Ronny C.Rock may be an accomplished racer in his own right – he’s the holder of no fewer than 11 racing titles – but the German is perhaps best known as one of the world’s top stunt drivers.
He’s starred in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including the upcoming Charlie’s Angels reboot, and has multiple world records to his name; but how does all of that translate to the world of rallycross? Quite well, as it turns out.
„In this specific case of rallycross, the biggest relation is the handbrake because a lot of stunt driving you’re doing with the handbrake,“ he said. „[but] the pure driving is more here, because you have a real sequential gearbox, you have the noise, you have the fast reactions you need.“
As well as working in front of the camera, Ronny C.Rock also works as a driver trainer, coaching in high-powered Volkswagens on ice tracks in the winter. That too requires skills not to dissimilar to those needed by a rallycross driver, but while the individual elements are there in his case, Ronny says that the biggest challenge for him in the inaugural TitansRX season will be to put all of that together and find consistency.
„Let’s say the individual skills are quite well educated in my case, but the basic routine isn’t given to me,“ he said. „When you look at Topi Heikkinen or the Hansen brothers, they know the procedure and they don’t have to think about it, I do. But a good side of it is my driving routine, I understand how to drive a car.“
„If I have one season behind me, I believe I will be probably as quick as the others, but as I could see even the last three tenths on a one kilometre track, this means three car lengths, this is what I’m missing and this is of course taking the risk in the right moments, knowing how the car behaves, knowing the details about rallycross, that your focus doesn’t shift sometimes, you have to hold it where it is necessary and then the results will come.“
„If you can reduce tasks it makes your mind free, it makes the mistakes less and that’s it,“ he added. „So if you have the routine like real rallycross drivers from this grid, then of course things will be more simple, but if you ask me about talent, talent is the key to shorten the way you can adapt, but it’s nothing you can’t learn.“
