On Sunday, September 23rd, Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino won Washington State’s Olympus Rally in the Monster Energy World Rally Team Fiesta. This is their second win in a row in this vehicle, the first being the Canadian Rally Championship’s Rallye Defi. The action packed schedule found the entire Monster World Rally team in Las Vegas on Monday the 24th to prepare the car for this past Saturday’s event, the Global Rallycross Championship Series that took place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Although the entire conversion process from Rally Spec to Rallycross spec is incredibly detailed, the team has lots of experience making it happen. To strip the vehicle from Rally Spec, the team removes the headlights, pull out the Stage Rally engine and turbocharger system, 34mm restrictor, the Stage Rally gearbox and differentials, front-mounted radiator setup, gravel wheels and tires, co-driver seat and side vent panels. Additionally the technicians replaced the solid rear hatch with vented unit, and all of the gravel-damaged bodywork is replaced. This entire process happens on Tuesday before the team goes home.
When the sun rises on Wednesday, the re-assembly process begins on the Fiesta. In short order, they put the car back together using completely different components! The Rallycross-spec setup consists of new headlight blanks, Rallycross engine/turbo, 45mm restrictor, larger brakes and Rallycross wheels and tires. They move the radiator into the rear hatch to protect it from the impact of jumps, while improving weight balance. They also opened cooling ducts on side of car and tuned it for 600+ horsepower.
Final tweaks were wrapped up Thursday in time for Block and Gelsomino to get in on the Friday open test session in preparation for the race – Global Rallycross Championship Round 5. Enjoy the video – it’s typical high quality you’d expect from FordRacingTV.