Ken Block

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Ken Block (disambiguation) .

Ken Block

Nation:
World Rally Championship (WRC)
First rally:	Rally Mexico 2007
Co-driver:	Alessandro Gelsomino
Team:	Hoonigan Racing Division
Vehicle:	Ford Fiesta RS WRC
Rallies Victories Podiums WP 23 - - -
Points:	18th
Status: After Rally 7 of 13, 2013 season

Ken Block (born November 21, 1967 in Long Beach , California ) is an American rally and rallycross driver, co-founder of the DC Shoes brand and multiple medalist at the X-Games . Block has three children with his wife, Lucy Block. His closest friends include Rob Dyrdek and Travis Pastrana .

rally

Block, who has been very successful in the Rally America series since 2005 , came to rallying through Travis Pastrana and was named Rookie of the Year in his very first season . From 2005 to 2009 he competed in Rally America for the Subaru Rally Team USA in a Subaru Impreza . Since 2007 Ken Block has also started in a number of WRC rallies. So far, however, he has only been able to achieve great success at the Rally America. Ken Block's rally vehicles are always lavishly wrapped.

In early January 2010, the Ford team announced that Block would drive several outings in a Ford Fiesta World Rally Championship (WRC) during the 2010 rally season . His first start was at the Rally Mexico , where he had a minor accident. His best World Championship result of the 2010 season , with a total of seven starts, was a ninth place at the Rally Catalonia . He also started with his Monster World Rally Team in the Rally America series in a Ford Fiesta from the OlsbergsMSE team from Sweden.

In the 2011 season he and his team will start again in the World Rally Championship . His first appearances this year could not be described as successful. After completing ten world championship rallies, 25 drivers had already achieved championship points in the drivers’s world championship , 12 of them in the lower classes. The block starting in the strongest class had not yet received any points. At the 2011 Rally Portugal , Block did not make it to the start of the rally because he had a serious accident while warming up , known as the shake down . At the 2011 Rally France he achieved his best result so far in the WRC and his first championship points with eighth place. At the end of the season he reached 22nd place in the drivers' world championship with six championship points. In 2012, Block managed to get 2 points each in the Rally Mexico and the Rally New Zealand. He was 28th out of 36 drivers in the overall standings. In 2013 he finished 7th in Mexico, his best finish in the WRC so far.

Rallycross

In the fall of 2011, Block had confirmed to American media that he was considering withdrawing from the World Rally Championship and joining the American Global RallyCross Championship in 2012 , which he did not fully do. After completing six runs in the series, he finished 5th overall, which was won by his brand colleague Tanner Foust . The X-Games automobile competition is also part of the GRC . Here he showed his best performance when he crossed the finish line in the finale in Los Angeles on July 1, 2012 in second place behind winner Sébastien Loeb , even though a tire had burst about halfway through the race.

After taking part in the Global RallyCross Championship for several years, Block completed all 12 races in the FIA World Rallycross Championship in 2016 .

Gymkhana

Ken Block participates in Gymkhana tournaments and markets this in elaborately staged video productions. Block's Gymkhana videos were viewed over 250 million times (as of January 2020). Since 2008 he has published a new gymkhana video every summer. His most successful video to date is Gymkhana Five from 2012 with over 103 million clicks (as of January 2020) . A part of downtown San Francisco was blocked for this video . This video received over 5.1 million clicks in just 24 hours, making it by far the most successful YouTube video within a week. Ken Block made the sport of gymkhana popular and is adored by many of his fans for it. In 2007 he drifted through the snow in a Subaru Impreza with snowboarders in a SnowPark. In 2009 he showed James May some gymkhana tricks on the UK car show Top Gear . In Gymkhana 7 , released November 2014, Ken Block drifts through Los Angeles in a modified Ford Mustang . In March 2016, the video of Gymkhana 8 was published. It shows Ken Block drifting through the streets of Dubai in a Ford Fiesta ST RX43 .

DC Shoes

Damon Way and Ken Block founded DC Shoes in California in 1993. Since then, the company has specialized in the manufacture of shoes, clothing and accessories in the areas of skateboard , snowboard , BMX and motorcycle . In 2004 the brand was taken over by Quiksilver .

Sponsorship and advice

Ken Block is a popular advertising testimonial . His sponsors include a. Brands like Monster Energy Drink , Ford , DC Shoes , Toyo Tires , Forza Horizon , Spy, Hoonigan , GoPro , Shining Monkey and Snap-on. In the German-speaking area he promoted Unitymedia .

Block was a technical consultant for the Colin McRae DiRT 2 and DiRT 3 video games . He continues to advertise the dirt games intensively on his cars and clothing.

Block has been working for Electronic Arts as a consultant for the racing game series Need for Speed since 2013 .

Rally America Results

year	automobile	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	Overall rating	Points
2005	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	SNO 5	ORE 7	SUS 3	PIK 4	MAY 3	OJI Ret	COL 4	LSP 3		4th	65
2006	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	SNO 3	ACR 1	ORE 3	SUS Ret	MAY 11	OJI Ret	COL Ret	LSP 1	WIL 3	2	90
2007	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	SNO 6	ACR 1	ORE 2	OLY 4	SUS Ret	NEW 3	OJI 2	COL 1	LSP Ret	3	109
2008	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	SNO 5	ACR 1	OLY 1	ORE Ret	SUS Ret	NEW Ret	OJI Ret	COL 5	LSP 1	2	86
2009	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	SNO Ret	ACR 1	OLY Ret	ORE Ret	SUS 1	NEW 2	OJI Ret	COL Ret	LSP 3	4th	80
2010	Ford Fiesta	SNO Ret	ACR 1	OLY Ret	ORE Ret	SUS Ret	NEW Ret				12	27
2012	Ford Fiesta	SNO	ACR 1	ORE	SUS	NEW	OLY 1				4th	44
2013	Ford Fiesta	SNO 6	ACR Ret	ORE 2	SUS 1	NEW 1	OJI 1	LSP Ret			2	93
2014	Ford Fiesta	SNO Ret	ACR 1	ORE	SUS	MTW	NEW	OJI	LSP		12	22nd

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

WRC results

year	team	automobile	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	Overall rating	Points
2007	Ken Block	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	MON	SWE	NOR	MEX 28	POR	ARG	ITA	GRE	FIN	GER							NC	0
	Rally FaNZ												NZL 56	ESP	FRA	JPN	IRISHMAN	GBR
2008	Subaru Rally Team USA	Subaru Impreza WRX STi	MON	SWE	MEX	ARG	JOR	ITA	GRE	DOOR	FIN	GER	NZL 30	ESP	FRA	JPN	GBR		NC	0
2010	Monster World Rally Team	Ford Focus RS WRC 08	SWE	MEX 18	JOR	TUR 24	NZL	POR Ret	BUL	FIN	GER Ret	JPN	FRA 12	ESP 9	GBR 21				19th	2
2011	Monster World Rally Team	Ford Fiesta RS WRC	SWE 14	MEX 12	POR DNA	JOR	ITA	ARG 18	GRE	FIN	GER 17	OFF 19	FRA 8	ESP Ret	GBR 9				22nd	6th
2012	Monster World Rally Team	Ford Fiesta RS WRC	MON	SWE	MEX 9	POR	ARG	GRE	NZL 9	FIN Ret	GER	GBR	FRA	ITA	ESP				28	4th
2013	Hoonigan Racing Division	Ford Fiesta RS WRC	MON	SWE	MEX 7	POR	ARG	GRE	ITA	FIN	GER	OUT	FRA	ESP	GBR				20th	6th
2014	Hoonigan Racing Division	Ford Fiesta RS WRC	MON	SWE	MEX	POR	ARG	GRE	ITA	FIN	GER	OUT	FRA	ESP 12	GBR				NC	0

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tobias Grüner: Action star Block drives World Rally Championship. In: auto motor und sport , January 7, 2010.
2. ↑ Ken Block's Gymkhana IV Hollywood Megamercial , accessed November 12, Ken Block Gymkhana Practice (YouTube, 4:27)
3. ↑ Snowdrifting
4. ↑ Gymkhana 7 ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Michail Hengstenberg: The new block buster. In: Spiegel Online , March 1, 2016.
6. ↑ DiRT 2: Racing on DiRT, a satisfied conclusion from Ken Block. In: motorsport-total.com , July 30, 2009.
7. ↑ Tobias Münster: Need for Speed ​​- EA announces collaboration with Ken Block. In: GameStar , October 24, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Ken Block  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Ken Block's website
• Results and statistics on eWRC-results.com
• WRC statistics on juwra.com