Congrats to WRC's Sebastian Loeb!

[Pennyman]

Well, the race for the championship ended in Rally Japan last weekend, and due to consistant 1st place finishes this season, the frenchman Sebastian Loeb of Citroen clinched the Championship for the second year in a row. Now it's a race for 2nd and 3rd.

Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm won the rally weekend when Subaru's Petter Solberg hit a massive rock, shattering this front suspension and dropping him from first for the rally weekend.

[240ZX]

Sebastian is so level headed! Great PR guy! And......really fast! I just love watching the WRC. I think these guys are some of the best drivers in the world....and god bless their navigators. I was watching the show and they filmed an oriental guy, from one of the supporting companies, getting a ride from one of the racers....funny as hell watching the expressions on the oriental's face. The guy looked half scared to death most of the time. At the end of his ride he was, of course, thrilled beyond words. WRC rocks!!!

[malder]

I felt sorry for Petter. That rally was his the entire weekend. If he drove like he did in Japan maybe Loeb would have some competition!!

[jmanz6]

I wish Speed Channel would broadcast the WRC races at a better time. I used to watch when it was on at 10 EST, but now it's 11 EST to make room for more stupid NASCAR programs. It sucks the way Speed Channel is going since Fox bought them. It's NASCAR everything... WRC is very interesting to watch, and entertaining. I guess that is one more reason to get TiVo...

[malder]

You beat me to the punch. I was going to say that I watch it on Tivo, so I can't really relate! You can also ussually download the rallies via bittorrent. Check torrentspy.com or mininova.com and search for WRC. The quality isn't the best, but it's useful if you miss a rally!

[Pennyman]

Yeah, I liked the channel better when it was "speedvision" now I swear you can watch 3 nascar shows in a row, then after another hour or two, they re-play the same three again! FAIL. They need to get on top of the grassroots and scca/nasa racing in the US.

That rock that Petter hit was HUGE. They showed a shot of the broken brake rotor halves next to the rock, it was very large.

Did you happen to notice that all the Rally cars had a new "tribute" sticker on the rear wing showing a Peugeot helmet with the word "Beef" across it? It's a tribute to Marko Martin's late co-driver who died last month.

[malder]

I saw it. That was quite tragic. Not that it makes it any better, but that was the first fatality in WRC in 12 years! That certainly says something about the sport's focus on safety. If you've ever been to a local rally, then you know that they put a lot of focus on the safety of everyone invlolved. So sad about Park though. From my side of the TV he always seemed to be everything they made him out to be. Certainly a great loss for the sport. :sleepy:

[PrOxLaMuS©]

such a shame with "Beef".. I was absolutly stunned when I was watching it, I could not believe it.

I also felt soo bad for Solberg.. during an interview he just broke down crying and walked away from the camera.. all that hard work.. and a stupid rock threw it all away.. sad day..

but good job.. Mr. Perfect ... oops i mean LOEB.. haha

[Pennyman]

I remember hearing that during the indoor super-special stage in Wales, the imfamous "Stig" from Top Gear showed up to drive around and entertain the crowd.

Also, rally France is at the end of this month, and when Loeb shows up, they're all gonna go nuts!