Dodge Dart rallycross fans, this is a friendly reminder to set your DVR for ESPN at 10am this coming Sunday (May 19th) as that is the expected broadcast time for the second stop on the 2013 Global RallyCross schedule. Travis Pastrana and Bryce Menzies have traveled with their 600 horsepower all wheel drive Dart race cars to Barcelona, Spain for the second of four global X Games events this summer.
Pastrana and Menzies both saw accidents end their hopes of winning the first event of the 2013 GRC season and things won’t be any easier in Spain. There are 17 drivers expected to run in the RallyCross class at X Games Barcelona including the majority of those drivers who raced a few weeks ago in Brazil along with the debut of the three Subaru team drivers. Dave Mirra, Bucky Lasek and Sverre Issachsen did not compete at the first event of the season but these three experienced GRC drivers will likely be back with a vengeance for 2013.
Now, with regard to setting your DVR rather than making sure that you are awake at 10am on a Sunday to watch Global RallyCross, I have to warn race fans of the viewing experience that you might expect for this weekend’s race – just in case you missed the first GRC race of the season. As you probably know, GRC events are broken into a series of heat races followed by a “last chance qualifier” and then the final race for the gold. The broadcast for the first GRC race of the season (which was also part of an X Games event) showed the first two heat races of the day back to back but then they bounced over to about 45 minutes of skateboarding before returning to rallycross action. I would guess that they will do the same thing for this race so if you are used to sitting down and watching a GRC race from beginning to end – you might want to DVR it rather than sitting through the whole day’s X Games broadcast. I ended up recording and skipping through about three hours of programming to catch all of the GRC racing from the first event of the season. So if you don’t want to sit through hours of skateboarding and such… DVR is the way to go.
Below is a handy lineup card showing all of the drivers expected to run this weekend in the X Games Barcelona Global RallyCross event.
"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.
"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.
"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.
"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.
"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.
