Travis Pastrana vs Ken Block Legendary RallyCross Battle!

...practically lives here, actually, the way he's been building this track. What I have to say, it's great to see Ken back. He had, you know, some challenges with his car, and, you know, physically he had his back sore last year, so he had to kind of pull out of this before we got started. But looking, like, he's got it back, really. I mean, he's looking good this weekend. He never really got on with the focus, you know, this has got the full focus running. Give it a look at that launch. So, Travis, I spoke to Travis this morning. He's been struggling with the launch on the Subaru. Subaru have got great launches this year. They've struggled with that in the past. But he said, it's like launching the Space Shuttle. He said, there's so much stuff to look at. Do this, do that, get the RPM. He said, bring the bike up. They've then got a gauge, which is telling you how much bike you've got on the clutch. You're trying to keep it all in one place. He said, you can't do it. Did Ken just fake him out by going for the Joker at the same time? That was brilliant. And I'll tell you, I'll bet you any money, David Mansfield was behind that. So that's Ken Block's spotter, and that's a very clever call from Mansfield, or Misery, as he's sometimes known in the World Championship. That's one of his nicknames. He's a very clever guy with the spotter. And having seen everybody joker if they lose the start, he sent Block to the Joker straight away. And that basically kills Pastrana's chance of tactics. He's going to have to pass him on track test. I think Pastrana stands a pretty good chance right now of passing him, because he's looking inside on every turn. He's sticking his nose in there. Oh, Block swinging it a little bit wide. We've seen that a lot on these two heats. I think maybe they're coming off that blue group and into some dust that wasn't there. That's dry, of course, isn't it? We're on to the third run now. Remember, every run's going to dry out more. I wonder why we see Pastrana take an alternate line, because remember, they've got the low tabletop. So if he feels he can't pass Block on track on the next lap, he may take the low line. They're both going to go high here. So this is the first time we're going to see two cars in close proximity over the massive jump. Here we go. Oh, Block really schooled Travis through those two turns there and put a little bit of a gap on him. So Travis is going to have to push again hard. Yeah, Block's exited him a little bit on this last lap, definitely. The gap was just 0.75 at the end of this previous lap over the tabletop jump on the brakes. The guy's saying it's super close here. You've got to get on the brakes and potentially on the handbrake, chuck the car sideways way before the apex and try and scrub the speed off. Well, the question here is we've seen these two laps. What can Travis do on this last lap to find a way around Ken Block? Because Ken's going to defend. He is. Now, Travis has another choice, of course. This is all based on time. So if he tries to pass Ken and fails, he could lose a second or a second and a half. There is an argument here. Don't try. So, you know, this is about time. If these two guys are both flying, his spotter might even be on the radio saying there's no point trying to pass him. Follow him home. Keep it clean. Stop the clocks as fast as you can. See if you can get in that top two positions. Both these guys potentially, if this was a great time test, could book a slot in the final tomorrow. Here we go. Block's over. Pastrana's over. Pastrana got a little bit higher on the bank, trying to square that one off. So he gets a little, a little kind of chase there on Ken. But maybe the tactic is, as you said, just stay behind him. Don't try to do anything foolish. And he's gained on him. You know, he's gained on him. He's kept it tight. He's following him home. They've got one corner to go. He could potentially make a pass down here. This is a good place for a pass. I think there's a block pass and Pastrana's gone for it. Exactly what I said. He's got a block pass and he's got him. Epic move. Travis Pastrana, that's the perfect place for it because the transition works in your favor. And Pastrana's done it in the last corner test. Second to last corner. Great pass. I was going to say, I don't know if anybody can ever tell Travis Pastrana not to pass on a race course. But that was, that was, that was magical. You could see from the rear shot that he moved across to the left. Now you can then fling the car right and left. What he's done instead is he's laid off the brake for half a second longer. He's run it deep. So yes, he's compromised his own line a tiny bit. But the block pass he pushes. Ken Block, ironically, wide. It's a block pass on block. Great move. Oh, there we go. And Pete too. That's, that's good for him. Remember, the top two from today in points transfer immediately through to the final tomorrow. If he hadn't got Ken at that last corner, Ken potentially was ahead of him at that point. Ken might have gone quicker than Kevin Hansen because Ken's definitely lost time in the last turn where Pastrana's appeared up his inside. So, you know, good move by Travis. It's great move by Ken. I mean, I love that. The fact that he kind of looked like he was going to go take the jump like everybody has and all of a sudden, last minute, Ken fakes it, takes the Joker and Travis is stuck behind him. Yeah, very clever tactics from their Joker team. You know, these guys look at a lot of data to try and figure it out. There's the last corner on the second to last lap. Travis will have sinned there. Do you know what? Maybe there's an opportunity on the next lap. So, he was close, wasn't he, at this point? So, had the spotters been on set, just chase him down, keep calm, chase the clock and then he's close enough. Now, Tess, having had that calm lap to go, I'm going to have a go. And that was the thing, when you saw him come over the jump, this one on the third lap, Travis started to catch up to Ken when they went into the big bank turn. He changed his line a little and then I think he knew he's within striking distance. Here you said it. Opens up the lock, waits off the brake, gets deep into the contact. Ken, in fact, of course, doesn't know Travis is coming and has turned into Travis effectively. Uses the berm on the outside to light the throttle up early. Job done. So, if you're in race control right now, there was contact. It's fair. Pastrana was all the way through and some before Bloch turned in. So, Ken will be annoyed that he didn't defend more on the run into that left-hander and that is a great path by Pastrana. And also bodes well for Travis Pastrana, who's looking fierce in that Subaru this year. 600 horsepower. So, the turbo's in there. Everything gets super hot and there's a point at which they would want to abort the start. So, maybe they held the lights a bit too long there and we're going to get a restart on that one. So, at least we can take a look at the lineup and, of course, we're missing someone, Tess. Well, we're missing Scott Speed. That blank blue rectangle at the top there. Scott Speed, unfortunately, yesterday, he jumped something a little bit long, landed flat and has come out with a back injury. So, has had to withdraw from competition today. But let's focus on that front row. Timmy Hansen, obviously, amazing last year. Ken Block didn't get to race last year because his equipment just wasn't ready. Yeah, the Ford Focus RSRX, which was the previous car, it just couldn't do the big jump. It had a certain suspension geometry which meant he couldn't make that gap. Now, Ken had a bit of a sore back at the time. He had a lot of commitments coming up. He was competing in America's Rallycross. He was heading across to the UK for an event and he had to withdraw. So, this year, the Fiesta that he's back in, it's a chassis he loves and it's got the Focus engine and transmission and it's a weapon. It's so fast, that car. And Ken nearly went through yesterday, didn't he? If it wasn't for Travis getting in. So close. And then, Timmy Hansen in that Red Bull Peugeot there on the front of the line. The older of the two Hansen brothers, but it's actually his brother, Kevin, that's gone through immediately to the final because he got second place yesterday. Yeah, and it's Kevin that's leading the FIA World Rallycross Championship where both the brothers compete. They were P1 and P2 for a good part of this season. So, yeah, Kevin's got the better of Timmy. Now, Timmy's looking to get the better of Cabot-Bigham and Ken Block. And a word for Bigham. He's on fourth recently. He's got right on top of that car. Here we go. Racing Nitro Rallycross from the Nitro World Games. And Block trying to get around Hansen. Oh, Hansen up the inside contact there. Block's going to stop it at the apex. Cabot-Bigham's gone inside. That's a good move from Bigham. We know this line is slower, but, Tess, he's avoided the carnage on the outside of Turn 1. That was an absolutely brilliant move from Bigham. Oh, look at this. Timmy goes Joker. Timmy's gone Joker straight away. So that's in response to losing the place to Ken Block. Bigham coming up on the verge with Ken. They're into the bank bend. You can see the dirt flying. Bigham's up the inside of Ken Block. And did you see that just at the end there? It looked like Timmy came out super hard out of that Joker. Hope he didn't do any damage to the car. But this was just an amazing move from Cabot-Bigham. Yeah, Bigham made the choice there to go tabletop on the first lap. And he was on the back row. I think they were pretty wise. We reckon it's about 0.7 of a second, the difference between the tabletop line and the standard line. He was hoping that Block and Timmy would get right into each other and cost themselves more time than that. As it goes, Block managed to get out in front of him. Timmy, though, has gone Joker. And he's going to chase these guys down hard now, Tess. So we need to see what the gap is. Back to Timmy Hansen. Here he comes. Oh, that's pretty good. It's 4.5. Now, the Joker's about 4. I'm confident they'll send Ken Block on this lap. I spoke to Derek Daunsey this morning, the team boss at Hoonigan Racing Division. I think they'll send Ken to the Joker in response to Timmy. They don't. Oh, he doesn't. They don't. Cabot goes to the Joker. Yeah, they're giving Timmy an extra lap to chase him down. And that must mean they're confident that Ken's got the pace over Timmy. I'm surprised by that. Let's see where Timmy comes out just ahead of Cabot Bigum. Bigum is playing a great race. And what's key here is that Bigum was right on the tail end of Ken Block. So Timmy Hansen now, at this point in time, the merge is going to be absolutely side by side. Watch that clock at the top of your screen. If it comes down from 4.5, Hansen is on to take the place from Block. And that's the turn there. You see him coming into now, where this amazing pass was made yesterday. Perfect, isn't it? It's wide. It's loose gravel. It's a high-speed area. Yeah, it was a great Block pass. And it was fantastic to see an overtaking opportunity on the circuit. Well, some debris coming off Ken's car there. Ken! Ken's got a... I think that's... I think he's delaminating a rear tyre, maybe. So he's taken the rear tyres off. Ken's rear left has gone down. So Ken's maybe knocked the tyre off the rim. The gap was down to 2.97 with Timmy Hansen. Ken's going to go joker, but he's going to be too late. Oh, disaster for Ken Block there. We didn't see what caused that problem with that rear wheel, but Hansen is going to take Ken out of contention. But Hansen is gapping Kevin Bigham right now, but Block's not too far behind. He's dropped to P3. And remember, only one person goes through, Tess. You know, there's only one place you want to be in this one, and that's the place that Timmy Hansen's in. He's got another lap to go. They've all jokered now. So, you know, Timmy's just got to make sure he doesn't do anything, have any issues like Ken's had. So we saw yesterday a couple of people were a little bit too sideways. There's a lot of loose dirt. You've got to try and keep your wheels straight and avoid pushing tyres off rims. And you just look at this and you think about the fact that the tyre's kind of stripped off the back of Ken's car, yet he's still on the back of this group in contention. It shows you what these cars can actually do. It's amazing. And these drivers, too. You know, Ken's out there with three boots on the car and he's still sending it fully. So I wonder if he'll avoid the big jump here because that will be a bit of a risk. I think you might see Ken take the tabletop, but let's see. His boxers will be on the radio to him. So with a technical like that test, I think he'd be brave to take the big hit. So Bigham has actually managed to draw Timmy Hansen in a little bit again. So the Andretti rallycross... Ken's going, Ken's going for it! Tyres, Ken Block over the big jump with three tyres. Oh, Ken Block, absolutely nuts! That is wild. That is, to take that jump with three tyres is brave beyond belief. Ken Block, have it! Bigham is looking for a way past Hansen. He's got the speed. This is it. It's now or never, Tess. And look, Timmy goes defensive. So Timmy's gone defensive. It's going to cost him time, but he knows he can block Bigham. Bigham's going to try and get him on the run to the line, but he won't. Timmy applies it to the downside and Hansen's going to take it. Smart run there from Timmy Hansen. Defended it. Hansen goes through to the final where he's going to be with his brother, Kevin. Kevin Bigham, though, I've got to say. A fantastic race strategically from that team. They really did call it well, and he almost had it. But Ken... I was going to say, I'm sorry. I can't go for Ken Block, Tess. You know, like, Kevin and Timmy, well done. But Ken Block just sent it over a 100-foot gap jump with three tyres. Like, the guy's... What's wrong, man? He's wild. There we have it. Timmy Hansen, he goes straight through to the finals now. So he will not have to fight through that LCQ as Kabat-Bigham and Ken Block will. I'm sure Ken will be rolling back to the garage to fix things up. And you just take a look at this, and I think maybe here, Hansen getting into the back of Block, that could have been where the tyre was cut. Yeah, it was a little bit of contact down at Turn 1, and that was what Kabat-Bigham had basically gambled on. That's why he went tabletop. You can see Timmy Hansen makes quite a late decision to go Joker then decides not to follow Ken. And I was surprised they didn't respond with Ken on the next lap. You don't give Timmy Hansen two laps to take the gap out of you. We know he's fast. As it goes, it didn't matter because Ken, look, you could see the rear tyre was off. Trying to see where it happened. That's on the step-up jump at the backside. I'm wondering if the initial damage wasn't where we saw Timmy kind of come into the back of Tim right at the start there. This was Bigham's Joker and Ken heading over the jump in front of Timmy. So this was earlier on in the race. Look at that. Fantastic. The track's pretty slick, Tess. That's something we haven't spoken about. So they've watered the track a lot. The fans are here today. We didn't want the fans covered in dirt. The drivers were well aware of that. It just means it's a little bit more slippery. But actually, I think the grip levels are high and potentially the water in the dirt has made it a little bit tacky. So great stuff. Look at this. You see, there's not much just behind. They're getting a lot of speed onto the jumps. This is amazing. Ken Block, it's a 100-foot gap. He's only got three tyres and you can tell it actually launched him sideways because of the grip from that other rear tyre. But Ken's not afraid. What's this? Ain't care, I think is his hashtag. And he's certainly living it there. And then Timmy Hansen, he blocks Cabot Bigham from coming through on that final corner section. Great race for Hansen and a very smart race for Bigham. Absolutely. Pace from all of these guys. That was unbelievable what we just saw. Ken Block taking that 100-foot gap, three tyres. Did you know you were down a wheel? Yeah, you know, but anything can happen. Those guys were battling in the front and I needed to be there in case they took themselves out. So, you know, you got to battle to the last corner and that's what was in my head. I'm a rally driver and ain't care. I didn't care what that wheel was doing. I was going to make it to the finish and if something happened, I was going to be there. Unbelievable. So how is that track holding up? It's incredible. It's the funnest rallycross track in the world and I'm loving every minute of it. It's every time I get out there, my adrenaline's pumping and it's incredibly fun. I'm just disappointed that I've had three punctures every time I've raced this weekend. I'm trying to be nice to the tyres and not pushing them too hard, but they're puncturing in the oddest places. So it's basically ruined my weekend. Is there anything that you can do to conserve those tyres? I don't know. I'm trying. I was actually driving them harder in practice on Thursday and now they're, you know, I've, you know, tapered back a bit to try and save them and they keep going. So I don't know what to do, but I might've been top qualifier yesterday, but I had a puncture in each of the heats and now a puncture in this race. So the car's amazing. The Ford Fiesta that Arpin brought me is one of the best cars I've driven in years. I'm putting into lap times, but I just can't get any luck. Well, we're wishing you the best of luck. Ken, thanks. Thank you. Guys.