2019 Rallycross Season Wrap-Up

The Nebraska Region SCCA Rallycross program finished out the 2019 season strong, albeit some challenging conditions for the last event!  Throughout the year, the program enjoyed strong steady turnout, a great variety of course designs, and a community that continues to build around the competitors and workers.  It's really been rewarding for me to be part of the great experiences shared by everyone connected to this program, so here's a "Thank You" to everyone involved this year!

For the final event of the season, Timmy Milliman took on course design for the first time.  On a dry and windy Saturday, they set up a great course that challenged drivers with tight turns and rewarded them with a few nice flowing sections to open up the taps on their cars.  It really would've been a fantastic course to finish the season on.  However, Mother Nature had different plans!

Mid-day Saturday, snow that was originally forecast to dip south of the area creeped north and dropped about an inch of blustery snow on I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, NE.  With temperatures in the teens on Sunday, the fresh powder made for tricky conditions in a course that demanded grip and precision.  Still, 14 Competitors showed up to try their hand at it for the last Points Event of the season.  Typically, conditions are dry enough to get away with using simple All-Season tires, but the snow and mud turned these into slicks and forced competitors to a crawl through much of the course.  Those with Snow Tires or Rally Tires didn't fare much better!

As the day progressed and the sun came out to start warming things up, things were looking even trickier!  Typically, the course gets faster as the day goes on, but with snow turning to slush and mud turning to soup, times dropped as conditions worsened.  Competitors put up a valiant effort to get through the course, but at the lunch break, it was decided to halt competition and settle on the 5 runs of times that we had accumulated in the morning runs as the final times.

After our lunch break, we kept the cones out there and allowed "Fun Runs" to those eager to take part in the Slip-N-Slide conditions before calling it a day.  While some packed up for the day, a handful of drivers had a ball getting sideways through the course.  We even had a few spectators grab helmets and ride along for the roller-coaster ride through the mud and snow!  Whatever blues we had about stopping competition early were vanquished by the fun we had out there before calling it a day.

At the end of the day, this event capped off a great season of competition and showcased the resilience of our competitors seen all year.  From rescheduled events to tough weather and site conditions, this program continued to grow and flourish.  We had a lot of great close competition this year and got some good exposure with spectators showing up to each event to watch and ride along.  Of our 8 Points Events this season, we only managed to hold 7 of them... and two of those were cut short due to weather.  Even without being able to secure alternate competition sites this year, we still made everything work and ended up with a great season.  I'm really happy with how the NRSCCA Rallycross program continues to grow and improve!