Tanner Foust, Scott Speed to race VWs for Andretti in GRC - MotorSportsTalk

These are the “further details in February” Andretti Autosport planned to announce when the team first announced last month it was expanding into Red Bull Global Rallycross.

The team will race a pair of Volkswagen modified Polo rally cars, and switch to the third-generation Beetle later in the year. The latter will feature more than 600 horsepower from its turbocharged and direct-injection EA888 TSI® engine.

Drivers? They’ve got rallying ace and TV personality Tanner Foust in one car (pictured right) and former Formula One driver-turned-NASCAR and rallycross racer Scott Speed in the other.

Foust will drive a car sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drink, with Speed in the 7UP entry. 7UP falls under the Dr Pepper Snapple umbrella of brands; that’s a company Andretti Autosport continues its relationship with on the IndyCar side, and now sees active in GRC.

Foust is a two-time GRC champion (2011, 2012), while Speed won a pair of GRC races in 2013.

The season begins in May in Barbados; that weekend is the same as qualifying for the Indianapolis 500, so it would seem to rule out either driver for Andretti’s likely fifth car the team would plan to run at this year’s race.

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Chase Sexton announced on Instagram he will sit out this weekend’s Pro Motocross race at Hangtown in Rancho Cordova, California after a practice crash on Tuesday left him with a concussion.

Sexton’s crash on Tuesday happened during a test session at Fox Raceway.

“Bummed to make this post but I’ll be sitting out this weekend,” Sexton said. “As you guys saw I had a big one during qualifying at Pala, then another one on Tuesday this week that banged me up pretty good. Nothing broken just need a few days to get back to 100%.”

Despite his crash in the first qualification session in Pala, California, Sexton mounted up for both motos and finished second in each race behind his teammate Jett Lawrence, who was making his Motocross debut and won with a pair of first-place finishes. Sexton padded his SuperMotocross points’ lead over the injured Eli Tomac, who is still second in the combined Supercross and Motocross standings despite missing the SX finale at Salt Lake City and the outdoor opener with a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Sexton has an advantage of 78 points over Cooper Webb and cannot give up his SMX lead by missing this round.

At stake, however, is the risk of losing ground to Lawrence in the Pro Motocross championship. Sexton currently trails his teammate by six points and is liable to lose significant ground this weekend.

In addition to his concussion, Sexton has also been diagnosed with mononucleosis and the combination of the two conditions caused the team to make the difficult decision to keep him out of the lineup at Hangtown.

“I’m super-bummed to miss this weekend’s race,” Sexton said in a press release. “I feel like I rode well at Pala, and I was really looking forward to Hangtown because it’s a good track for me. Unfortunately, I was already pretty banged up from my qualifying crash on Saturday, and now with mono and Tuesday’s concussion on top of it, I want to do the right thing and hopefully be back on the track soon.”

A return date for Sexton has not yet been announced.

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