Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Manuel Andújar only needed one race to prove that he can win in a side-by-side vehicle, but that was as a co-driver. In September, he will see if he can repeat the feat on the left-side seat.

Andújar will make his début as an SSV driver at the Campeonato Argentino de Rally Raid‘s (CaNav Rally Raid) Rally Raid San Rafael, where he is slated to drive a Can-Am Maverick R with Sergio Lafuente as his navigator. It will be his second go in an SSV after he called the shots for Juan Cruz Yacopini at the Rally Raid San Juan in June, where they won.

He is among many Quad riders who made the switch to SSVs following the news that their category has been dropped from the Dakar Rally from 2025 onwards. Andújar had claimed what turned out to be the final Dakar for his class in January, his second triumph after 2021, before clinching the World Rally-Raid Championship for Quads at the Desafío Ruta 40 in June.

The Argentine had contemplated a sabbatical from rally raids after winning the W2RC, but the opportunity to race alongside his friend Yacopini in San Juan came up and was too good to refuse.

Lafuente is currently the navigator for SSV driver Rebecca Busi in the W2RC. Like Andújar, he was a Quad rider prior to switching to cars, winning the DR 40 thrice as well as three Dakar stages.

It’s difficult to go back to back in many sporting events, let alone a race. Ryan Arciero one-upped that by going back to back to back to back at the Vegas to Reno.

He chased down Trick Truck pole sitter Nic Whetstone and the two traded blows before the latter had to stop and change a flat tyre at Rawhide, the eleventh pit area at Race Mile 427. The setback enabled Arciero to assume the physical and time leads before pulling away in the final 128 miles. While not a perfect run for Arciero as he had his share of flats, he mitigated the damage to keep pace with his rival throughout.

“We caught up to Nick and just stayed with him from the from the green flag,” recapped Arciero. “It was just trying to be able to know that I couldn’t catch him, I couldn’t I couldn’t get around him running because the dust was so bad, but to be patient through the dust was the key. We got a couple of flat tyres that kind of dinged us, but we were able to bridge the gap back to him and just kept the pressure on him until he finally got a flat again and we took advantage of it. It was right before Rawhide and so we made it.”

Arciero beat Whetstone by nearly eleven minutes for his fourth straight Vegas to Reno win, setting the record for longest overall win streak in the event. Arciero also ties Jason Voss for the most V2R wins, with Voss claiming four across a five-year span between 2013 and 2017 (Andy McMillin prevented Voss from a five-peat by winning in 2016).

His dominance at Best In The Desert‘s premier race stands in contrast to his misfortunes at the Mint 400, held outside the V2R’s starting point of Las Vegas. Arciero tended to be struck by some sort of misfortune that ruined his Mint, oftentimes while leading; the latest edition in March saw him fight for the lead before a broken driveline hit him on the final lap. On the other hand, point-to-point racing in Nevada has been much kinder to him.

Toyota Gazoo Racing is one of the most well known marques in international motorsport with plenty of success from either their flagship team or their regional subsidiaries. However, for all the Dakar Rallies and World Rally-Raid Championships it has won, a Toyota Hilux had never won the Asia Cross Country Rally.

That finally changed in 2024. In their seventh try at the race, Toyota Gazoo Racing Thailand broke through as Mana Pornsiricherd narrowly defeated the Isuzu D-Max of Suwat Limjirapinya for the win.

Driving a Toyota Hilux Revo, Pornsiricherd won the opening leg but went off course and finished a paltry twenty-fifth in Stage #2, dropping him to seventeenth. He clawed his way back up the order with a third in Stage #3 before winning the fourth to move up into second behind 2022 winner Chayapon Yotha of rival Team Mitsubishi Ralliart.

Although leading by twenty-four minutes after four days, Yotha’s rally came to an abrupt end with a mechanical failure on the penultimate stage. Team-mate Kazuto Koide towed him to the finish, but a three-hour time penalty ended his race. Pornsiricherd inherited the overall lead with another stage win. Limjirapinya claimed the last stage in an Isuzu D-Max 1–2–3 finish while Pornsiricherd was sixth, but the former could not close the gap.

Thongchai Klinkate, who finished second in Stage #6, was third to win the T2A-D class for production cars. TGR driver Ikuo Hanawa, who has been focused on desert races in North America like SCORE International and the Mint 400, missed out on the podium after leading the overall following two legs. Defending champion Takuma Aoki placed seventh.

Johan Kristoffersson overcame the disappointment of Saturday’s result in emphatic fashion by taking a superb victory in round 6 of the 2024 FIA World Rallycross Championship. The six-time world champion showed his class by roaring to victory at the Circuit Jules Tacheny in Mettet, Belgium, followed by Kevin Hansen, securing his second podium of the weekend, and Kristoffersson’s teammate and podium regular Ole Christian Veiby rounding out the top 3.

Kristoffersson looked peerless all day. In the heats, he got the better of the all-electric Hansen World RX Team cars, claiming victory in both heat races. Meanwhile, Niclas Grönholm recovered from a genuinely disastrous Saturday, when he was unable to hook up his PWR RX1e at all, to take victory in both of his heat races.

In the first semi-final, a great battle raged between Veiby and Saturday’s winner Timmy Hansen. The Peugeot driver found himself squeezed up the inside on the way into turn 1. However, the 2019 world champion refused to give way, leading to a great skirmish as they charged down the hill. Veiby and Hansen battled throughout the rest of the race, allowing Kristoffersson to drive off into the distance.

Semi-final two came down to a battle of the all-electric cars. Anthony Pelfrene, driver of the internal combustion engine (ICE) Peugeot 208, has demonstrated great pace this weekend but ultimately was unable to defeat Kevin Hansen or the two CE Dealer Team cars on this occasion. The Frenchman gave Hansen a run for his money though, battling throughout the early part of the race. Out front, Grönholm was able to build his lead and head to victory in his semi-final, followed by Hansen and Klara Andersson.

As is so often the case in rallycross, the start of the final was crucial. Kristoffersson managed to keep his nose in front of a very rapid Grönholm into turn 1. Kevin Hansen scampered past Grönholm on the gravel section and did his best to close the gap to Kristoffersson, while Veiby went for his joker lap on lap 2. Kevin Hansen dived into his joker lap on lap 4, pulling off one of the moves of the weekend to get his car back across the track to defend his position from Veiby.

Timmy Hansen has broken his winless streak in spectacular fashion, taking victory at the Circuit Jules Tacheny in Mettet, Belgium, in round 5 of the 2024 FIA World Rallycross Championship. The 2019 world champion took an emphatic lights-to-flag victory ahead of Ole Christian Veiby and teammate Kevin Hansen, securing a double podium for Hansen World RX Team for the first time in 2024.

It was a day marked by challenging conditions, both on the circuit and in terms of the weather. In heat 1, both Hansen brothers had issues with the rear-left tyres, meaning both suffered punctures and allowing Anthony Pelfrene to take victory in their heat race. Both CE Dealer Team drivers suffered in heat 1 as well, allowing the VWs of Veiby and Johan Kristoffersson to take a 1-2. The Hansens’ luck reversed in heat 2, allowing Kevin to lead home a 1-2 finish for the all-electric cars. No such luck for Niclas Grönholm who, once again, was unable to get his PWR RX1e going properly.

The semi-finals demonstrated the “Battle of Technologies” with the electric cars thriving on the straights but struggling in the more technical sections. Kevin Hansen defended from Kristoffersson, deploying electric power to escape from the mighty VW Polo KMS 601 RX and secure victory in his semi-final. Timmy had a much more straightforward time of it in his semi-final, racing against a disgruntled Grönholm and an unlucky Pelfrene, who was battling for victory until a technical issue dropped him to the back of the order.

The final started well for the Hansen brothers. They shot away, having lined up alongside each other on the front row of the grid, to command the field down into turn 1 with Kristoffersson right behind. Timmy pulled ahead, creating a gap as his teammate defended mightily from Kristoffersson for the first couple of laps. Veiby took his Joker lap on lap 2 to try and get the jump on Timmy Hansen for the lead.

Kristoffersson took his Joker on lap 3, forcing the Hansens to Joker on lap 4 to defend. All looked to be going well for KMS – HORSE Powertrain. They couldn’t get ahead of Timmy but they both leapfrogged Kevin Hansen. However, Kristoffersson picked up a front-left puncture while running in 3rd. Veiby tried to chase down Timmy but couldn’t quite do it. Meanwhile, Kristoffersson returned the favour and defended from Kevin to allow Veiby to hold on to 2nd. Kevin was behind Kristoffersson at the final turn but beat him in a drag race to the line, snatching 3rd by 0.029 seconds.

Short course off-road racing is back in the West.

On Friday, Unlimited Off-Road Racing announced short course racing has been added to the 2025 Mint 400 weekend. A new course will be developed along the Mint’s start/finish line in Primm, which will then be used for two days of racing on Friday, 7 March, and Saturday, 8 March.

Although not competing in the feature Limited or Unlimited races, the short course vehicles will join their desert counterparts for the parade on the Las Vegas Strip and the Off-Road Festival at the Fremont Street Experience, the latter where technical inspection will take place.

“We have been eager to bring short course racing to the Mint 400 in a more profound way than ever before, harkening back to the Mickey Thompson era,” Unlimited CEO Matt Martelli stated. “We grew up attending the Mickey Thompson stadium races as well as desert races, and it was always a united culture. From racing at Riverside, to the LA Coliseum to downtown Tokyo, Mickey showed us that anything is possible.”

The Mint 400 starts and ends in Primm, a town roughly forty miles from Las Vegas, particularly by the Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino. Primm is no stranger to short course racing, having previously hosted the inaugural round of the now-defunct Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series in 2009 as well as the season finale; however, it only lasted that one year as Alex Striler, then the sales and marketing director for Lucas Oil, recalled in 2017 that it was “too windy and didn’t attract a lot of spectators.”

Juraj Varga traded in one four-wheeler for another when the former Quad rider made his début in a side-by-side vehicle at last weekend’s Hungarian Baja. Although he was not classified because his Polaris RZR Pro R has not been homologated by the FIA, he feels he is starting to get comfortable in his new confines.

As a noncompliant car, Varga’s Polaris raced as #000 and was excluded from the final results. Nani Roma’s Ford Raptor T1+ and Balázs Molnár’s Can-Am Maverick R had similar arrangements, though the former was still permitted by organisers to be classified for the overall—albeit outside of the FIA European Baja Cup—and ultimately went on to win; Molnár’s Maverick R was officially regarded as a retirement by the Hungarian Cross-Country Rally Championship, though he set the second fastest time in his class.

Even if Varga was not eligible to win in the SSV category, on-track experience is still on-track experience. Radovan Schneider, a member of his Varga Racing Team, served as co-driver.

“We’ve been getting every stage and I’m feeling better and better behind the wheel,” wrote Varga. “Another new thing is that I don’t rely on myself for navigation, but get all instructions from the passenger. Radovan Schneider filled the role of the navigator, who mastered his role and did a perfect job.

“Of course, we did not avoid minor technical issues as the Polaris has only been at home for two months and is limited in kilometres driven. But with the right team, nothing is impossible.”

On 12 August, The Checkered Flag spoke with Brock Heger about his impending Dakar Rally début in 2025.

The full transcript of the interview is available below. Some text has been altered from the actual dialogue to improve readability.

An article on the interview can be read here.

Transcript

TCF: How did the plan to race Dakar come together?

BH: I think it’s multiple things. My long career, some of it came from my success last year with Polaris and the whole new team with SCi (Scanlon Clarke Incorporated) and the success on the desert side. I think a lot had to come with that and I think a lot came with it, my team principals, everyone around me just trying to push me to be a professional athlete. I think it’s just kind of numerous things and just being at the right place at the right time.

Françoise Elby, an artist and early Dakar Rally competitor, has passed away at the age of 85. She had been hospitalised due to serious injuries sustained in a traffic accident last November.

Born in Paris but of Hungarian descent, she grew up around art before briefly trying to pursue finance as a teenager. By the 1970s, looking for something more thrilling, she became a horse rider and took part in equestrian and steeplechase competitions. Elby became acquainted with Paris–Dakar Rally founder Thierry Sabine while selling a horse, who then introduced her to motorsport.

“I loved Africa but didn’t want to go back, having often had problems with the authorities,” recalled Elby in her autobiography. “The bans on filming and photography, theft, difficulties at customs, the small but many roadblocks on the runways, the hours spent trying to get a passport, as always happens to everyone.

“This great race in Africa was part of another world. I felt very small compared to the huge machine that was this race. But apart from the violent beauty of the continent, I was not motivated enough to endure the trials there. There was no question of me even thinking of participating.

“One afternoon in July (1982), the great chef came with his team to work at my house, he had come with Christine Caron, who last year had participated in the big event with Bernadette Sacy. They won the women’s category and it was a good race. Suddenly, looking at me, Thierry said the fatal phrase: ‘I’ll see you doing that’ when talking about the Paris–Dakar! It all started at that moment.”

The 2024 FIA World Rallycross Championship returns to a staple circuit with a double-header at the World RX Of Benelux. The historic Circuit Jules Tacheny plays host to the third event weekend in the inaugural “Battle of Technologies” with Johan Kristoffersson currently leading the charge for the internal combustion engine (ICE) machinery.

Following a dramatic weekend at the championship’s first visit to the “Red Cauldron” in Hungary, world rallycross returns to a circuit that featured on the championship’s debut season back in 2014. Featuring long straights combined with tricky technical sections, Mettet is a circuit that looks likely to favour the ICE cars over their electric rivals. The first corner, a tricky right-hand turn leading straight into a jump down into the first gravel section of the lap, frequently provides drama which will be a talking point for the whole weekend.

6-time world champion Kristoffersson heads to Belgium with a clear advantage over his rivals. After a controversial collision with Kevin Hansen in the final of Saturday’s race in Hungary, the Swedish superstar rocketed to victory on Sunday, while his teammate, Ole Christian Veiby, came home second. The Norwegian also sits second in the championship, 25 points behind his teammate, and will be very eager to put an end to his streak of the most podiums without a win in world rallycross history.

While Kristoffersson secured a win at Mettet in 2023, it was in RX2e machinery as world rallycross action was paused following the fire at Lydden Hill. This time, with Kristofferson back in an ICE car, it is up the their rivals in this year’s championship to fly the flag for electric power. CE Dealer Team have looked the most competitive so far. Niclas Grönholm secured the team’s first win of the season in Hungary, as well as the first win for electric power.

The eight-time world rallycross event winner is confident that he can be competitive in Belgium. “It is great to return to Mettet after a long time and showcase electric and sustainable motorsport to our Belgian fans and partners” Grönholm said. “I believe our car is well-suited to this track. Now it is all about having a strong weekend overall. We need solid results on both days to stay in the fight for the championship.”

Alain Cournil, whose father created the Cournil line of 4×4 off-road vehicles before he took over the company, died early this week at the age of 74. His son Christophe confirmed his passing on Sunday.

Bernard Cournil founded Cournil after the Second World War, where he had served with the French Resistance and provided vital assistance to Allied troops in the liberation of his country. At war’s end, he began modifying surpluses of American Jeeps and became a producer, eventually spinning them off into his own brand.

Although Cournil’s vehicles, which included agricultural and heavy machinery, grew in popularity in France, he built most of them with limited support out of his shop. This eventually resulted in financial trouble, prompting Alain and his wife Myriam to take over the company in 1971. Still, monetary concerns persisted until 1977 when they sold the production rights to French arms maker Gévarm and Portuguese firm UMM; the latter was entrusted with building the Cournils outside of France. Auverland subsequently became the manufacturer in France and Brazil in 1984.

Even then, Alain remained involved with Cournil. In 1979, he greenlit factory support for drivers entering the inaugural Paris–Dakar Rally in one, which included Jean-Pierre Kurrer (finished fifty-first overall) and Gil Guillot (finished sixty-eighth overall). The following year, Kurrer scored the car’s best finish of twelfth while Patrick Thenoux was twenty-fourth.

UMM later entered the Dakar with the Alter, using the Cournil’s template. The company proudly proclaims at least one Alter reached the finish at every Dakar it ran in the 1990s. In January, João Costa and Paulo Sergio da Silva Oliveira raced UMM Alters in the Dakar Classic, an adjacent event to the Dakar Rally for older vehicles, respectively finishing sixty-first and forty-first overall; eight Alters were also brought to the race to support them.

Brock Heger has starred in all forms of American off-road racing throughout his life, whether it be the twisty circuits of short course, the rocks of Johnson Valley, or the sweeping deserts along the West Coast. In January 2025, he will embark on his biggest journey yet when he heads to Saudi Arabia for his Dakar Rally début, driving the Polaris RZR Factory Pro R Factory for Sébastien Loeb Racing in the SSV category. Polaris Factory Racing team-mate Max Eddy Jr. will serve as his co-driver.

The Checkered Flag sat down with Heger on Monday to discuss the deal coming together, how his career with Polaris Factory Racing brought him to this point, and the roles that defending Dakar SSV winner Xavier de Soultrait and SLR are playing in helping him adjust to a new discipline.

Getting the Opportunity

In January, PFR held their annual pre-season press conference with Heger and his colleagues. At one point, they were asked if they would consider racing the Dakar Rally if possible; Heger was the first to say something, quickly answering that he “wouldn’t say no.” Even then, to already have a ride lined up just seven months later was far sooner than he would have anticipated.

“I didn’t know it would happen this soon,” Heger admitted. “It was just one of those things when I started with Polaris and the whole new team. I saw that they were going there with Xavier last year and everything, so I just kind of figured that there was an opportunity there at some point. I just wanted to put my best foot forward and do everything right, everything I could on my end to be doing good and winning races, and just try to put myself in a good situation where if the time does come that I’m on the list of going. With it coming out and happening so soon, I didn’t think it would happen this soon, but I’m looking forward to it.”

Heger’s pedigree made plenty of sense for Polaris whilst looking for someone from their factory teams to try their hand at rally. He is the reigning SCORE International Pro UTV Open champion, claiming the title in PFR’s début campaign in 2023, while his 2024 began with two victories at King of the Hammers, where he respectively won in UTV Open and Pro Stock Turbo at the Toyo Tires Desert Challenge and Can-Am UTV Hammers Championship. Indeed, he cites “multiple things” for influencing Polaris’ decision.

As its name suggests, The Real Way to Dakar is a race that hoped to loosely mirror the former route of the legendary Paris–Dakar Rally, running from Europe to the capital of Senegal. After fourteen years, however, the race and its organising body Intercontinental Rally have shut down.

Kasper van Deurs and Jacob Ilskov, the organisers of the race, both have family members battling illnesses that require them to take time away. Due to a lack of resources to keep the small Intercontinental Rally operating, they elected to close it altogether.

“It is with great sorrow that we are announcing that The Real Way to Dakar 2025 is cancelled and that we are closing down the organisation,” begins a letter from van Deurs and Ilskov on Wednesday. “Both of us are dealing with serious illness in our immediate family and our focus must now be on healing and supporting our families through this very challenging phase. The Real Way to Dakar has always been a small organisation and with both owners having to change our priorities, it simply is not possible to move forward with the rally.

“For us, The Real Way to Dakar has been a dream and a joint project for the past 10 years, first as a service team and later as the owners of the rally and it is not without great consideration and many talks that this decision has been made. We are very much aware, that this will cause great difficulties for everyone who has signed up for the 2025 edition of The Real Way to Dakar! However, the health and wellbeing of ourself and our family must come first!”

The Intercontinental Rally first took place in 2011 with a route that began in Almería, Spain, and ended in Dakar. It continued with this name until 2020, when “The Real Way to Dakar by Intercontinental Rally” was adopted.

Grzegorz Brochocki and Grzegorz Komar will run their second Dakar Rally in 2025, once again driving a Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo prepared by Overlimit. They’ll be hoping things go smoother than their début this year when they finished twenty-fifth in the SSV category after a tumultuous rally.

“We present the crew that will proudly represent Overlimit during the Dakar Rally 2025,” reads the team announcement on Tuesday. “Grzegorz Brochocki will be the driver, and the irreplaceable Grzegorz Komar will navigate in the right seat. The gentlemen have a score to settle from last year’s edition.

“Follow our preparations for the big start!”

Hailing from Poland, the two arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 2024 race as former winners of the Rallye Breslau in their home country as well as the Balkan Offroad Rallye. They also rode some decent momentum after finishing eleventh in SSV at their maiden World Rally-Raid Championship start in the 2023 Rallye du Maroc.

However, the Dakar was a trial by fire. Brochocki had some slight health issues at the start but shook it off, though a tyre rim did the same on the first leg due to multiple tyre punctures in the rocky terrain, a fate that befell many other competitors and caused Overlimit to run out of spare wheels by the end. The left steering knuckle then broke off the following day after hitting a hole, followed by a malfunctioning oil sensor in Stage #3 and an engine failure the day after. Time expired while trying to fix the car, preventing them from starting the fifth stage and relegating them to the Dakar Experience.

Martin Koloc‘s first race in twenty-five years and maiden cross-country rally only lasted a stage before he called it quits, stemming from uncertainty over the Hungarian Baja‘s safety. He hopes to actually go the full distance safely during his second rally at Baja Poland on 22–25 August.

A two-time European Truck Racing Champion who retired from driving in 1999, Koloc made his return to the driver’s seat in Hungary as a relief driver for his daughter Aliyyah, who recently underwent surgery. However, a bad omen quickly fell upon Buggyra ZM Racing when the global positioning system on his Red-Lined REVO T1+ malfunctioned.

“We had been reporting problems with navigation since the technical checks,” Koloc explained. “The GPS wasn’t working; it wasn’t giving us any data. The navigation device was not registering the points passed or the meters traveled, and in the end, we ended up doing the first stage of 120 kilometres on sight.

“They kept us in the first neutralization zone after thirty kolometres of the initial timed test for 34 minutes instead of the mandated 20 minutes. They tried to solve the issue but they didn’t. They then instructed us to continue driving on sight. We had to overtake all the cars again we had already passed.”

He managed to finish the first Selective Section eleventh overall among those registered for the Hungarian Cross-Country Rally Championship, but it was far from an experience that he’d like to relive. The lack of a proper navigation system, despite the organisers’ efforts to minimise the risk for him, made him feel he had gotten lost far too often.