17/11/09

Petter’s Xsara goes Extreme for Solberg Motorshow

After retiring his Citroen Xsara World Rally Car on Rally Finland, Petter Solberg will be back in the driver’s seat this weekend following an engine makeover that has boosted the car’s power from 300 to 450 horsepower.

Petter will take on his elder brother Henning, and a host of WRC and rallycross stars, at the inaugural ‘Solberg Extreme MotorShow’ on Saturday 21 November at Oslo’s Telenor football Stadium.

Joining the Solbergs will be some of the biggest names of the past and present World Rally Championship including Mikko Hirvonen, Marcus Gronholm and Tommi Makinen. Also confirmed are Norwegian drivers Andreas Mikkelsen, Mads Østberg, Anders Grøndal, Thomas Schie and Eyvind Brynildsen.

“The preparations are going well,” Solberg told wrc.com. “Citroen helped me to put some more power into the Xsara. I drove it last week in France and it’s a lot of fun, let me tell you! I can’t wait to drive it this weekend, even though Henning keeps reminding me that his Fiesta rallycross car has 575 horsepower.”

The show will feature seven classes of competition with Hirvonen, Gronholm and Makinen joining the Solberg brothers and Scandinavian circuit racing champions Mattias Ekström and Tommy Rustad in the ‘Golden League’. “We’ll be driving a selection of cars between 450 and 600hp including Henning’s Fiesta, my Citroen, Volvos and a couple of Per Ekland’s Saabs,” explained Petter. “In this contest the timing is not the main thing - instead it’s all about spectacular driving and putting a show for the spectators and judges. Each driver will be given scores by three judges, but they know nothing about cars.”

One of the other headline races will be a Norwegian/Swedish duel between two of the biggest names in Rallycross; Norwegian Martin Schanche and Swede (and Petter’s father-in-law) Per Inge Walfridsson.

All of the racing will take place inside the 15,000 seat venue on an asphalt circuit built on top of the grass playing surface. “We used 180 tonnes of asphalt to build it and we’ve got to take it all off afterwards,” said Petter.

As well as rally and rallycross cars, the event will showcase other forms of motorsport including Top Fuel drag racing, drifting, and a demonstration of the ex Michael Schumacher Ferrari Formula 1 car Peter drove earlier this year. With 10,000 tickets sold in advance, the Solbergs are expecting a sell-out.

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