The “Race Of Champions” is a made-for-TV event which purports to pit the world’s best drivers head-to-head using a variety of vehicles on an indoor stadium course. This year’s event was won by up-and-coming WRC pilot Sebastien Ogier (for the individual event) and the rather formidable team of Sebastian Vettel and M. Schumacher (for the Nations Cup).
Whom did the United States send? Well, we sent our very best — Travis Pastrana and Brian Deegan. How’d they do? Well, Pastrana’s gone as far as the second round in the past, but this time it was all bad news for the Americans. How badly did they get beaten? Click the jump to find out…
“Group C” pitted Mr. Deegan against two former F1 World Champions and some dude from Finland. Naturally, he lost. His best lap was seven seconds slower than Button’s: an eternity on a one-minute course.
Michael SCHUMACHER 3 GER 01:12.9251
Jenson BUTTON 2 GBR 01:12.2013
Juho HANNINEN 1 FIN 01:15.1227
Brian DEEGAN 0 USA 01:19.0525
“Group A” was Travis Pastrana vs. touring-car superstar Andy Priaulx (basically a European Scott Pruett), former F1 driver David Coulthard, and A1GP prodium finisher Filipe Alberquerque.
Andy PRIAULX 3 GBR 01:09.8853
David COULTHARD 2 SCO 01:09.8525
Travis PASTRANA 1 USA 01:15.1233
Filipe ALBUQUERQUE 0 POR 01:10.5414
A word of caution: you can’t compare the Group times across Groups. Andy Priaulx is not three seconds better than Schumacher, and Pastrana may not be four seconds better than Deegan.
Let’s face it: had Deegan and Pastrana won, it would have made the “Miracle On Ice” look like a 4-to-3 bet. Which raises the question: why, exactly, are freestyle motocrossers/ARCA backmarkers representing the United States in the ROC? Jimmie Johnson’s gone before, but to my knowledge, nobody’s ever reached out to top American SCCA, NASA, or Grand-Am racers. I’d like to suggest Ryan Eversley and Taylor Hacquard. These two guys are fast, reliable, and solid under pressure. Plus, they are both very telegenic.
If the ROC people want an “extreme racer”, why not choose Tyler Wolfson? He’s gone from kicking my ass in Skip Barber races to a solid series of outstanding performance in both race and drifting series. No matter which one of these guys the ROC picks, I can tell you one thing: they won’t be seven seconds off the pace.
If we were to take this event seriously, we’d have Robby Gordon and Tony Stewart drive it every year; they are the two “name” drivers who have been successful on pavement and dirt and in open-wheelers and sedans.
Americans have fared well in the past. Jeff Gordon did surprisingly well in a rally car on the proper course in the Canary Islands 10 (??) something years ago.
I think the US even pulled off a nations cup win there. I haven’t been a big fan of the fully paved surfaces that they race on now in Germany or the one they did in China.
EDIT: The US won the nations cup in 2002.
You are right though, there is a decent contingent of drivers that they could pull from the represent the US, but Travis Pastrana is generally liked world wide and I think NASCAR guys are too busy getting ready for the upgrade to fuel injection… or something.
Jack,
What are your thoughts on Boris Said in one of these competitions?
When are you going to have your follow up article to Corvettes crashing?
“I think he would do very well” and “some time this week” respectively :)
Wouldn’t Boris have to win a championship first? He’s a great driver, but I think you have to win the championship of a series to qualify for the ROC.
Deegan won the TORC off-road series, which is apparently which qualified him to race. He’s a talented guy on the dirt, without a lot of experience on the pavement. Same goes for Pastrana, despite his few NASCAR entries, he’s still pretty green on the black.
@ grzydj
what championship has David COULTHARD won? He is at the ROC every year it seems.
@Rusnak_322
According to Wikipedia, “Crazy” Dave Coulthard won the Cumbria Kart Racing Club championship in 1985. Does that count?
It’s not legit until they get everyone in midgets at IRP in Indy or whatever they call it these days.
How about World of Outlaws cars at Knoxville?
Tony Stewart maybe, but not Robby Gordon. Tony has significant more talent than Robby. Boris Said would be fun to watch. He was the reason I watched Trans Am when he was allowed to race in that series. We don’t have a “Mario Andretti” in the US at the moment, someone that is talented in multiple disciplines and well known. Years ago I would have suggested Ivan Stewart or Rod Hall. Kyle Busch would probably do well but they would have to keep him over there. Hey, I know…Tanner Foust! I know, I know, the guy has some talent but he is mostly a drifer/stunt driver/annoyer.
Tanner is ridiculously quick in the European RallyCross series, would regularly embarass opponents in Formula Drift, and won a Viper Challenge race at Spring Mountain the first time he had ever driven a Viper at all, and without practice. Plus, he has already competed in ROC and done far better than Pastrana or Deegan did this year.
Nothing against Mr. Foust, but the first season of Viper Cup was composed of drivers who had never raced before, a couple skateboarders and snowboarders experiencing their first-ever race, and a few free-riding journalists.
In Foust’s second race of the year, he was outqualified by Ralph Gilles.
@Jack.
Nothing against Mr. Foust? Don’t you hate any driver that participates in anything where there is sponsorship involved?
Should have sent Memo Gidley! :)
Kurt Busch is available.
In the old days, when drivers got paid 40% of the purse to drive, with no guarantee or retainer for most drivers, racers couldn’t be that picky about what kind of series they raced in. In the ’60s when I was growing up there were lots of drivers that competed in Indy type open wheel racing in the US, sports cars on road courses, endurance racing like at LeMans, and stock cars (in the ’60s USAC had a competing series to NASCAR), plus sprint cars too. Andretti, Foyt, Gurney, Hall, Rodriguez, Follmer – names like those would appear on grids in a variety of series and formulas. If you look at car magazines from the ’60s and early ’70s, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the Can Am grids often were half made up of F1 drivers.
…….”40% of the purse”…..few remember that Jimmy Clark, one of the greatest ever (F1, Indy 500 champ), was killed while moonlighting for extra money in a Formula 2 race (Hockenheim)………..or that as late as the mid 70’s popular World Champion James Hunt picked up beer money driving lowly Formula Atlantic cars on weekends off. It was on one of these outings that he “discovered” Gilles Villeneuve, and, true sportsman that he was, recommended him for an F1 seat.
……I follow motorsport as carefully as most, but could never really get interested in the artificial ROC arena racing, or fathom out it’s rules, equipment specs, and invitation process. In most forms of racing you need only “follow the money” to understand who gets to race what, but this event is a puzzle. No reasonable amount of prize purse would tempt most racing egos to risk getting shamed by a weak outing (and add “debacle”, “disgrace” and “infamy” to Jack’s polite “eternity” in describing this recent showing). In that respect, hats off to Vettel, Schumacher, Coulthard,(and in past years Gordon, Johnson, and Edwards) for fine performances……….these guys had everything to lose and virtually nothing to gain duking it out with obscure competitors, most of whom earn a tiny fraction of their superstar incomes.
It’s definitely a Euro thing anyway, and few outside that continent “get it”, including me. But anyone from this side of the pond lucky enough to get invited, and foolhardy enough to risk the catcalls, better be a few things……. under 35 years old, under 160 pounds, well financed (finding ways to practice for this bizarre event won’t be cheap), and, above all, unbelievably world-class stinking fast.
I think Jack and Boris should be invited just because of the hair.
though if there was a race where you had to push the car I nominate Steve Kinser and Ryan Newman.
there’s a bit of unfairness here given the german pairing is the dream team of Vettel and Schumacher… there’s no doubt these two are better than 99% of the drivers anywhere in any country, any discipline
its just pure talent here. I really have no love for the germans but you can’t be impressed by their performance
this is a pure stadium spectacle and shouldn’t be taken too seriously
Based on the small courses – I would think the US’s best bet would be some top notch autocrossers (which automatically counts me out.)
Jack – what do you think – Mark Daddio, John Thomas, Erik Strelnicks, Andy McKee (or any other of a host of multiple time National Champions?)
Who wants to watch people you never heard of?
This is for entertainment only. I would rather watch stars lose then no names win.
That is why this is broadcast worldwide but autocross is only watched by other autocrosser who are picking up knocked over cones.
BTW: I have autocrossed so I have nothing against the “sport”
Good point, but I’ll counter with the fact that I haven’t heard of those other two Americans either, neither have most Americans that don’t follow second tier motorsports.
If you’re going to throw some no-names at the event, might as well throw some that have a better chance of doing well, given the autocross sized nature of the ‘track’
…….rusnak……”rather watch stars lose than no-names win”…in one sentence you’ve summed up one of motorsport’s most pervasive realities/problems, the difficulties talented young drivers have “getting their foot in the door”. NASCAR is the most obvious example……sponsors tend to stick with established names, many long past their podium days, even some who never win, but are fan favorites nonetheless. NHRA drag racing, when I last paid any attention to it, was rife with grandfathers who refused to give up the ride. Even Formula 1 has it’s share of popular, heavily sponsored veterans whose chances of winning are nil, although their ages are much younger on average. There’s a lot of talented young American drivers out there, but unfortunately most of the worthwhile seats already have a better known bum in them. Sponsors rule racing.
Mark Daddio would mop the course, honestly. Hell, Lynn Kozlak would. :)
Maybe there should be an “old timers” ROC with Nigel, Mario, Rick, The King (if there is some leeway on the rules :)), Bobby, Hurricane Bob, Boyd… and do it all on a short course in Legends cars.