August 29th 2025

Rallycross making U.S. return with exhibition race at Crandon

Rallycross will return to the United States this weekend with a RallyX exhibition race at the 56th annual Crandon Off Road World Championships.

It will be the first time the discipline has had a top-level race stateside since the abrupt end to Nitrocross last October, and will serve as a test and demonstration ahead of a full RallyX event as part of next June's 33rd annual Forest County Potawatomi Brush Run.

“I think this is exactly what I've been looking for,” said RallyX promoter and First Corner founder Andreas Eriksson of the discipline's addition to the Crandon bill. “I feel home and I can proudly say that I feel like RallyX has actually found a good home in America and [we’ll] see what happens next. But this would be something I hope we can do 10 years.”

RallyX’s expansion across the Atlantic comes amid a boom for its European operations, with the Nordic series regularly attracting higher entry lists than the arguably more prestigious world and European championships.

Eriksson hopes that mirroring that setup – one that itself is similar to the established off-road framework in the U.S. – will eventually bring success for a motorsport form that has had a tumultuous time stateside with the premier category running under the X Games, Rally America, Global Rallycross, Americas Rallycross and Nitrocross banners since it debuted.

“I've been in America since 2008 – I did X Games, I did series here in America that did rallycross before, but the main thing we’ve done is RallyX,” said Eriksson. “For 14 years now we’ve done RallyX in Europe, and it's built the same way as here. It’s built as a family foundation.

“Right now, RallyX has become a bigger series than the world championship and the European championship, and we thought it was time to grow outside and to America. I think RallyX still fits perfectly.

“We have everything. We have the EV car with 1000 horsepower down to the crosscar for 12-year-olds, so I think we have something for everyone. We have great racing, we have short racing, we kind of have a coliseum where we do shorter races, more of them, and then we get a higher higher up.

“So I think we will add something different than what we’re used to, but I think it fits into this kind of arena you have here. It's an amazing sport – it's all about rebellion and it’s all at full speed 100 percent.”

Five cars from two teams will take part in the demonstration event at Crandon, with Kevin and Oliver Eriksson as well as Tanner Foust driving for Olsbergs MSE, and Fraser McConnell and Andrew Carlson driving for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

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