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LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Aug. 5, 2013) – Back-to-back medals
in Los Angeles this weekend cemented Tanner Foust’s status as the driver with
the most rally car medals in X Games history. He has stood on every step of
the podium in X Games competition this year.
“It has been an amazing run at X Games,” said
Foust. “To earn three medals in four international races with the
Rockstar Energy Drink Ford Fiesta ST is something the whole team should be
proud of.”
Gold in Gymkhana GRID competition Saturday and silver in X
Games Rallycross a day later brings the driver’s medal tally to nine. He is
the most consistent rally car medalist at X Games and one of only two to take
part in every X Games race since four-wheel motorsport debuted at the
high-profile action sport event in 2006.
“It’s great to battle back to the podium after such a
tough qualifying session,” said Foust. “Earning a medal at X Games
is like no other podium finish and it is awesome to do it here at home with
such enthusiastic fans.”
After a flat tire in qualifying put him in a mid-pack 10th
on the leaderboard at the start of the day, Foust battled door-to-door in the
most exciting heat race of the contest to get ahead of European Rallycross
Championship leader Timur Timerzyanov and advance directly to the main event.
The packed hometown crowd went wild. The driver calls
Southern California home and has competed in front of more than a dozen
sell-out crowds at Irwindale during his career. “The fans here are
always awesome,” said Foust. “There’s such high energy and they’re
so loud they really shake the place.”
In the Final, Foust was able to stay out of trouble as
rival drivers clashed heading into a tricky hairpin turn. He gave chase to
Ford teammate Toomas “Topi” Heikkinen and crossed the line in
second to earn his ninth career X Games medal.
A day earlier, an impressive show of speed and car control
won Foust his first medal of the weekend — gold — in the debut X Games
Gymkhana GRID contest. “Gymkhana GRID was chill; it was like a
bunch of friends having fun with cars,” said Foust. “Sure, we were
competing, but there wasn’t the championship stress.”
Foust was unbeatable as he battled through an elimination
ladder Saturday evening on mirrored courses inspired by Ken Block’s series of
online Gymkhana videos.
Enthusiastic fans roared as drivers in the eight-car field
raced head-to-head against the clock while executing a series of technical
features including a 540 drift through a tight shipping container, a figure
eight and a tire-smoking 720 spin around a barrel. Foust also won the
first Ken Block Invitational Gymkhana GRID event at Irwindale in 2010.
Rallycross is a blend of circuit racing, off-road racing
and rally competition. As many as 10 drivers line up to start at once,
piloting high-horsepower compact cars through race traffic over a challenging
short course that features jumps, unbanked turns, hills and transitions
between pavement and gravel.
The three-time defending U.S. rallycross champion and a
contender in the European Rallycross Championship, Foust scored his first
Global Rallycross Championship podium result of 2013 in Munich when he won a
bronze medal at X Games.
X Games Los Angeles was the final stop in an international
action sports tour that also included events in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, and
Munich. Next weekend, Foust will compete in the seventh round of the Global
Rallycross Championship at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Foust is running an ambitious international campaign in
2013 that includes select European Rallycross Championship rounds, the
International X Games events and the Global Rallycross Championship. He won
the opening event of this year’s European Rallycross Championship in the
U.K., and returned to the top of the podium in Finland.
ABOUT TANNER FOUST:
Tanner Foust is a versatile and multi-talented driver
known for his supreme car control and a proven track record of podium
placements, national championships and world records. He is a three-time U.S.
rallycross champion (2012, 2011, 2010) who has also won four X Games gold
medals for rally (2013, 2010, 2007), and two Formula Drift championships
(2008, 2007).
He has also held multiple world records including for last
summer’s astonishing Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare, when he drove a car through
a 66-foot loop-the-loop. He also scored the indoor speed record for TV’s Top
Gear USA, and set a distance jump record with Hot Wheels when he made a 332′
ramp-to-ramp leap in a truck at the Indy 500.
His varied race experience includes multiple years of open
wheel competition, the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, rally racing, various
types of sports car racing and the SCORE Baja. He has represented the USA in
the annual Race of Champions three times, teaming with NASCAR star Carl
Edwards in 2008, Travis Pastrana in 2009, and Mick Doohan in 2010.
A year after making his overseas debut in the European
Rallycross Championship in 2010 with a select campaign, Foust became the
first American driver to win a round of that championship and finished both
2011 and 2012 ranked in the top three. The sport was first introduced to the
United States in 2010, and Foust has swept the domestic championship titles
since then.
When he isn’t racing, the professional driver also
performs in films and on television. He is an on-air host for the U.S.
version of the seminal BBC auto show Top Gear, produced by BBC Worldwide
Productions and airing on the HISTORY channel. The second season of his
YouTube documentary series, Life in the Foust Lane, is on now with new
episodes uploaded every other Thursday to http://www.youtube.com/RockstarEvents.
Foust is also one of the stars of Ford Racing’s Octane
Academy, airing its second season in 2013, and he handles stunt driving in
numerous popular films, TV shows and commercials. He is featured as a stunt
driver in the upcoming Need 4 Speed film, as well as other major releases
including the Bourne Legacy, Bourne Ultimatum, Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift,
Dukes of Hazzard, Red Dawn and Iron Man 2 movies.
TANNER FOUST’S RALLYCROSS PROGRAM IS MADE POSSIBLE BY:
Rockstar Energy Drink (www.RockstarEnergy.com); Ford
Racing (www.ford.com); ENEOS Motor Oil (www.eneos.us); Motegi Racing
(www.motegiracing.com), ODYSSEY Battery (www.odysseybattery.com); Illest
(www.illestbrand.com); and Horizon Hobby (www.horizonhobby.com) MORE INFORMATION: www.tannerfoust.com To arrange interviews, contact Fred Chang from Tanner Foust’s management team. E-mail: fred@beyondmg.com Office: 949.660.7972 x. 29 EFAX: 949.480.0638 Mobile: 714.623.1995 www.beyondmg.com |
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