The debut of the new Americas Rallycross series, or ARX, took place over the Memorial Day weekend, not in the Americas, but in Silverstone, England, as part of the Speedmachine festival, which featured racing, music, food, multiple exhibits and, as the featured attraction, the FIA World Rallycross Championship.

The ARX cars, which are essentially identical to the World Rallycross Championship cars, had a very popular second billing as the organizers of the new series -- IMG, the massive marketing company that also controls WRC, as well as the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Miss Universe – wanted to work out any bugs before the U.S. debut of ARX, on July 14 at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

In the end, there were no bugs. ARX, which replaces the seemingly defunct Red Bull Global Rallycross series in the U.S., seems poised to pick up where the GRC left off at the end of the 2017 season. Taking the win in the ARX main evet was, not surprisingly, Tanner Foust in the Andretti Volkswagen Beetle, followed by teammate Scott Speed, the reigning GRC champ, in his VW. Third as Liam Doran of Great Britain in a Citroen DS3, and in fourth, Patrick Sandell in a Subaru Rally Team U.S. in a Subaru WRX STi.

There were 10 entries, with five cars shipped over from the U.S. – the two Andretti VWs, and three Subarus, prepared, as the long have been, by Vermont Sportscars. David Higgins and Chris Atkinson drove the other two Subarus, and often matched Sandell’s speed. The Subarus ran a tick behind the VWs, which launch like rocket ships.

Exactly who will show up in Austin in July is a work in progress – rumor is Ken Block will rejoin the series there, and IMG may help fly over some teams than ran in the ARX here, such as the two-car Munnich Motorsport team of Timo Scheider and Rene Munnich, driving Seat Ibizas. Which, of course, aren’t sold in the U.S., but neither is Doran’s Citroen, or the Renault Clio or Peugeot 208 that rounded out the 10-car field. IMG is hoping Honda, which ran in the GRC, will come back, as well as some privateers.

There will also be a spec “Lites” class, likely called RX2 as it is here, and the entry list for that class remains open, though DirtFish, the rally school, has pledged that it will enter four cars. The July race in Texas is expected to run at night. The other two ARX appearances in 2018 -- there are eight or so planned for 2019 and beyond – will be in Canada, and then the finale September 29 back at COTA. Both that race and the Canadian event will run the same weekend alongside the WRC.

Speaking of the WRC, that race was won by another Volkswagen, the Polo of Johan Kristoffersson, who survived a semi-feature crash with his teammate, Pedder Solberg, which sent Kristoffersson hard into the first-turn tire barrier, causing a red flag. Both cars survived and returned for the main event, but Solberg dropped out with mechanical issues.

Following Kristoffersson were Andreas Bakkerud in second in his Audi S1, the Sebastian Loeb in a Peugeot 208. There were 23 entries in that class, and 17 in the RX2 class.

In all, it was a very promising first outing for the ARX series, which began development only over the Christmas holidays, so there has been a lot of hustling to try and pull it all together. The series will need more than the backing of just two manufacturers, VW and Subaru, to really gain a toehold, but the consensus here was that the well-financed IMG knows how to get things done.

Americas Rallycross comes to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in July.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io