The Ken Block Invitational

Could be interesting: Already happened....Please move along.

Link:

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20101203/MOTORSPORTS/101209949

Wasn't there something about a Ken Block video on the GRM board a while back?

I think it happened already.

Last night.

Yep.....It's over.

Ken Block didn't win.

I looked for some youtube videos and it was just a drifting competition from the look of it, not all that exciting.

Congrads to Tanner for winning. I hope that the other Top Gear hosts make fun of him for this silly sideways-baseball-cap mug shot:

Travis_K wrote: I looked for some youtube videos and it was just a drifting competition from the look of it, not all that exciting.

It was timed and head to head with mirror image courses. There were penalties for hitting obstacles, going off course, and not "drifting" corners. Tanner seems to have beat Ken based on his ability to drift just enough to qualify in the corners where it hurt and very precisely in the corners where it helped. Ken had a tendency to go into corners backwards like his videos where Tanner steered into the corner, spun the butt around, and took off. The event was amusing enough to watch. Editing out the dead times and adding some exciting filler segments would make it more fit for TV.

I caught the last few runs, and thought it was pretty boring really. The lack of professional commentating and the douchebaggery of the on-site public address guy who was being piped into the broadcast. I was truly not amused when the 2WD winner continued his winner's tire-melting burnout straight through what looked like a pretty crowded hot pits.

In reply to pigeon:

Caught that burnout too. It looked like a lot of what he went through was press. Did you notice that the crowd actually swarmed his car as he smoked his way through? Nuts.

i </3 tanner foust

LOL at the AWD Festiva. Idk why but people have such a hard time with fiesta/festiva. They are different models people!!

In reply to Teqnyck:

Or the Ford "Festia."

Gymkhana is to Japan what autocross is to the US, a beginner's motorsport. It doesn't make for very entertaining TV, but it is a low-risk, high-fun way to pick up some driving skills and have fun with your car before moving on to another sport. What Ken Block has done here was make a ProSolo version of gymkhana (good) and then tried to package it up for the drifting crowd (bad). I'd like to try gymkhana if it is ever offered up here by one of the local sports car clubs but I don't see it catching on as a spectator sport like drifting. The crowd was half-asleep throughout the whole thing.

I really would have loved to see some ProSolo guys given a shot to run along with them. McKee, Kiesel, etc. are socal, RWD, and fast as stink.

I liked seeing the guy in the street driven wrx make it into the competition. Of course he was going to get creamed by foust but I love underdogs.