I rode in a friend’s Ferrari (1978 308) recently and while I love how it sounds… I often can not get enough of the turbocharged sound. So if you love the sound of turbochargers doing work here you go:
Link for you RSS peeps.
It may be an older video of ours, but I love it and cannot get enough.
Update: Apparently I decided to post this exactly two years after uploading it to YouTube. Odd.
So Ford Motor Co contacted me and wanted to play up their 2010 Mustang. Surprisingly they had a Rally style competition between two guys in Mustangs. Here’s a video of it:
Link for you RSS peeps.
Now as for the competitiveness of the 2010 Mustang, there is no actual data supporting any claims. Utecht races a 1988 Mustang in the Central Group 5 series. He is a very good driver and has been winning events (and championships in the past) and is currently in 2nd for the Central Group 5 title. Unfortunately this says nothing for the 2010 Mustang as they have completely different frames, engines, suspensions, etc…
As for Hurst, while he does work for Rally America, I have been unable to find any info on him. I still prefer the Fiesta to the Mustang in terms of a Rally platform.
In June of 2008 I wrote an article lamenting about Rally America’s rules on sequential transmissions. Turns out they’ve caved…a bit. I was reading the rules and I stumbled over this on page 89 section 6c:
Gear Change: The use of an unassisted manual sequential gear change mechanism is allowed.
Neat! You can use a sequential given that you have direct access to the mechanical selector. That is only one step away from an electro-whathaveyou sequential with paddle controls. Although you cannot control many parts electronically (yet), as seen on page 89 section 6b:
Electronic Controls: No type or form of electronic control is permitted for the following components:
i. Suspension, steering, braking, gear change/clutch, front and rear differentials.
ii. Simple engine cut operating during a mechanically activated gear change is permitted.
So you cannot control the clutch/transmission electronically yet. But you can flat shift, which means you keep your foot planted on the gas pedal during shifts and electronically cut the engine’s power. Either way, there is hope for Rally America to become the premiere rally league in the future. Not for a while though.
So unlike the WRC, most of the teams in Rally America are back for the 2009 season. However there was a significant change of vehicle for one of the top contenders. Tanner Foust drove to second place at this years Sno*Drift in his Hyundai Tiburon. It’s good to see that a non-Subaru/Mitsubishi can be competitive.
Travis Pastrana took first place in his 2009 Subaru, but worried about deer strikes through out the competition (it ended his 2008 Sno*Drift lead). ACP rallied his Mitsubishi Evo into 3rd place, although I think he should’ve done better…he’s Canadian. They get a lot of snow up there, eh (har har har I can make canned jokes about Canada. WOAH! Puns too ).
These results make me happy. They give me hope for Rally’s future. Some diversity is present in the field, unlike the Citroen v Ford WRC. I’m eager to see how this season shapes up. Next up for RA is 100 Acre Wood in Missouri. Woo!
If you were curious about some of the highlights of LSPR (Rally America’s last race of the season) here they are. Link for you RSS Peeps.
Rally America gives you a slight advantage if you chose to run a diesel in their Production classes. In order to equalize different cars in a class displacement limits are given, but it is not always the engine’s actual displacement (unless you’re running a 2WD NA car). They calculate it by providing multipliers for certain aspects of a car. A car with AWD is given a 1.3 multiplier, so if you were running a 1999cc NA AWD car your recalulated displacement would be ~2599cc.
So the multipliers (as of 10/25/08) are:
So Diesel’s get a displacement advantage. So a 2000cc AWD NA diesel car would have about the same adjusted displacement as a 2000cc FWD NA gasoline car (80cc adjusted difference). You may or may not know that diesels tend to make more torque and consume less than their gasoline counterparts. So I wonder why they get the advantage in the rules.
This makes me wonder how a TDI would do in the rally world, especially in the open class (no displacement advantage given). Although I wonder how and if you could do an Anti-Lag system…hrmmm. While I’m thinking take a listen to the most famous diesel race car: Link for you RSS peeps.
So, what do you do when you don’t have a rally car and are saving up to buy/build one? Read the rules of leagues you want to compete in of course! How else can you correctly dream about building your car?
Anyhoo, after reading lots of rules regarding competing in Rally America I stumbled onto one of the most awesome classes (next to open): Super Production. First let me explain Production classes:
Production Classes
Basically they are the classes that are closest to stock from the factory. Buy, add a cage/seats and race. You are only allowed to modify certain things, and the car’s settings will be similar if not the same to the factory (gear/differential ratios, etc…). For example, the brakes on most race cars are heavily modified, but in the Production and Production GT classes you cannot make the friction surface in the brakes any larger than stock. You can add beefier suspension as long as it uses the original mounting points on the frame of the car and as long as it works the same way the stock car’s suspension worked (ie Leaf or Hydraulic or Torsion).
The interior goes only slightly modified. You have to keep the front interior the same (dashboard and a-pillar) but you can get rid of carpeting and sound proofing. Of course seats are replaced with one piece racing seats and rollcages are added.
The engine can be barely touched at all. All routings have to be the same as factory and even the cooling devices have to be OEM sized. The only modifications allowed are usually electrical in nature, related to ECUs and tuning. While you cannot replace the factory ECU you can reprogram it.
There are also weight minimums for the Production and Production GT classes. For the production class it is 1.05 lbs per adjusted cc of displacement. So, if you have a 2 liter natrually aspirated engine in a FWD car, your minimum weight is 2100lbs.
So how is super production any different?
Super Production
It borrows a lot from the other production classes, but is far less restricted (hence the super). Plenty more things are modifiable. It is especially the cheaper parts that you’re allowed to go crazy with, like the brakes. They only restrict you in choosing cast iron rotors only (aluminum hats optional) and you can have no more than 4 pots/brake. Other than that you can have the largest/smallest friction surface you can fit (while also being street legal!!).
Weight minimums are thrown out the window, except for WRXs and EVOs. So the cars can take turns at higher speeds (less intertia) and accelerate way quicker than their Production class counterparts.
The engines of Super Production cars, hopefully, out produce the engines of Production GT cars. Turbocharged/Supercharged cars in Production GT have a 32mm diameter inlet restrictor on the intake, while Super Production cars have a much larger 34mm. While it may not sound like a ton, 13% increase in intake size means 13% more air available to the engine (all things equal), hopefully that means 13% more engine power.
Super Production cars are also allowed to play with cooling devices’ positions and their hoses. This might make for quicker responding cars and cars that won’t break from overheating. But what really sets Super Production apart is the fact they are allowed to use whatever ECU they so desire. Aftermarket ECUs provide much more flexibility in how to tune the engine.
I’m eager to see what competitors start showing up in the Super Production class as they’re going to be quicker than their production/production gt counterparts. I’d be eager to see what cars end up winning the Super Production class (WRXs and EVOs I imagine). I’ll keep watching to see how this cheaper than open class class evolves.
Rally America’s 2008 season ended this weeked with their final event of the year: Rally Michigan (aka LSPR). Travis pastrana had already locked in the overall championship win but decided to get a podium finish anyway (~2 minutes behind first). Travis’ well known teammate, Ken Block, ended up winning the Rally to keep Sarasin out of 2nd overall. Kyle Sarasin didn’t give up on second easily and ended up with a 2nd place finish at the Rally (~1 minute behind Ken).
Kyle Sarasin did, however, end up 3rd in the overall championship this year. I would say this has been a good year for this up and coming rallyer. Did you know he is still a teenager and barely a legal adult? There is a lot more that is going to come out of this racer in the future (or so I hope his budget permits). He’ll be someone to watch, for sure.
I guess the competition pushed ACP into DNFing this weekend. He still ended up 4th in the championship but a DNF is a demoralizing way to end a season. You should go watch ACP’s videos and make him keep racing.
Either way, it was a neat end to a season and I hope to see some more exciting races next year. Sno*Drift here we come!
Rally America is what I consider to be the top Rally Racing competition in the United States (probably North America). So while looking into the standings of the drivers, I decided to check out how and where they were getting their points. What startled me was how few of the competitors make it to every single event.
Kyle Sarasin, for example, is in 2nd place overall with 66 points and even he has not made it to every event. He missed out on the New England Forest Rally. But he is not alone in missing events. Andrew Comrie-Picard has missed two events (although ACP races in the Canadian Rally Championship also). Matt Johnson has missed two. Antoine L’Estage has missed FOUR! He has missed out on half the season! Tanner Foust has missed three events (I think he was competing in Drift events for those misses but that shouldnt excuse him). Patrick Moro has missed two events. Kenny Bartram has missed one event. Carl Jardevall and William Bacon each have missed five events. Travis Pastrana has missed none along with his teammate Ken Block. Andrew Pinker has yet to miss an event this season also. That rounds out the top 12 competitors overall.
I think that is ridiculous! Only three of the top 12 have been to every single event. If the top rally racers in the US cannot be expected to show up to the races how can spectators? I do not enjoy writing this criticism, but it is a huge problem in the world of US Rally. Could you imagine if Petter Solberg, or Sebastien Loeb had taken one WRC race off?
Hopefully the missing races is a symptom rather than a cause of problems in Rally America. I get that there is not a lot of money pushed into Rally and that is a huge reason most of the competitors do not go to every event (as they cannot afford to). It just makes me sad that only 3 of the top 12 have made every event. However it brings up a way to start placing higher (and solve the problem): compete in every single event. That will get you points just for showing up (and finishing). If you just show up and finish every event (placing outside points for positions) you would be in 18th place overall. Time to get a bankroll.
Rally America’s 9th and final rally of the season is next weekend (October 17th, 2008). It is called the Lake Superior Rally, but I like to refer to rallies by the State they are in or a convenient abbreviation (LSPR would be this rally, but that is not as fun to say as STPR). So I call it Rally Michigan as it is more fun and I’m sticking it to the man…YEA!
Racers will be swept off to Houghton, Michigan. It will be a race for the podium, but only the last two spots as Travis Pastrana locked in his 1st place this season with 116 points overall. Compare that to Kyle Sarasin’s 2nd place of 66 points overall. But watch out for Ken Block and Andrew Comrie-Picard too, they are not far off of 2nd with 64 and 62 points respectively.
Enough people are within points ranges for 2nd and 3rd place that this Rally will be an all out race to the finish line with only 1st place being locked in. There will plenty of broken hearts (and cars to go with them), and hopefully some upsets leading up to the final podiums. Unfortunately for Tanner Foust, it is not possible for him to get 3rd place overall, even if everyone DNFs but him. So expect to see 7th place overall and up fighting it out for the podium in Houghton, Michigan next weekend. It is going to be fun and your final fix of Rally America until 2009.
Either I was horrible at finding awesome Rally blogs before we started TwoGuysRally or I am finding more solely because people now tell me about Rally blogs. Either way it is a good thing for all of us:
Last Ditch Racing - While I knew about their YouTube channel, I must have missed their blog. Either way these guys are doing exactly what Mark and I want to do: Rally and tell people interesting things about it. Check that blog out. Thanks for the heads up on this one Aaron.
Alba Rallysport - These guys are regulars on DirtyImpreza and that is how I found out about them. They provide some good articles but it is more related to news and how they are doing/what they are going to be doing. Interesting stuff anyway, although I wish they would update more often (but I get it, posting regularly is tough, just see my last Friday’s post).
321 Go Video - While not really a blog, they do provide some good coverage for Rally Stuff and apparently they have their own team. Although I do not know a ton about them as I am somewhat lazy and they do not publicly write about themselves. However, they do provide some well produced videos in high quality.
Anyway those are the ones that I’ve found/been brought to my attention recently. If you know of any more please please let me know. Either in the comments below or shoot us an email.
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