at X Games 16.
"Not only
is SuperRally new to X Games, it's entirely new to me as well,"
said Rally America and WRC competitor Ken Block in a Ford Motorsports
press release. "This will be my first time racing it. I am looking
forward to doing battle against all my typical competitors, plus a couple
of new ones.”
“SuperRally
is a perfect fit for X Games and will bring all of the most extreme
parts of motorsports into one event,” said Block’s Ford teammate,
three-time X Games Rally medalist Tanner Foust. “There's door-to-door
racing, sliding off road, jumps and the cars can do 0-60 mph in less
than 2.5 seconds! These are some of the fastest production-based racecars
on the planet, and the thought of ripping them around the iconic columns
of the Los Angeles Coliseum is simply over the top -- again, perfect
for X Games.”
Photo By:
Credit: Lars Gange/Shazamm/ESPN Images
Travis Pastrana
once said about X Games that “it’s an event but it’s still…it’s
a show.”
This year’s
show is shaping up to be the best ever. Which is saying a lot actually.
Rally’s history with the X Games isn’t long, only five years, but
it’s filled with some incredible moments.
Rome didn’t
get built in a day, and neither did the courses that will host the two
different rallying disciplines on Saturday.
But when America
gets introduced to the sport of rallycross, maybe we will witness the
birth to a new empire.
Or maybe we’ll
just watch the controlled chaos of some aggressive, high-strung drivers,
banging into each other and pushing and shoving and muscling their 600-horsepower
chariots to the front of the field.
And with two
rally events on the schedule, the list of memorable X Games rally moments
will be added to twice as fast.
Tune in to
the U.S. television debut of SuperRally, live at X Games 16, Saturday,
July 31 at 10:15 p.m. ET on ESPN, ESPN 3D and ESPN3.com.
