5Nations BRX challenged by carwow to a drag race!
What a day! It was a fantastic outing for three of our 5 Nations British Rallycross Championship contenders when we visited Mat Watson and the carwow team for a very special drag race that you can see here.
Here’s what happened behind the scenes!
Carwow 5 Nations BRX Drag Race - Behind The Scenes
Here’s the lowdown on the 5NationsBRX cars in the carwow drag race:
Steve Harris’ Ford RS200 Evolution
Engine mid-engine BDTE 4WD 2.1
Power in hp/ps 750
Torque in Nm 850
Gearbox and drivetrain: 5 speed manual 4 WD mid-engine front gearbox
Weight in KG 1150
Price/value £400k
The Ford RS200 mid-engined purpose-built rally-supercar was produced between 1984 and 1986 – only 200 cars were ever produced, the minimum number of road cars needed to be produced for World Rally Championship Group B rally homologation. Of those, 20 were produced in the Evolution specification. A ban of Group B competition in rally led to rallycross becoming their home. Martin Schanche took the 1991 European Rallycross Championship in his RS200.
Steve’s RS200 is ultra-special. He bought it as an unfinished project, and it had never been on the road. The mirrors and rear lights were still in boxes. LD Motorsport upgraded it. Julian Godfrey Engineering rebuilt and upgraded the engine. The electronics were modernised to fly by wire, and other upgrades include the eight shock absorbers (two per corner), wishbones, driveshafts and hubs.
Steve has driven in just about every format in the British Rallycross Championship. In addition to the RS200 in Group B / 4WD Retro, he’s driven the Suzuki front wheel drive, the RX150 rear wheel drive buggy and a Ford Focus, Citroen C4 and Citroen DS3 in the top Supercar class. He is the reigning champion in Retro Rallycross Group B/4WD.
Ollie O’Donovan’s Ford Fiesta
Engine Ford Cosworth
Power in hp/ps 535
Torque in Nm 550 foot pounds
Gearbox and drivetrain Sellhome Swedish
Weight in KG: 1200
Price/value £150k
Ollie O’Donovan is vastly experienced in both rallycross and rallying. A multiple race winner, Ollie won the MSA British Rallycross Championship in 2007 driving the ex Will Gollop Peugeot 306 Supercar. He is a regular Euro RX and World RX Championship driver alongside his British campaigns. He was vice-champion in 2016 and 2018, following a three-way final round decider.
More on RX Racing here.
Oli Bennett’s Mini
Engine - Pipo Custom WRX engine
Power in hp/ps 600+
Torque in Nm 1,000 Nm
Gearbox and drivetrain: Sadev ST4-917 transverse gearbox with centre diff. Six speed sequential gearbox. Front and rear Sadev differentials, four-wheel drive.
Weight in KG 1,300Kg with driver
Price/value £600K
Oli Bennett is an British up and coming rallycross star. He made his debut in the British Rallycross Championship in 2016 racing an ex-OMSE Ford Fiesta. Tackling a full season in 2017 he finished on the podium in 7 out of 9 races and despite scoring the most points that season, narrowly missed out on the overall title due to the dropped point system.
Oli made his World RX debut at Lydden Hill that and at the end of 2017 his XITE Racing team built a rallycross spec BMW MINI Cooper Supercar to compete in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, debuting it in the first round of the British Rallycross season at Silverstone.
2018 was spent developing the Mini in World RX before Oli made his Americas Rallycross debut, narrowly missing out on the semi-finals in his three appearances. At the end of 2018 Oli made his Gymkhana GRiD debut in Cape Town, South Africa. An ultra-competitive, popular driver with buckets of potential, Oli is also a social media king – so the best place to find out more is on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
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