Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Fall 2018 | Page 38

MOTORSPORT
ALL CROSSED UP
STORY BY ERIK OCKWELL; PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUBARU OF AMERICA
Never meet your heroes—that’s right, I’m kickstarting this
article with a cliché.
A lifelong fan of stage rallying, I grew up fascinated by the
exploits of World Rally Championship drivers. I assume most
of you know at least a little bit about the famous blue-and-
gold Subaru Imprezas of the 1990s and 2000s. The driving
of Colin McRae, Richard Burns and, later, Petter Solberg
and Chris Atkinson are permanently etched in my brain.
These memories were engraved by grainy VHS tapes and,
later, DVDs that could only be played on a “region unlocked”
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player I purchased in a sketchy electronics market.
These drivers were legit heroes to me when I was growing
up and still are to this day.
But now there’s a wild child of rally racing: rallycross.
It’s just as heroic, but perhaps on a less grand scale. Think
of rallycross as a hybrid of stage rally, touring car racing
and stadium truck racing. The courses, typically short
and technical in nature, run across both dirt and paved
surfaces, and they tend to feature a big jump or two thrown
in for extra fun.