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Nitrocross Calgary motion heats up this weekend at GMC Stadium.
However with unseasonably heat climate within the forecast affecting the unique dates, organizers have opted to let the racing machines idle for just a few days.
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The racing is now set for Sunday — from 4:55 p.m. to 9 p.m. — moved from the scheduled Friday and Saturday set-up to accommodate the ice-track construct, which has been impacted by the present rise in temperatures.
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“Nitrocross has been getting ready to ship a world-class racing expertise in Calgary, pushing the boundaries on ice,” mentioned Nitrocross in an announcement Tuesday to announce the shift from a two-date present to a one-day journey. “To make sure the absolute best circumstances for our racers and a spectacle for our followers, now we have made the choice to reschedule the occasion.”
Regardless, Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone is aware of you’ll fall in love with the brand new class of racing machines within the return of Nitrocross Calgary.
They’re revved-up Volkswagen Beetles or — as they’re identified on the Nitro Circus circuit — ‘Baja Bugs.’
Eat your coronary heart out, Herbie.
“Essentially the most enjoyable you’ll be able to have along with your garments on,” mentioned Cerrone, of driving the Baja Bugs. “It jogs my memory of a loopy bumper-car expertise, you recognize.
“You’re racing 1960, 1970 heavy Volkswagen Beetles. And I wish to name them ‘Battle Bugs,’ since we slam into one another with them on a regular basis. However It’s only a nostalgic enjoyable factor to do.”
And to look at, as effectively.
Calgarians can do exactly that Sunday when Nitrocross is again for a second yr at Stampede Park.
“It’s sort of the gang favorite — it’s just like the novelty race occurring,” Cerrone mentioned. “Followers like to see the bugs on the market — it’s a nostalgic cool expertise, and it’s one thing they will really feel like they will get in and do.”
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The Calgary cease of Nitrocross — the one one in Canada this yr and the one monitor to characteristic ice — is the eighth of 10 on the season schedule, which winds up with Rounds 9 and 10 in Las Vegas in March, when champions are topped.
Crowds at GMC Stadium reached greater than 20,000 in 2023, and organizers expect a lot the identical in the way in which of followers this weekend.
Irrespective of, as a result of whomever is available is certain to take pleasure in ‘Automobiles That Fly. Tracks That Thrill’ — the tagline for Nitrocross.
“Calgary nonetheless takes the cake — they’re the craziest followers,” mentioned Jamaican driver Fraser McConnell, who was the E Class Battle Brackets winner final February at GMC Stadium. “I can’t wait to return.”
Nitrocross, previously often known as Nitro Rallycross, is the last word fusion of short-form competitors and motion sports activities.
Based in 2018 by world icon Travis Pastrana and the limit-pushers of Nitro Circus, Nitrocross is a disruptive motorsport property that options purpose-built programs with big jumps and banked turns for intense pulse-pounding motion.
In Calgary, ice and snow obstacles — climate allowing — provide added enhancements, making for added drama in an occasion that’s already fraught with motion, because of 1,000-horsepower spec automobiles — placing every part within the palms and ft of the drivers — topping 160 km/h and negotiating tight turns, sky-high jumps and fierce competitors.
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Nitrocross affords thrill-loving followers the high-adrenaline pleasure and electrifying motion of Group E class, that includes essentially the most explosive electrical race automotive ever constructed. Additionally a part of the present are the youthful era drivers, climbing into automobiles in NEXT, Nitrocross’s developmental class.
After which there’s the Baja Bugs.
“At one time in everybody’s life, your loopy Uncle Larry — or somebody you knew — owned a Volkswagen,” Cerrone mentioned. “You possibly can bear in mind these occasions. They’re completely different than the NEXT automobiles and the Group E Class — they’re a bit of bit out of individuals’s grasp, as a result of they couldn’t truly simply get in a type of automobiles and race them. So the bugs are literally one thing everybody can race.”
Seven complete drivers — all American — have been doing the racing of Nitrocross’s Baja Bugs class in its first marketing campaign.
American Ryan Rodriguez leads the pack with 1,191 factors.
Cerrone, himself a 40-year-old UFC Corridor-of-Famer, has 1,114 factors, hoping to make up floor on Rodriguez and others by navigating the slick circumstances of GMC Stadium.
“By no means by no means raced on ice earlier than — this shall be a primary for me,” Cerrone mentioned. “However I adore it. I’ll race any day in any circumstances … I don’t care. However I don’t know what to anticipate. I hear it’s like Velcro — that the studded tires actually provide you with lots of traction.”
Off the monitor, it’s a enjoyable competition atmosphere round GMC Stadium, with dwell music and leisure, interactive video games and distant management automotive racing for patrons.
Followers also can rise up shut and private with the automobiles and their drivers because of entry to the paddocks within the Nutrien Western Occasion Centre subsequent door.
“My complete profession I’ve been nothing however a thrill-seeker,” added Cerrone. “If it makes your butthole pucker, I’m going to go attempt to do it.
“These Baja Bugs? They’re time.”
tsaelhof@postmedia.com
http://www.x.com/ToddSaelhofPM
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