Rallycross, for those who don’t subscribe to the
motorsport scene, has been described as the MMA of
Motorsport. Half a million-dollar race cars that accelerate
faster than F1 cars, duel over four qualification races on the
track and the drivers aren’t shy in keeping themselves on
the racing line even if that means crunching their extremely
expensive carbon or kevlar panels into one another as they bid
for victory over a mixed surface circuit that normally includes
a decent couple of jumps to sort the men from the boys.
However, like many motorsport paddocks, the teams were
like bad photocopies of one another – nothing stood out and
despite the garish liveries, they all looked much alike.
Liam Doran, a double X-Games Gold Medallist, a clean-
cut choir boy of 4-wheel, he ain’t! As he has brought some
great antics to fans over his career that also included slapping
another driver after a race for a maneuver that wasn’t to the
pleasing of the RX Cartel founder at the X Games Rallycross
race in Germany. He isn’t the jockey cut figure of a lot of
racing drivers, but once in a car can show pure brilliance in
race craft – hailing from Rallycross Royalty, the door bashing
racing was in his DNA. Liam is the marmite of drivers, always
pictured with a stern face, aggressive driving style, people
often pick up the bad guy image as who he is – but Liam has
promised us there is another side.
Andreas Bakkerud, his Norwegian teammate, totally the
guy want your daughter to bring home (at least from the first
impressions). But this cheeky chappie, fun loving wheelman
can also mix it up when he needs to and when it comes to
racing he’s more Cartel than clown and has often been in
the mix on controversial actions on the track. His record of
achievements stars back in 2011 & 2012 where he became back
to back European Champion and in 2014 he took the World
Team Championships.
They’re a Yang to each other’s Ying and the polar oppositecombinations of each other are the strengths they use in the
team’s social onslaught.
Notoriously difficult to interview, the team shy away from
traditional media exposure, which is odd as they play it so well,
but FHM were granted special access by a fixer that managed
to get both drivers to agree to this special interrogation.
Already guarded by shady characters on the phone and pre-
arranged calls, it felt as if we are doing an undercover piece on
the actual Cartel, this might be some theatre but feels as if it
could be all too real.
“We knew we wanted to win both on and off the track
at the start of the season,” Andreas explains “I’d driven with
Liam previously in 2013 and already then we rocked the boat
and became the most successful team with the most amount
of podiums finishes. I’d just jumped up into the Supercar class
and it was about as Rock ‘n’ Roll team as you could get. I also
got my first telling off for dropping the C-bomb on live TV, it
was after a win and they asked me what Liam was telling me
on the headset, so I told them the truth, he just yelled at me
and was saying ‘C’mon you C*nt!’ However, we were both
super young and opportunities came up for us both and we
parted ways until the start of this year. I was so glad to get back
and race with Liam, his reputation seems to go before him, but
he is like a brother to me – we fight, we agree, we always have
each other’s back and the team wouldn’t have had the same
dynamic with anyone else – I’m sure he’ll call me a massive
melt for even complimenting him.”
Just scan the guys Instagram and you’ll see this isn’t the
norm. The cars have been replaced with memes and the
driving duo are the first to talk shit on themselves before their
rivals could come close to using their own performances
against them – however it’s not as if the drivers are slow and
back-marking using shock tactics to cover up an average
performance at the business end of the racing. The team isRX Cartel