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.
For any of you who missed the XGAMES 15 coverage of Rally Racing, here’s some stuff that went down:
Ken Block clipped the inside of a corner in practice and rolled it. His crew managed to get his car in working order for the race against Brian Deegan.
Foust is using an electro-somethingmotive sequential transmission in his Ford Fiesta rally car (hmmm, hopefully rally america starts letting this happen).
ACP succesfully landed his second jump of compeition vs Pastrana, but sadly spun at the end. Pastrana won his first race of the event. After the race there was a quick shot of Pastrana and his car being weighed on four scales (random scrutineering?).
Ken Block raced against Deegan. Ken Block tapped the rear right corner of his car against a jersey barrier and did not have enough speed to hit the jump, so he skipped it. Block DQ’d himself by skipping the jump, luckily for Deegan, who had a turbo hose pop off, essentially making his car naturally aspirated (read low power/torque).
Tanner Foust raced Kenny Brack (who beat Dave Mirra). Both fords jumped astonishingly well. Foust either pushed too hard, or was late with turning coming off of the second hairpin and overshot. This mistake cost Foust the race and Brack advanced to the Final.
Travis Pastrana lined up to race Brian Deegan. Deegan’s turbo hose couldn’t get fixed in time. Deegan’s car could not clear the jump with 1/3rd of the power, so he skipped it and was DQ’d. Deegan was shown in car so frustrated and angry to the point of crying. This is understandable considering something so simple as a turbo hose ruining your shot at an X-Games medal.
Travis Pastrana raced Kenny Brack (former Indy Racer) for the gold. Kenny Brack lost his bumper (mostly) on the first jump. Sadly, Travis Pastrana wedged himself into the trickiest corner of the race. Brack won, and this is Travis’ first loss in Rally at the XGAMES.
Kenny Brack: GOLD
Travis Pastrana: SILVER
Tanner Foust: BRONZE
Some notes: Everyone seemed to be using a sequential transmission (hooray new Rally America rules), but I’m pretty sure the Fiestas were using Electro-something sequentials, which would be hopeful for rule changes in Rally America.
These cars are much more powerful than during the normal season. The restrictor preturbo is larger in diameter, and these cars are at least doubling their power just for this event.
Just got word from a buddy who lives in Maryland that Travis Pastrana successfully landed a backflip in a stripped down version of his competition car. Video isn’t out of it yet, but hopefully it will be! Someone got a pic of it though:
Travis Pastrana really is amazing when it comes to things with wheels and motors. I hope to see him start using this move in his rallies!
Uh oh, I just realized this could also spell doom for rally in America. Just like with Motocross he could be switching to the Freestyle variety. Freestyle Rally, X-Games 09 is looking like it has yet another sport to add.
So I was flipping through the TV to look for something fun to watch for an hour. I ran across 199 Lives: The Travis Pastrana story being aired on MTV. My buddy texted me a few hours later asking if I was watching it on MTV2. So I guess MTV is airing it somewhat regularly.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. Check out MTV or MTV2 one of these days. It is a documentary worth watching, granted most of it doesn’t have to do with his Rally career.
If you want the DVD buy it on amazon (affiliate link).
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!
199 Lives: The Travis Pastrana Story
I saw it with Mark when it came to select theaters for one day only. It just happened to come to the theater nearest us, so that was convenient. However I was sick and popping Pseudoephedrine like there was no tomorrow, so I ought to see it again. But from what I remember it was really fun to watch, regardless of sinus pain.
If you really have no idea what 199 Lives is or who Travis Pastrana is here is a trailer:
Link for you RSS Peeps.
Thanks to Patrick for the heads up on the release date! Oh and it really did take forever for it to come out on DVD didn’t it? (~6 Months).
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’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.
The X-Games this year was AMAZING. This is the third year where Rally Racing was present as an event in the X-Games. In pure X-Games fashion the crossover jump was the biggest it has ever been. It was pretty spectacular to watch. Lots of drama and lots of up and comers including a father son team that did better than expected.
Unfortunately the only non-Subaru (Mitsubishi) racing DNFd over the jump. It was driven by Andrew Comrie-Picard, who is trailing Travis Pastrana by 1 point in the Rally America series. ACP ended up coming short on the jump (just a few mph) and the impact on the rear wheels caused him to flip end over end. What makes this more heartbreaking is it was his first race (semi-finals) of the week and he had it won if he made the jump. Why would he have it won? Dave Mirra hit the wall pretty hard and knocked his steering out of alignment right before that (and he thought he DNFd). Luckily for Dave, he was able to finish albeit painfully slow involving many excursions into reverse. There are videos of it popping up all over YouTube: here and here for example. Better luck next year ACP!
It all ended with a battle between last year’s gold medalist and the original X-Games gold medalist: Tanner Foust and Travis Pastrana. Travis was racing with a new co-driver (not too big of a deal on a Super Special) as his current co-driver fractured a vertebrae in the Freestyle Motocross the previous night. These guys are super competitive in everything they do. Anyway, Travis was able to steal the gold from Tanner in their heads up. What an exciting X-Games.
The podium was filled with 4 drivers. Travis Pastrana, Tanner Foust and a tie for bronze between Dave Mirra and Ken Block. I sure hope you caught it on ABC.
Travis Pastrana’s car is supported by oh so many spares of almost everything on the car. Rarely would you get to see inside the support vehicles unless you were at a rally. I happened to stumble across a video of just that on YouTube. You may want to fast forward a bit past the intro.
Here is a link to the video for you RSS folks.
The New England Forest Rally was this past weekend, and unlike STPR’s results, NEFR was back to what you might expect: Coming in first was Niall McShea and co-driver Marshall Clarke, followed by Andrew Pinker/Robbie Durant. Rounding off the podium was Travis Pastrana/Derek Ringer.
This is good news for American Rally racers. Niall McShea has had 32 WRC starts, placed 9th in Rally Australia in 2004 and was crowned 2004’s PWRC winner. While you may not think that it is good news that a PWRC winner is stomping Americans and Canadians in Maine, you have to look at the pace that was kept. Travis Pastrana was only 2:43 behind McShea and only 1:18.9 separated Pinker from McShea.
As this beautiful sport grows in America, the gap between Europe and America shrinks in terms of Rally talent (see also Colin McRae not finishing 1st in the X-Games to Pastrana).
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