world rally championship

Every F1 season has its wild cards, but in his typical style, few have proven as wild as Kimi Raikkonen. When Ferrari cut his contract short at the end of last season, the 2007 world champion - who came within spitting distance of stealing the title in 2003 and 2005 too - shocked the motor racing world when he simply packed his helmet and switched disciplines to the World Rally Championship.

Now learning the rally ropes with highly-rated promise, Raikkonen is still proving the wildest of wild cards for next season and beyond. As a contracted Red Bull driver in the WRC, speculation has been rampant that the "Ice Man" could make his triumphant return to the grand prix scene behind the wheel of a Red Bull F1 car.

Can we pause for a moment and give it up for Walter Röhrl? Here's a racer whose professional career began in 1973, first person to win the World Rally Championship twice, winner of the Pikes Peak race and the title Rally Driver of the Century in Italy and Rally Driver of the Millennium in France, and who simply never gave up the habit of winning or doing fast laps.

World Rally Championship promoter North One Sport is working with gaming and GPS companies on a study involving real-time tracking data obtained from WRC stars during actual events. The study exams whether the data can be implemented into a WRC video game that will enable gamers to utilize their virtual racing skills against the real deal. The companies are collecting the tracking data with the goal of creating a very realistic, very accurate gaming experience for the rabid racing gamers among us.

We know, it's going to be weird watching Ken Block rally in a Ford Fiesta. We're so used to watching him ply his craft in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI. Gymkhana and Subaru became synonymous thanks to Ken. After the announcement earlier this month that Block was dropping Subaru for Ford this season, as well as competing on the big stage of WRC for the first time, we knew the day would come when we meet Ken's new ride for the first time, and that day is today.

For World Rally Championship fans living in the U.S., it's been tough to keep up on the action, as domestic television coverage has been virtually nonexistent for some time now. That's about to change, however, as the series has inked a deal with Discovery Communications' HD Theater, a channel with an audience of 633 million. HD Theater has committed to show weekly coverage "from every round of the championship" beginning in October, and it will also air shows featuring related WRC content and news.

Automakers are cutting motorsports spending to weather the economic downturn, leaving privateers and independent teams to take the reigns at the upper echelon of racing. UK-based MML Sports is one such shop that's ready to take on the Production class during the 2009 World Rally Championship (WRC) season.

The heavily modified S2000 car that will form the base package for some of the cars in the 2010 World Rally Championship will be stripped of at least one major modification the following year. According to Autosport, the World Motorsports Council has agreed to a new regulation that turbochargers would not be allowed on the 2011 cars, leaving aero mods as the only alterations left to be made to the basic car.

In 2011 and 2012, when S2000 cars take over from the current WRC runners as the template, the cars will be naturally aspirated. Then, from 2013, in a decision proposed by the World Rallies Commission of the FIA and also ratified by the WSMC, the cars will run "cost-effective" 1.6-liter turbocharged engines.

Prodrive helped make its name - and a whole lot of World Rally Championship fans - with its race prepped, royal blue Subaru Impreza race cars. Now the very first one of them, piloted by no less than the power duo of the late Colin McRae and Nicky Grist, is for sale. Introduced at the Rallye Monte Carlo in 1997, the car is privately owned now and can be yours for £85,000 (about $123,000). While that's a lot for an old Subaru, something tells us that as the years roll by, this car will prove to be a very large bargain.