Last Cars Reviews Blog: racing news

Confirmation of Travis Pastrana's recent hip and ankle injury comes today in a press release announcing he'll be replaced in this weekend's Race of Champions by fellow Rally America driver Tanner Foust.

After yesterday's report of Travis Pastrana's injury, we were worried about what would happen to his seat in this weekend's Race of Champions if it was true. It was true and now, the worry is over, folks: Team America will still be properly represented. Tanner Foust, who makes a living racing on the Rally America circuit, stunt driving in films and playing co-star in the potentially upcoming Top Gear USA TV show, will be assuming Travis Pastrana's seat. Tanner will be working alongside Carl Edwards, a NASCAR driver currently working for ROUSH Fenway Racing. We've got a damn good idea who'll be making the lefts. Full press release from OverAmerica below:

Tanner Foust To Team With Carl Edwards For Team USA At Race Of Champions In London

Foust Replaces Injured Travis Pastrana For This Weekend's Race
At Wembley Stadium

December 10th, 2008, London, UK— Tanner Foust was picked today as a last minute alternate to Travis Pastrana for the all-star Race of Champions at Wembley Stadium in London, England this coming weekend. Pastrana was injured this week in California. The Race of Champions pits the world's fastest drivers from the sport's top race series including Formula One, World Rally Championship, and Touring Car Racing. Featured drivers this year include championship winners, Sebastien Loeb, Michael Schumacher and Mattias Ekstrom.

Rockstar Energy Drink driver Tanner Foust joins NASCAR phenom Carl Edwards to represent Team USA in the ROC Nations Cup. Tanner Foust is the 2008 and 2007 US Formula Drift champion and also a championship winning rally driver who took the gold medal in the 2007 X Games Rally and silver behind Pastrana in this year's X Games. Foust is also an on-air TV host currently presenting Speed TV's Supercars Exposed and one of the three hosts for the coming US version of BBC's Top Gear.

Tanner is ecstatic about participating and said "The investigation will reveal I had nothing to with Travis' injuries and of course I wish him a speedy recovery. More seriously though, I'm honored to have this opportunity to represent the USA on the world stage racing against guys who are heroes to me."

The Race of Champions pits the best race drivers in the world against each other in head-to-head races on a tarmac course inside Wembley Stadium. The drivers race various identical cars including, for this year,KTM X-Bows, Ford Focus WRC cars and Abarth Assetto Corsas. The winner of the Race of Champions will be crowned Champion of Champions. The event is anticipated to have fifty thousand plus live spectators and millions of TV viewers watching the worldwide broadcast of the event. This is the twenty first year of the Race of Champions. ROC will air on Discovery HD early in the New Year.

It was a bad weekend for the folks at Spoon Sports. The same people who brought you the Spoon NSX-R GT (yes, the same one we reviewed earlier this week) managed to place a JDM Honda RSX/Integra in the stands of Infineon Raceway during a NASA race. No one appears to have been hurt, but the driver had to be cut out of his Honda touring car. From reports, the Spoon Sports Honda hit the grass berm in the runoff area in turn 1 before being launched by momentum over the fence and into the grandstands. It apparently landed within a few rows of a group of people there to watch the race. A report from MadCat360 in the NASAFormus below:

Did anyone see it? I caught the tail end of it from the grand stands. What I guess happened was the car had some sort of problem (suspension? Tire?) and went spearing off at turn 1. It hit the grass berm there on the outside runoff and launched into the fence just below the score tower, didn't stop and landed in the center stands there, nearly hitting a bunch of people.
I heard the driver was all right but they had to tear apart the car to get him out. No spectators were hurt that I could see, though the car's nose hit just one row down from one person, maybe about 3 feet.

We got lucky today. That crash could have easily killed 5 people. There really needs to be a tire wall there, which I think they put up when NASCAR race there. Why don't they put any walls up for club races? Why aren't they permanent anyway?

I'm going to send a letter to Infineon alerting them of the safety situation there and I suggest you do the same. It would just be the easiest thing to put a permanent ARMCO barrier there with some tires, and have it ready for the 2009 season start. Maybe they could start putting some gravel traps in as well. It's bothersome to haul cars out, but those traps save lots of lives and cars as well.

I'm normally pretty reserved about being frightened in motorsports, but that crash really made me shocked at how little there really is to stop the cars from going into the stands there. It's just a very shallow berm and a chain link fence, and if that couldn't stop a Honda touring car from going into the stands at highway speed, then it definitely won't stop a Grand Am car, or an Indy Car.

[Source: NASA Forums]

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Tanner Foust To Replace Travis Pastrana In ROC After Recent Injury [Racing News]

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