Dave Mirra to remain exclusive to Rally car racing at X Games 17
Dave Mirra, the legendary BMX rider from America, will be missing from the BMX park, Big Air and Vert events of X Games 17 that are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles in the last week of July.
The 37-year-old action sports athlete will be competing in Rally Car Racing instead of BMX contests in the upcoming X Games.
Ryan Guettler, who is a former Mirraco team rider, said that “Mirra is thinking more about Rally.”
While the news is really disappointing for the BMX fans who were hoping to see the Yankee in action, it does not come as a total surprise.
Mirra has been riding for the Subaru Rally Team USA for quite some time now and with every passing year; he seemed to be switching his focus from BMX to his latest passion, which is rally.
While the world has seen him dominate the BMX competitive scene since the mid ‘90s and sitting with the boasting rights of currently holding the most X Games medals to date, which is 24 to date, he has already starting showing signs of greatness in Rally.
Currently participating in the Rally America Series, Mirra sits in fourth place in the overall season standings. He managed to walk away with a runner-up finish at the Sno*Drift Rally that took place in North Michigan and third at the 100 Acre Wood Rally
that went down in Missouri earlier this year.
Feeling quite comfortable behind a steering wheel for now, he will be showing up at the upcoming mega-event of action sports alongside his co-driver Marshall Clarke in a 2011 Subaru Impreza WRX STI rally car.
This is not the first time that Mirra will be competing in the X Games Rally event. Two years ago, at X Games 15, after appearing in the BMX Big Air contest and walking away with the bronze, he dropped out of Park and opted to race Rally on the very last
day of the competition.
Apparently, he was not quite done yet. The very next year, at X Games 16, he pulled out of the BMX contest after initially accepting the invitation. He had decided to race Rally instead. However, that did not end too well for him, as he got himself disqualified.
Now once again, Mirra has preferred Rally over BMX, this time totally discarding the latter. While his change in priority seems confusing initially, it starts to make a lot of sense when a person starts pondering over it. The man is over 37 years old now
and most likely feels more at ease behind a steering wheel than his Mirraco BMX bicycle.
It will be interesting to see how the latest X Games turn out for Mirra and his “pursuit of happyness” in Rally racing.
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