Season Preview: 2020 iRacing Rallycross World Championship presented by Yokohama

What a difference a year makes.

The 2020 iRacing Rallycross World Championship presented by Yokohama builds on not only an exciting 2019 season, but also a thrilling six-race All-Star Invitational series that featured the world’s best rallycross drivers fighting IndyCar, NASCAR, and NHRA stars through the spring. After a handful of professional rallycross drivers and teams got their feet wet in the series last year, the new campaign sees an explosion of real-world connections with the introduction of official teams to the championship.

Established iRX outfits like Williams Esports and SET Esports are joined by prestigious rallycross teams like Andretti Autosport and Subaru Motorsports USA, crossover entries like Ed Carpenter Racing and Chad Reed’s CR22 Motorsports, and even action sports trailblazers Nitro Circus in a team lineup that brings some of the biggest names from the All-Star action into professional sim racing. Even defending FIA World Rallycross champions Hansen Motorsport are in on the action, partnering with Williams for their first full-time foray into an iRacing World Championship.

The first two iRX champions are both back to fight for the title, but each carries new colors in 2020; inaugural title winner Mitchell deJong and Bobby Zalenski will carry the Subaru Motorsports USA colors, while Sami-Matti Trogen moves to Williams after clinching last year’s title with SET colors. SET have reloaded with top rookie Jonne Ollikainen, who won last Saturday’s practice race, while Andretti Autosport rookies Vicente Salas and Beau Albert are among the newcomers to watch. Real-world racers Cabot Bigham, Travis PeCoy, and 2020 RX2 champion Henrik Krogstad are this year’s wild cards, and will take on the world’s top sim racers in the battle for the $25,000 championship purse.

The nine-race schedule was designed with input from action sports legend and Nitro Rallycross superstar Travis Pastrana, and eliminates the short layouts from the World Championship for the first time. It kicks off with the first of two rounds at Norway’s Hell Lankebanen, iRacing’s newest rallycross circuit and one of the premier venues in the world for the wheel-to-wheel sport. The only other track to appear twice on the schedule is Sonoma Raceway, which concludes the nine-race campaign on December 5. The season also features a point system that more closely resembles that in World RX, with a maximum of just 29 points on offer per race weekend and only a one-point difference between making the final and missing it.

Alongside the battle for the win and season-ending purse, drivers will have plenty of reason to do battle all season long with a series of contingency prizes. The Yokohama Pole Award recognizes the driver to score the most poles during the season with a custom trophy, while the DirtFish Rookie of the Year Award will include a three-day driving school for the top series newcomer and Marwin Sports will furnish iRX race winners with custom gear.

The full driver roster for the 2020 iRacing Rallycross World Championship presented by Yokohama is as follows:

The iRacing Rallycross World Championship presented by Yokohama opener from Hell Lankebanen will stream live beginning at 2PM ET (18:00 GMT) on the iRacing Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube pages, as well as across a number of industry and competitor Facebook pages. A Finnish-language simulcast will air on YLE Areena and YLE E-urheilu.

The iRacing Rallycross World Championship presented by Yokohama is supported by Yokohama, DirtFish, and Marwin Sports. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

Images via Elliot Roberts/Subaru Motorsports USA (1); Hansen Williams Esports (2); Andretti Autosport (3)

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