One word sums up the X Games 16 rally events, disaster! The rally car portion ended with only 3 match ups actually coming to a conclusion. The rest of the match ups ended either in an off-course being called or one car breaking before the finish. There was so much confusion with where the course was supposed to go that not only the drivers, but the spectators, the announcers and even the camera men seemed befuddled as to what was occurring. Even if there hadn’t been so much confusion, the courses were horribly designed. They were very tight with a few too many handbrake turn sections, giving a huge advantage to the smaller and lighter Ford Fiesta rally cars. There were 2 near-miss head on collisions as the crossover point was a blind intersection with one car emerging from under the jump into the high-speed straight section of the other car.
Tanner Foust took the gold in both the rally car and Super Rally competitions at X Games 16
Tanner Foust and Brian Deegan emerged from the chaos that was Rally car to compete for the Gold. But even Deegan wasn’t spared from the disastrous course, being called for an off course giving Foust the gold medal by default. Foust tried calling for a re-match/re-run, but officials would have none of it and Deegan was forced to settle for a silver. Rally America Champion L’Estage and Rally America regular ACP (Andrew Comrie-Picard) shared the bronze medal.
The Super Rally didn’t fair much better with confusions on the number of laps to be run. In the first 4 car match up Dave Mirra was disqualified after not taking his ‘Joker jump’ thinking that he had a fifth lap in which to complete the jump on. Then cars started breaking. Kenny Brack’s Ford Fiesta came to stop on the first lap of his Super Rally qualifier. Ken Block stalled his Monster Energy Ford Focus on his initial qualifier but was able to make it in the Last Chance Qualifier. Block jumped up to a large lead in the LCQ before his Ford Fiesta came to a stop half-way through the final lap. Chaos then ensued as ACP was forced to slow down to avoid Block and Hubinette crashed into the back of ACP causing him to spin. Hubinette took the final spot in the medal round.
Foust and Deegan also made it to the final and battled with Verdier for the gold. Deegan jumped out to an early lead, but Foust claimed the lead early in the first lap and never looked back. Deegan fell behind Verdier, but was able to reclaim 2nd when Verdier when to take his “Joker jump”, for the silver medal. Controversy thus ensued as the announcers and spectators though there was one lap to go, but the checkered flag was waved. X Games public relations director Katie Moses Swope, “It was a technical error. The first driver took the first turn on the first lap wide and missed the timing line, so it didn’t trigger the graphics to start and didn’t register the first lap — so the graphics [on the broadcast] were always a lap behind. The checkered flag was spot-on.” After reviewing the race on DVR, I only count 4 laps, 4 trips past the Joker jump area, but with how poorly the camera people covered the race, I suppose it is possible a 5th lap was run, but I’m not sure I see where.
Travis Pastrana, after winning a gold medal in Moto X Freestyle, had a very disappointing rally portion of X Games. Pastrana’s 2011 Subaru Rally car had mechanical issues during his match up in the rally car event and he was unable to finish. Pastrana’s crew hustled to get a new engine and transmission installed before the Super Rally event begun and after the 3rd engine started on fire it looked pretty dismal for Travis. However he stayed upbeat and the car started, but more problems ensued as he got ready for his Super Rally qualifier and the car was unable to go. Pastrana tried jumping in Subaru Rally Teammate Dave Mirra’s car, after Mirra had already been eliminated, but event officials would not allow it and Pastrana, the Super Rally top qualifier had to sit out competition.
How it went wrong
X Games has a lot to work on for next year if they want to have a successful Rally event. Here’s my thoughts on what went wrong and how to fix it.
1. Poor course design was the start to the mayhem, it may have been the worst course I have ever seen. Hopefully they will find someone qualified to design next year’s. I would love to see them move it out of the coliseum into a larger more open area.
2. X Games has no restriction on cars. Every other rally organization/event has restrictions on the cars that are competing. For X Games it was opened up and most cars were running well beyond what you would ever see in a real rally event. This caused a lot of the cars to have catastrophic failure and also caused a huge disadvantage for those drivers without huge corporate sponsors. Block, Brack, Pastrana, Isaachsen just to name a few suffered engine failure because of the amount of power they were forced to try and get from their cars. Pastrana mentioned that his Subaru Rally Car was putting out over 200 more horsepower then his normal Rally America rally car does. That puts enormous stress on the cars. If X Games wants Rally America to be involved in the event, let’s use Rally America regulations. This gives real rally drivers a chance to compete in their rally cars and should cut down on the number of mechanical failures during the event causing collisions. Thankfully no one was hurt in this situation and the only things that needed some “treatment” were the cars which were sent to a local auto repair and collision repair expert.
3. Let’s get some new people working in the truck with the video streams. Numerous times the announcers were screaming about something exciting going on, on course, but we were stuck looking at a commentator riding in the car or the other car doing one of the millions of hand brake turn sections on course. It was horribly broadcast and very hard to follow.
Let’s hope next year X Games organizers and ESPN can get their acts together!
