Red Bull Global Rallycross Shouldn’t Sleep On Steve Arpin
As the 2016 Red Bull Global Rallycross season winds down, don’t understimate Steve Arpin – a title contender and huge part of the future of GRC.
Everyone is talking about the 2016 Red Bull Global Rallycross championship as a two-horse race between Volkswagen Andretti Rallycross teammates Scott Speed and Tanner Foust. But there’s a third name in the mix: Steve Arpin.
With three races remaining in the season Arpin is quietly sitting third in the GRC championship standings. He has 357 points, putting him 43 markers behind Foust for second place and 52 back of Speed, who’s aiming to secure back-to-back titles after becoming the first Andretti champion in 2015.
Arpin has some ground to make up if he wants to upset the Andretti apple cart. Yet to sleep on the Chip Ganassi Racing standout would be a mistake. With his 2016 season Arpin has proven not just that he can hang tough this year, but that he can be a major part of the future for Red Bull GRC.
2016 is Arpin’s fourth year competing in GRC Supercars, but it may as well be his second. The 32-year-old Canadian was hamstrung in his first two years driving with OMSE2 and Royal Purple Racing. He just didn’t have the resources to go up against the top teams in the league and it showed.
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“The last couple years have been with the older cars, something that was just outdated, that we had a lot of mechanical problems with,” Arpin told AXS.com in an interview last year.
As a result he had only one podium in his first two seasons – a second-place finish at Barbados in 2014. In 19 rounds he compiled six Top 5 finishes. But he always seemed to drive with so much heart on the track, leading fans to wonder: when would the real Steve Arpin get the chance to stand up?
That opportunity came last year when IndyCar and NASCAR giant Chip Ganassi Racing moved into GRC, hiring Arpin and Brian Deegan to be their drivers. Suddenly Arpin was employed by one of the biggest names in motorsports and able to utilize everything that came with it. And lo and behold his results instantly improved.
Arpin racked up more Top 5 results in 2015 than he had in his entire career to date (eight) and increased his championship point total by more than 100 points (224 to 357). Most importantly he was stringing together consistent performances; he had two separate streaks of three Top 5 finishes in a row.
In 2016 he’s gotten even better. Arpin captured his first career win – and the first for Ganassi – when he stole victory at the second race of GRC Daytona. He has three podium finishes and has completed every single race within the Top 5. He is, quite honestly, turning himself into the Scott Dixon of Red Bull GRC – minus the four championships.
The comparison between Arpin and Dixon is apt in another way, and that’s how they conduct themselves off-track. Dixon is a class act who represents himself and IndyCar impeccably and the same can be said about Steve Arpin. Maybe it’s because he’s Canadian but he is the absolute nicest person in the entire GRC paddock.
Not to take away from how competitive he is, but if you have the opportunity to meet Arpin at a race it’s impossible not to like him. He always seems like he’s just so happy to be there and then goes out and knocks around the competition. Arpin has so much enthusiasm for Global Rallycross and racing and life in general that he elevates the entire league, because of how much energy he brings week in and week out.
That’s something that GRC should be seizing upon and promoting as much as possible. The league is full of talented drivers who are also engaging people but many racing fans can’t name a current GRC driver, unless they saw Foust in his “day job” as the co-host of History’s Top Gear. There must be a bigger public profile if the sport is going to grow, and Arpin is exactly the guy that should be front and center. He’s talented, he’s classy, he’s funny and he can make other people care about Global Rallycross as much as he does.
Both on and off the racetrack, Steve Arpin has all the components of being a superstar. The pieces just haven’t fallen his way yet, but they’re certainly starting to.
Next: Speed Takes Win In First GRC Atlantic City Race
2016 has been a year of transition for Red Bull Global Rallycross, with Speed toppling the title dominance of Olsbergs MSE and Ken Block leaving the league he helped make famous to race in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Now we’re seeing a new era that’s led by Andretti’s two superstars and that needs other drivers to step up and continue to grow the sport.
Steve Arpin is one of those drivers. His on-track performance has finally been unleashed now that he’s driving for a major team in Chip Ganassi Racing, and off-track he is and always has been one of GRC’s brightest personalities. It’s only a matter of time before he finds a championship and he deserves to be one of the faces of the league.
Red Bull Global Rallycross Seattle takes place Sept. 17 at Evergreen Speedway in Seattle, WA. The race will be televised Sunday, Sept. 18 at 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT on NBCSN.