[vincesanity82]

Sixteen of the best road/oval racing and rally drivers from across the world will be heading to Wembley Stadium in the United Kingdom. They come for an end-of-season gladiatorial style motorsport event on the 16th of December 2007.
This exciting event, where drivers will race in identical track conditions against each other with a selection of five cars, is expected to draw 80,000 spectators. The parallel tarmac track will be specially constructed in Wembley stadium for the Race of Champions (ROC); it will be the first motorsport event at the new venue.
Now in its 20th year, ROC drivers will gather again to compete in a straight shootout to win the Champion of Champions title as well as the Nations' Cup, a team event.


Team USA pairs 2006 NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet) with the Subaru/Vermont SportsCar driver and 2006 Rally America champion Travis Pastrana. Both American drivers are previous entrants in the ROC, Johnson is a former off-road racer and aided in achieving the Nations' Cup win in 2002 for the American team.

Motorsport.com: News channel

[simple simon]

this is awesome ........ i hope it will be on TV

[vincesanity82]

Originally Posted by simple simon

this is awesome ........ i hope it will be on TV

jimmie johnson and travis pastrana should be interesting..

[DOF_power]

My bet is on rally drivers.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by DOF_power

My bet is on rally drivers.

previous experience?

[DOF_power]

All but 2 editions were won by rally drivers.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by DOF_power

All but 2 editions were won by rally drivers.

point made! quite well, I'd have to say...

[Racer Duck]

so how does the Johnson-Pastrana team stack up? are they even in the top 5?

[DOF_power]

Jimmie Johnson alongside Jeff Gordon and Colin Edwards won the team/Nations Cup in 2002.
And last year the Nations' Cup was won by Finland, with Heikki Kovalainen winning over United States' Travis Pastrana on the final round.
Pastrana drove all the rounds for the US team last year, after both Jimmie Johnson and his replacement, Scott Speed, had to withdraw from competing due to injuries.
Both Johnson and Pastrana have rally/off-road experience witch could/should help.

[Racer Duck]

I guess that means they may not be favored, but are certainly contenders. Sounds like Pastrana could be a favorite, though.

[Racer Duck]

I just looked at the teams, and, if DOF is right, Team Norway (Henning Solberg and Peter Solberg) may have the upper hand going in as both drivers are from rally.

On the other hand, both Team Germany (Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel, both F1 drivers) and Team Scandinavia (Tom Kristensen and Mattias Ekstrom, both Touring Car Drivers) are not rally drivers, which would seem to place them at the bottom of the eight team championship.

Now the fly in the ointment:

Team Scandinavia took home the team title in 2005 and Ekstrom was the 2006 ROC Champ.

AND

Team Finland (Heikki Kovalainen and Marcus Gronholm) is the defending team champions plus Marcus is the 2002 ROC Champ and either finalist or semi-finalist every year since except 2006.

Handicapping this event could prove exasperating...

oh well, here's a look at one of the cars that'll be competing.


That's the World's best female rally driver Michele Mouton and IMP President Fredrik Johnsson doing the first test at Wembley in the Aston Martin V8 Rally.

What I didn't realize until I checked it out at The Race Of Champions website is that the event is held inside the new Wembley Stadium. (WARNING: get ready to CRANK IT UP!) It's really cool to see the course being built.

Here's a map of the course.

[DOF_power]

The wheel drivers with a chane are Kovalainen and Schumacher. Kovalainen and

The thing that I don't like is that there are rally cars, touring cars, GTs and the ROC buggy but no open-wheel/formula car.