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It’s embarrassing, but I’m from a generation that doesn’t have much interest in cars, let alone motorsports in general. “Win Sunday, sell Monday” didn’t do much for kids in the ’90s, but Ken Block found a way to revitalize the industry for younger generations.
He loves cars, so of course he has friends with the same hobby, but even those who don’t know him. It didn’t matter which side of the fence he landed on. If he wasn’t a fan of cars, instead Ken he was a fan of Brock.
Block’s wildly popular Gymkhana series was, frankly, a collection of glorified commercials for shoes and cars. Still, they captured the imagination of a generation and caused a massive shift in how automakers do business. They broke new ground, reached new audiences, and set the blueprint for the landscape of automotive media as we know it today.
Block hit big in the late 2000s, when the world was going backwards thanks to the global financial crisis. Manufacturers were influenced by top-level motorsport. Formula 1 lost almost everyone, but the World Rally Championship with Broc was just a few years away, saying goodbye to the likes of Peugeot, Skoda, Subaru and Suzuki.
It was the beginning of an era when no one wanted to spend money on a full season of racing, but Brock and his Hoonigan organization developed a way to get just as much exposure, if not more. just a fraction of the cost). ) by doing some skids on the internet.
As the audience grew, so did the ideas. What began as a low-budget airfield run through 2008’s “Gymkhana Practice” has made its way to the big money gymkhana via France, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dubai and even Universal Studios’ Hollywood backlot. transformed into a giant. 10, the around-the-world iteration that spawned the Emmy-nominated documentary series.
Vehicles have also changed. Rally and rallycross cars soon gave way to giant one-offs like the Hoonicorn, a 4WD, NASCAR-engined 1965 Ford Mustang that later had twin turbos and a power output of 1,400bhp. There was also the Hooni Truck, an equally retro-inspired beast, but powered by the engine of a Le Mans-winning Ford GT racing car.
Most recently, with Bullock’s unofficial job of making the car cool again, the main Gymkhana series was handed over to Bullock’s rally rival Travis Pastrana, with similarly Subaru behemoths for 2021 and 2022. Works great.
But Brock didn’t walk away, turning his attention to other equally wild projects.
He won the first-ever all-electric rallycross race in the short-lived Projekt E series in 2020, and EV could be exciting before finally joining forces with Audi in ‘Electrikhana’. I took on the seemingly impossible task of convincing the world of this. This year, it’s an all-electric spin-off of the Gymkhana series with its own ‘Hounitron’. If his ‘Hoonipigasus’ Porsche (his mid-engined four-wheel-drive 911, which was also hiding his 1,400 horses) didn’t develop engine problems during his 2018 practice, he’d would have added the challenge of Pikes Peak to their resume last year. famous hill climb.
Block’s online success has catapulted him into the mainstream. He has made numerous appearances in the UK on Top of His Gear for the BBC and has enjoyed success joining his arena tour for shows live in the UK in 2012 and in South Africa in 2015. rice field. Catalyst in my career covering rallycross and other sliding forms of motorsport), Need for Speed, and most recently Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon.
Many drivers, teams or manufacturers have tried to emulate the success of Brock and Hoonigan’s Gymkhana, but none come close. When news of Bullock’s death broke, Gymkhana’s total views for his entire series (including spin-offs and Pastrana-led installments) fell short of his 629 million views.
But despite his sideways antics on camera and on our consoles, Block himself is an old school rally fan, appreciates its history and of course he still competes at a high level was doing. And just as his content brought fresh eyes to the world of four wheels, it eventually brought those people into the real world of motorsport as well. If you like him on screen, you’ll want to see him on stage and on the circuit as well.
Brock’s actual motorsport success shouldn’t be eavesdropped either. Of course, many of the conservatives in the motorsport fandom will poke fun at his lack of major championship success, but Brock didn’t even have a career until he was in his mid-thirties, but still. Of the 139 rallies (won), 29 of them won world championships and multiple race wins in rallycross. He was real, even if his raw numbers don’t immediately suggest it.
No one else may be able to achieve the impact Block has had over the past decade or so, but part of his DNA will be in all the automotive content we see for years to come. will be incorporated. He was a pioneer, a trendsetter and, as the old adage says, ‘often imitated, never duplicated’.
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