Fresh off of winning the U.S. National Streetluge Championship last week in California, GRAND-AM Road Racing veteran Andy Lally has made last minute plans to enter the International Gravity Sports Association World Championships next week in Australia.
Lally, who won the Rolex 24 At Daytona this past season and earned victories in both the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series and KONI Sports Car Challenge, will be one of over 50 luge racers trying to qualify for the 32 spots available in the finals.
“Of all the different kind of racing I have done in my life, streetluge is one of the things that puts the biggest smile on my face,” said Lally, a former streetluge champion. “I was supposed to be relaxing a bit this winter but when the car racing season started winding down a bit I was able to pick up a few streetluge races and things went really well.
“We were able to win both luge classes at the September IGSA World Cup event held in Maryhill, Wash., and then went to California last week for the National Championships and I was fortunate to win that against some very good guys and close competition,” Lally continued. “I see this trip to Australia as a rare opportunity to try an accomplish something not a lot of people get to do, so I’m going to go for it.”
The IGSA World Championships will be held Nov. 27-29, 2009 in Bathurst, NSW, Australia at the famous Mount Panorama race track.
“The pressure is certainly on not to mess up qualifying!” Lally said. “I have help from Seismic Wheels and Project 4 for this event and I hope we can do everyone back home proud. There are some extremely talented riders entered from all over the world so I will be working hard to make sure I bring my best stuff.”
Last years Newton’s Playground was incredible in many aspects so this year the IGSA decided to award “Newton’s” World Championship status. The course is challenging, technical and fast with top speeds in the 105 km/h (65 mph) range down a 1.3-kilometer course, starting from Skyline at the top of the iconic Mt Panorama circuit, and finishing on Conrod Straight.
