NASA Rallycross Challenge

The NASA Rallycross Challenge, officially the Overwatch Specialty Service NASA Rallycross Challenge, is an eSports league for Rallycross on iRacing. Founded in 2012 on NASCAR 2003, the series moved to iRacing in 2018. After mis-management resulted in a low car count, the series went back to NR2003 for one season. Since 2020, the series has been on iRacing. The series has featured numerous World Championship Series drivers, such as Connor Parise, Jake Robertson, and Beau Albert, among others. These pro drivers have described NASA as the perfect practice space for the iRacing Rallycross World Championship.

Early Beginnings (2012)
In June of 2012, Josh Mertz and Dylan Livengood partnered together to make a series modeling the real-world Global Rallycross Championship, utilizing the rally car mod on NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. The series ran on exclusively custom built tracks using Sandbox, along with custom car templates. The series modeled the Global Rallycross Championship, using Heat races, a Last Chance Qualifier, and a Feature. To be unique, there was an implementation of two joker laps in the Feature races.

The original NASA RallyCross Challenge, which was at a customized version of Croft Rallycross, was supposed to to be the only race, which took place on Sunday, July 1, 2012. Nine drivers appeared, all of whom loved the novelty of Rallycross on NASCAR 2003. As a result, the concept was turned into a serious league, and those drivers also ran the following race at Island Rally, which was a dirt implementation of Bridgehampton. Inter-league drama began before the third round in Negus which resulted in a few drivers withdrawing. Cross-league promotion resulted in the biggest field size for the fourth round at Riverside, which was 18 drivers. Momentum continued for St. Eustache and Valkenswaard to close out the inaugural season. Brandon Lambert won the championship by six points over Josh Mertz, as the Indiana driver finished last in Riverside a fortnight prior.

The series would continually have an average of 10 cars for the 2012B campaign. New tracks in this season included crude replicas of the 2012 Charlotte and X Games GRC circuits, along with a fictional circuit called the NASA Proving Grounds which supplied two races.

The 2012B season finale had a controversy for the championship. Adam Simons, a driver for MRT owned by Josh Mertz, ended up winning the LCQ on the road ahead of Mertz after Mertz was slow on his joker lap and the subsequently collided on the merge. Mertz blamed Simons, who promptly withdrew his entry. Dylan Livengood placed Josh Mertz into the feature to race for the championship, as Livengood was racing in Chris Wetz's car after the Texan had a family emergency.

2012C saw the additions of a fictional circuit in Gifhorn, Germany, to replace the track of Los Angeles. While car count started at 12 for the first two races, successful promotion matched the record of 18 cars at Gifhorn and Charlotte. Calendar mis-management resulted in a triple header of both Proving Grounds rounds along with Negus in one night to end the season. As a result, car count fluttered slightly.

Josh Mertz and Dylan Livengood had battled all season for the championship. Tensions were high given the triple header nature of the season finale. Midway through the feature of the final round in Negus, Josh Mertz came together with another driver and parked his car, fearing a penalty. This set up a tie scenario for the championship, which then had a sudden death, 3 lap tiebreaker race between Mertz and Livengood. Mertz won the race in a photo finish over Livengood, but it was determined later that Mertz parking in the feature was not a sufficient penalty. He was placed at the back of the feature and as a result, lost the championship by one point over Livengood.

The 2013 calendar year was supposed to be an exciting one for NASA, as the 2013A season began with high expectations and field sizes. 16 cars in Croft and 18 in Valkenswaard carried over into Gifhorn for round three, which had another 18 cars running in practice. However, this was not to be.

Cheatgate (January 2013)
Xander Clements, who made his debut midway through the 2012C season, won the final two rounds of the championship in 2012C. He blew his engine multiple times in mysterious ways in Croft and Valkenswaard, and in practice for Gifhorn was considerably faster than David Krikorian and the field. Krikorian, an established driver on NASCAR 2003, was widely regarded as one of the fastest drivers on the sim at the time. This prompted Dylan Livengood to investigate the telemetry of Clements' car.

It was found that Clements was utilizing an illegal grip hacking modification in order to be faster than the rest of the field. However, most of the cars that were running that evening were associated with Clements, because they also ran in Clements NASCAR themed league. When Clements was questioned by Livengood, he refuted, and when Livengood banned Clements, the field left with him. This resulted in Dylan Livengood's second championship, despite only racing three races.

Treading Water (Summer 2013-2017)
Inter-league drama, along with lack of promotion and a dying sim community resulted in car count hovering around 10 drivers per race until the announcement of Rallycross on iRacing in 2018.

First iRacing Attempt (Summer 2018)
In mid 2018, iRacing released the iRX content. The same two factors plagued the two seasons iRacing attempt, before the league transitioned back to NASCAR 2003. The decision was quickly reversed and the league was back on iRacing in 2020.

All Time Statistics
Correct as of 5 May 2021