With Sebastien Loeb returning to Europe to race World RallyCross and Marcus Grohnholm recovering from a series of injuries sustained at X Games, Travis Pastrana broke through with a desperately needed victory in Round 4 of the 2012 Global RallyCross Championship at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Pastrana, who is accustomed to competitive success, has struggled this year in both the Nationwide series and GRC. After the race he expressed his strong ambitions to take home the win: “We’ve handpicked this whole crew and we got this car and we got everything and we thought we were good and we’ve just been getting creamed and crushed every race. And this race I was just like, ‘You know what, I’m not being nice. We’re going to win. We’re going to put this thing on top of the box.”

The result in New Hampshire was a far cry from his showing at last month’s GRC at X Games, when his race lasted less than 15 seconds. Pastrana grabbed the hole-shot, heading into turn one, only to be driven into the wall by 58-year-old rookie Andy Scott.

Tanner Foust finished fourth in New Hampshire but has the overall points lead heading into the final stop of the season, September 29 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.