Winter storm Q moved through the Salem, MO area Thursday dumping snow, ice and freezing rain on the area making many people dub the 2013 100 Acre Wood Rally as Sno*Drift Remix Rally in the 100 Acre Wood. The snow on the roads made for some slippery conditions. Some rally teams were a little unprepared and forgot to pack snow tires and some even had trouble making it at all, but snow and ice does not stop rally!

Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino in their Hoonigan Racing Division Ford Fiesta had the unfortunate privilege of being first on the road. Even with the disadvantage of having to sweep the icy roads, Block jumped out to an early lead ahead of Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard in their Rockstar Mitsubishi EVO X and David Higgins and Craig Drew in their Subaru STi. Stage 6 would change all of that. Early in the stage Block went off the road crashing through a gate and hitting a tree. He was able to limp to the finish of the stage, but couldn’t complete the following one and was forced to restart Saturday under super rally rules. Stage 6 would also claim L’Estage after springing a coolant leak on stage 4, his engine overheated and he was forced to retire from the rally. This bumped Joseph Burke into 2nd place, behind Higgins at the end of the first day. (more…)

It looks like Sebastien Loeb might have a challenge for the Driver’s Championship from his fellow countryman Sebastien Ogier. Ogier took the lead in the Driver’s Championship points with the victory at Rally Sweden and captured 3 bonus points by winning the Power Stage. His victory also marked the first win for the Volkswagen Polo R WRC team on only their second event. The win in Sweden was Ogier’s eighth WRC victory. (more…)

The 2013 Rally America National Championship season kicked off in Atlanta, MI at the Sno*Drift Rally. As the name implies there was plenty of snow and ice to cause for some difficult road conditions which set the stage for a classic dogfight between Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard’s Rockstar Mitsubishi EVO X and the reigning Rally America National Champion David Higgins and Craig Drew’s Subaru STi. After swapping stage wins and the lead multiple times on Friday, Higgins took a half second lead into the 2nd day. Higgins managed to hold on to his lead all the way through the 2nd day until the final stage. L’Estage pushed hard on the last stage and took the stage win by 7.6 seconds which was enough to surpass Higgins and take the victory. (more…)

Reigning Rally America Champion David Higgins and the Subaru Rally Team USA unveiled their 2013 livery. Just in time for the first Rally America event of the season, Sno*Drift. Higgins and co-driver Craig Drew will be vying for their 3rd Rally America title in a 2012 Subaru STI prepared by Vermont Sportscar as the season kicks off in Michigan January 25-26.

For more info visit the Rally America website.

Ken Block unveiled the Hoonigan Racing Division yesterday, taking the place of his previous Monster World Rally Team. Block also unveiled the livery that will be on his Ford Fiesta for 2013. The livery is inspired by his love of ’80s and ’90s skateboarding. Block said, ““I’m stoked on how this livery and overall team aesthetic has turned out this year. With the name change to Hoonigan Racing Division, we wanted to take the look in a slightly different direction, one that has been inspired by my love of 80s and early 90s skateboarding graphics, as well as Miami Vice-era offshore powerboats and a dash of hair metal and old school hip hop mixed in for good measure. Much like we did in our years as MWRT, we’re continuing to try and lead and innovate in the motorsports marketing arena with this livery.” (more…)

The 2013 WRC season kicked off in snowy Monte Carlo this past weekend. A lot of excitement surrounded the debut of the Volkswagen Polo R rally cars piloted by Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala. Both Ogier and Latvala showed that the car definitely has what it takes to hang with Citroen and Ford. Ogier took an impressive second place finish for the VW team, but to little surprise reigning champion Sebatien Loeb took the victory in his Citroen. (more…)

The 2013 SCCA Solo Autocross PAX indexes have been released. The PAX index is used as a basis to compare times against cars across different classes. The PAX index is calculated based off of results from over 500 events nationwide.

For historical PAX values visit Rick Ruth’s PAX/RTP page

Last year’s GotCone.com RallyCross National Championship highlight went over pretty well, so I thought I’d do it again this year. In between shooting some great photos (which can be found in the 2012 SCCA RallyCross National Championship Photo Gallery) I took a bunch of clips. I put some of those together along with some donated GoPro footage and came up with this… Enjoy.

After a year’s absence Monster World Rally Team driver Ken Block made his return to Rally America and what a return it was! On Friday Block and his Ford Fiesta jumped out to the lead early winning 5 of the 6 stages for the day. The second stage was his only set back where he spun twice and only had the 9th fastest stage time, giving up the lead momentarily to Subaru Rally Team driver David Higgins. But by the end of the day Block had claimed the lead back.

The first day of competition claimed last year’s winner, Antoine L’Estage who had to retire after stage 4 due to transmission failure. Crazy Leo (Leonid Urlichich) suffered a puncture early on stage 1 which put him out of the running, but had made his way back up to 4th spot, behind Krzysztof Holowczyc. But the battle would be between Higgins and Block on day 2. (more…)

Just days remain before the deadline for manufacturers to sign up for the 2012 WRC season. Some speculation was swirling whether Ford would compete in 2012, but that speculation has been put to rest as Ford has signed on for at least 2 more years. They also have announced that Petter Solberg will be Jari Matti Latvala’s teammate for the 2012 season. This comes just days after Petter announced he would not be driving a Citroen in 2012, as he could not continue as a privateer any longer. (more…)