With just a week to go before Holjes RX, FIA World Rallycross Championship star Andreas Bakkerud is taking on a totally different challenge, racing at the famous Pikes Peak International Hillclimb in Colorado, USA.

The Monster Energy RX Cartel driver is making his debut at the world’s most famous hillclimb in a Sierra RX, the single seat off road buggies used in the Americas Rallycross Championship support class, ARX3.

“I’m going to tackle the American mountains this weekend on Sunday. I’m racing at Pikes Peak, for those of you that don’t know it’s 4400 meters tall, or big, or high, mountain, with  an awesome Sierra rallycross car. It’s my first time at Pikes Peak and also my first time driving the Sierra car. My mum is scared, I’m scared, but it’s going to be an awesome weekend,” said Bakkerud.

The Sierra cars, built in Salt Lake City, Utah, made their first rallycross appearance as the official vehicle of the 2018 World RX of USA celebrity event, featuring drivers like skateboarding legend Bucky Lasek. This year the buggies are a full-time part of ARX, and Bakkerud’s run at Pikes Peak, with the car in identical setup as it is in rallycross, apart from the use of slick tyres, is to help with the development of the car and series. The 200hp six-speed sequential machines weigh in at 400kgs and launching from 0-100kph in under three seconds.

“We take the racing serious, but the cool personalities that we want to surround ourselves with have really defined our programme over the last year. When I chose Andreas for this role it was so much because of his personality and we have a lot of mutual friends, but we’d never worked together on a project. The whole idea was to take a world class rallycross driver and put him in an ARX3 spec car, with the only change being the slick tyre. Even the alignment is the same as what we run in rallycross,” said Cole Powelson, owner of SIERRA RX. “We’re doing this to spread awareness of rallycross around the world and the new rallycross events in America. Andreas is a great guy to have around in the pits, he’s going to overall help our programme with rallycross, my programme for developing drivers. And this is also about having fun, if you’re not having fun you’re not in our pits.”