DORAN LANDS MINI DRIVE FOR WRX European round winner set for full world campaign in 2016 HAL RIDGE
“Electric dream should be addressed” ”
Leading British rallycross driver Liam Doran will contest the FIA World Rallycross Championship this season in a JRM Racing Mini RX Supercar.
Doran has raced a Citroen DS 3 in recent seasons, run by his own LD Motorsports team, but told MN at Christmas that he was seeking to drive for a different team in the 2016 season.
JRM Racing embarked on running the Mini RX Supercar last year, and made a number of appearances through the campaign with various drivers. Double British Rally champion Guy Wilks scored the squad’s best result by finishing sixth at Lydden Hill. The team will enter Doran as a single entrant in World RX.
“This is something I’ve been working towards for the last couple of years – being able to go at the championship professionally as a driver with a capable and successful team,” said Doran. “It’s exciting for me to have the chance to do that. I know I can just do the driving in 2016. That’s the most important part for me.”
Doran won a number of European Championship events before the sport grew to a World Championship, but has struggled in the last two seasons, often due to poor reliability. He does have previous form with a Mini rallycross car, and won his second X Games gold medal in Munich, Germany in 2013 driving a similar car.
“One of the main reasons for this whole deal happening is because the car is what it is
Following the Schumacher-murphy showstopper in 1973, Funny Cars really did become all the rage at Santa Pod. The management’s policy of importing the previous season’s top American Funnies and booking their drivers to pilot them initially, before passing them on to home-based teams, brought both star names from the States and a growing number of European entries to the track.
The high point occurred at September 1980’s international meeting when a 16-car nitro field was assembled for the first and only time in Europe’s drag racing history. Racers from Britain and Scandinavia faced top Americans Gene Snow, Tom Hoover, Harlan Thompson and – the real coup – the four-time NHRA champion Don Prudhomme. Thompson, who would become a Santa Pod regular, was the event winner.