Cars will be flying once again at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this July, literally.
Action from last year’s Global RallyCross debut at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
New Hampshire Motor Speedway officials announced Thursday the return of Global RallyCross to the track. The event made its debut at NHMS last July during the track’s annual summer Sprint Cup Series weekend.
This year the event will move to Thursday July 11 as part of the weekend kickoff with the track’s annual FanFest.
A new course setup for 2013 will include a 140-foot long dirt ramp.
“You could see by the reactions of the fans, including some of our most well-known NASCAR drivers that this was an electrifying event,” NHMS executive vice president and general manager Jerry Gappens, said of last year’s event. “I, for one, can’t wait to see what GRC has in store for us this year with this new course. The new course, with the additional dirt element forced us to move this to a prime Thursday evening slot and will highlight our FanFest night activities.”
NASCAR Nationwide Series regular Travis Pastrana, last year’s Global RallyCross event winner at NHMS, is expected to defend his victory. Pastrana will also be competing in the July 13 Nationwide Series event at NHMS. Also expected to be competing on July 11 are the stars of RallyCross like Tanner Foust, Ken Block and Brian Deegan.
“New Hampshire had some of the best racing last year,” Pastrana said in a press release from NHMS. “The track was a lot of fun, with great opportunities to pass. It had good use of the banking, road course, jump, dirt and an interesting but epic berm over the pit wall. I look forward to seeing what they come up with for us this year.”
The July 11 event will also include the new Global RallyCross Lites division, a Spec class for developing drivers.
Grandstand gates for Global RallyCross will open at 1 p.m. on July 11. Thursday Global RallyCross tickets are $20 for adults, $5 for children 12-16 and free for kids 11 and under. Fans purchasing tickets before July 1 for Saturday’s Nationwide Series and Whelen Modified Tour events at NHMS will receive free admission to the RallyCross event on Thursday.
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Putting this event on a Thursday is most likely going to turn out to be a HUGE fail on the part of NHMS and whoever scheduled the event. I was at last years event (which was awesome) and it directly followed to conclusion of the WMT and NW races… Hardly anyone left from those races, they all relocated to the area of the grandstands closest to the Rally Cross course. It was a huge crowd for something so new to the NHMS.
Very disappointing to see them put this on a Thursday when most people who had planned on attending the weekend events, won’t be able to make it.
I understand there is alot of preperation involved for this undertaking. But I also agree Thursday was a bad idea. As for the 350 people that did get to see it, was it worth another $20 bucks?