Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Pre-Race Notes – Thompson, Conn.
Round 3 & 4 of 12 in the 2017 Red Bull Global Rallycross Season
DATE:
Saturday – Sunday, June 3-4, 2017
FINALS BROADCAST:
NBC will air coverage of the finals beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET Saturday & Sunday, June 3 & 4
ENTRY:
No. 14 M-Sport Fiesta for Austin Dyne
COMPETITION DETAILS:
Wheel-to-wheel action on dirt, asphalt and a signature 70-foot tabletop jump
NEWS & NOTES:
AUSTIN DYNE ON ROUND 3 & 4 IN THOMPSON
“I’m just stoked for another weekend of racing. I feel a really good chemistry with the team and the track looks like a lot of fun. Part of the track is on an oval but we go backwards so that will be really weird as I’ve done a lot of oval racing in NASCAR stuff. We run on the road course, outside the oval to so it’s kind of a mix of track.”
AUSTIN DYNE REWIND ON ROUND 2 IN LOUISVILLE
“Louisville was a really good weekend for us overall. After working out some stuff through practice and qualifying, the car was really good. We won that heat race and just got unlucky in the final. We were P4 and about to take the joker but were hit pretty hard the corner before and lost a lot of time on ETA out of the joker. We definitely would have been on the podium if that didn’t happen.”
COURSE DETAILS
Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park (TSMP) will host the first doubleheader of the season, as well as the first track in Red Bull GRC history to utilize elements of both a permanent oval and road course at the same time—a testament to the versatility of rallycross cars. The track is 0.895 miles with 9 turns and the Joker Lap is 0.763 miles, located between Turns 7-9. Pavement makes up 64.6 percent of the lap and dirt makes up 35.4. Drivers will be greeted with an immediate right-hander off the start line and a quick move into the dirt section and jump, with dirt continuing on for a significant portion of the course. The dirt portion is what will lead drivers out of the oval and into the road course, with a hard right-hander carrying them into the road racing segment of the track. The Joker Lap, meanwhile, may be one of the most significant shortcuts of the year. Eliminating two short straightaways and one of the sharpest curves on the course, a driver at the back of a close field should easily be able to leapfrog multiple other cars. If anyone saves it for the final lap while running fifth or sixth, it just might be the difference between missing the podium by a wide margin and taking the victory.
ABOUT AUSTIN DYNE
Dyne, a native of Los Angeles, California, got his start in racing in karting at the age of 15, progressed to the Skip Barber Regional series in 2010 and raced late model stock cars at Irwindale Speedway in 2011. He moved up to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West, where he was the Rookie of the Year in 2012, and competed in the East division in 2013. Also in 2013, he made his move to Red Bull Global Rallycross in the GRC Lites class and earned a season-best second place at Bristol. He moved up to Supercar with Barracuda Racing in 2014 then competed for Bryan Herta Rallysport in 2015 where he earned his first podium (Daytona) and first pole (Barbados). For 2016, he started his own team — AD Racing — and finished a career-high eighth in points as well as added a second car to his team at Phoenix.
ABOUT RED BULL GLOBAL RALLYCROSS
The 2017 Red Bull Global Rallycross season will kick off with a brand new event at Memphis International Raceway on Friday, April 28 and Saturday, April 29. The new event will represent the first of 12 rounds on this year’s championship schedule. For more information visit www.redbullglobalrallycross.com, or follow Red Bull GRC on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @GRCseries.
WHERE TO WATCH RED BULL GRC
NBC and NBCSN will combine to produce more than 20 telecasts of the Red Bull GRC Supercar and GRC Lites series, and all events will be live streamed on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app – NBC Sports Group’s live streaming platforms for desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs. See above for broadcast times for this event.