As the sun set on the 2022-23 Nitro Rallycross season, our boys on the booth Andrew Coley and Jarod DeAnda sat down with Nitro Rallycross to reflect on the campaign, and look ahead to what’s coming next.
For its second season as a fully-blown racing series, Nitro Rallycross not only went global, but introduced an all-new electric car, the FC1-X, to proceedings. With so many things to get excited about over the course of the season, Coley found it hard to pick a stand-out moment from the landmark season.
“It's so hard to pick a highlight – it was almost as much of a rollercoaster as Robbin Larson's last weekend,” he said. “The first time the series has gone outside the USA, It was fun to come to Europe, but I was really stoked to come back to the States and the big, big tracks. If we go back to Europe, I'd love to see us go and build a mega Nitro-style track over there.
“We had amazing racing, the passing… Glen Helen had obviously four events here. This place always provides good racing. I loved going and doing the ice tracks. It was great for me to go back to Trois-Rivières where I've been so many times in the summer. We got screwed by the weather – it wasn't cold enough when we went ice racing and rained and was cold when we came to LA…”
DeAnda, meanwhile, loved proving doubters wrong as the new all-electric car delivered in a combustion-dominated racing landscape.
“Nitro Rallycross 2022-23 season kicked off this new electric era, right? It’s like, ‘uh, TBD who, what?’ We go into the first turn, they make contact, all right, everything's fine. And then fast forward to Glen Helen thinking about the iconic track that is here, triple header, we end with an exclamation point,” he said.
“I mean there was trepidation, right? So everybody's kind of like, ‘oh, I don't know’, but what's really cool is seeing combustion fans come to Nitro Rallycross and be like, ‘holy shit, those are electric cars. That's fucking cool!’ That's what I get most excited about.
“It's really cool to see Nitro Rallycross develop, even its second year going into its third, what's gonna happen for Nitro Rallycross is cool. The Nitro special sauce on top of already a good steak and potatoes meal, is really good.”
Attention now turns to next season, which will begin on June xx-xx at a new track in Oklahoma.
“Oklahoma will deliver,” De Anda insisted. “So what I'm really excited about is the people, the cars, the stuff, the things we ended this season with.
“It’s all about the excitement, the enthusiasm, the momentum. I’m super excited about it.”
Coley echoed his colleague’s sentiments, and heaped praise on the wider team behind Nitro Rallycross.
“The whole team at Thrill One, everyone has worked so hard, and the TV team, to bring what I think has been some great coverage and some great events, obviously from the Thrill One side to the fans, and I just hope they've enjoyed it as much as we've enjoyed it,” he said.
“I've loved it. I love working with these guys. I'm so glad I'm here.”