Scott Speed completed a flawless weekend by winning Saturday’s season-opening Red Bull Global Rallycross Memphis, the series’ inaugural visit to Memphis International Raceway. Speed held off Tanner Foust, his hard-charging Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross teammate, for the win, while Loenbro Motorsports driver Steve Arpin came home third.
“The first race when you come back is always the one you’re looking forward to,” Speed said after the victory, his record 12th in Supercar competition. “Almost everyone has done their homework and you wonder who did the best job, and I think it’s pretty clear. Our game plan is always the same: we focus on what we can control as a team and we do our job. If we do that, that’s all we can ask for. There are a lot of variables out there and you can’t control anybody. We just keep our head down and do what we do.”
Five different drivers took heat victories, with Arpin, Chris Atkinson, and Sebastian Eriksson joining the VARX teammates. But continuing their dominance from 2016, when they combined for eight race victories, Speed and Foust won their semifinals to earn the top starting spots on the grid.
Despite an incident for Patrik Sandell that necessitated a restart, Speed and Foust ran first and second throughout the entire main event. The biggest battle was for third, as Eriksson yielded to Mitchell deJong’s early Joker Lap after the restart. However, Arpin saved his own Joker Lap until the halfway point of the race, eventually closing to within two seconds of the lead at race’s end.
In GRC Lites, DirtFish Motorsports’ Conner Martell was the beneficiary of an unlucky break for Alex Keyes, who punctured his left rear tire halfway through the final. Martell, who won his first round heat and semifinal, had been in second, but led the remainder of the race to take the win. Cyril Raymond and Christian Brooks completed the podium, the first top-three finish for both drivers in the class.
Full Supercar results from Red Bull Global Rallycross Memphis are as follows:
1. Scott Speed, #41 Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross
2. Tanner Foust, #34 Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross
3. Steve Arpin, #00 Loenbro Motorsports
4. Mitchell deJong, #24 Honda Red Bull Olsbergs MSE
5. Oliver Eriksson, #16 Honda Red Bull Olsbergs MSE
6. Cabot Bigham, #2 Bryan Herta Rallysport
7. Sebastian Eriksson, #93 Honda Red Bull Olsbergs MSE
8. Chris Atkinson, #55 Subaru Rally Team USA
9. Patrik Sandell, #18 Subaru Rally Team USA
10. Austin Dyne, #14 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
The Red Bull Global Rallycross season will resume on May 20-21 with an inaugural event at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville. Tickets are available now at http://www.redbullglobalrallycross.com/tickets. Red Bull GRC Memphis will be broadcast on Sunday, April 30 at 1PM ET on NBC