Norwegian Wins Rallycross Championship Fourth Round

Rallycross has been a bit of a late developer than has now put on a spurt of growth in both popularity and commercial success and this weekend it was Solberg that took the plaudits on track

Betting on motorsport at ComeOn! Sportsbook and the like is an exercise in both ecstasy and agony. There’s no thrill like watching your chosen driver or ride zoom by the checkered flag ahead of the pack, and nothing worse than watching your stake go up in flames as the stunned helmeted competitor staggers away from a significant coming together of his vehicle and the safety barriers, another race entrant or simply having ground to a halt in a puff of smoke and gear box failure.

Rallycross 4th Round
• Solberg Takes the win
• Citroen gets 112 pts
• Lydden Hill’s mad mile

The inherent danger of driving or riding at extreme speeds is all part of the fun, its high octane stuff whether it’s Speedway, Grand Prix, Nascar or Touring cars, if it’s got an engine and its racing you’re in for a treat. There’s something about the battles that develop, the strategies involved, the technical component and the driver’s skills all coming together to create a spectacle that is rarely equaled by mere teams of men playing with their balls.

Pre-race odds are often upset by disaster, decision or downright bad luck that in another sport would be a setback, but in motorsport is a totaled vehicle and a long walk back to the pits. One need only look at Lewis Hamilton’s third place in Monaco to know the bookies don’t always get this right, and people who like to bet on sport in Norway or France or Hong Kong all profited by that error by Mercedes, having backed Rosberg to win against pretty overwhelming odds.

Better Betting Opportunities Against The Odds

The sheer variety of motorsport is another attractive trait when it comes to wagering one’s hard earned on a sporting endeavor. If one particular form of it holds no interest for you there is almost certainly a different instance of it that will. There are those that like the power of tractor pulling or truck racing, and until you’ve seen big trucks race…….. There are those that enjoy the sheer straight line speed of drag racing, or the twisting bursts of hill climbing.

Grand Prix might hold the top spot in rather weird classist system of motorsport but Rallying is popular world wide and provides more thrills, even if it is a bugger to cover them on TV, and the different things people compete at doing on two wheels boggles the mind. Everything from straight up racing to covering obstacle courses and doing trick jumps to wow the crowds, the number of differing events is staggering. However it is still the F1 cars that fascinate the gambling news headline writers.

Formula 1 steals the show but it’s overt riches, and frankly ridiculous ticket prices, make it a sport not of kings but those who wish they were. For those of us not quite so snooty there are other far more interesting and indeed fun variations on motor racing, like the insanely exciting world of Rallycross where souped up cars punting out 600BHP on the back of 900Nm of torque sprint around a mixed surface track for four or six laps.

With four categories of car (Supercar, Super1600, Touring Car & Rx Lites) the FIA World Rallycross Championship has something for everyone and unlike some motorsports I could mention does more than a few practices, qualifying and a race. Over a weekend of Rallycross there are four heats, with five cars racing each time, with the top 12 progressing, then two semi finals whittling the field down to six, and then a final of those six to see who gets to stand on the podium.

Lydden Hill The Home Of Rallycross

Rallycross began as an invitational set of races for rally back in the late sixties not as a sport so much as it was a television show filmed at Lydden Hill, and indeed there’s still the whiff of the showbiz about sport that only got a world championship in its current form together in 2014. The more friendly scale and pricing of the sport has won fans over from other more traditional motorsports and it’s growth in popularity and commercial success is set to continue.

Just last weekend Rallycross was back at it’s ancestral home for the fourth round of the FIA World Rallycross Championships (suitably sponsored by Monster Energy drink) for the fastest races of the season thus far. Lydden is the shortest road racing circuit in the UK and whilst it is now owned wholly by the famed Mclaren Group, the mile long track was founded back in 1955 by Bill Chesson and started with stock car and grass track bike racing, till tarmac was put down in 1965.

Since then Lydden has seen highs and lows, Formula 3 made a stop there, and safety concerns were raised (and addressed) in the 1980s, but Rallycross has made it’s home out in Wootton, Kent, and the weekend saw the sort of display you’d expect in front of a home crowd. It was the Norwegian Petter Solberg who came out firing on all cylinders winning two heats and cruising on to take the win at the end of the two day event.

His Citroen DS3 carried him to 112 points ahead of Swede Johan Kristoffersson’s Polo who got just 83, and fellow Norwegian Andreas Bakkerud back in third in his Ford Fiesta ST on 77 points overall. If you’re tired of betting on the same old ball games, the malaise that is modern politics or on games of chance, why not take advantage of Norwegian gambling laws, or those wherever you are, and back someone in motorsport? What’s the worst that can happen? Well……..except the whole fiery explosive crash thing, I guess……..