There is only one thing you can count on in rally, the unexpected. Last year’s Rally in the 100 Acre Wood was bitter cold and cut short by a snow storm on the final day of the rally. This year, well, with the event moved back a month to March instead of February the weather was bound to be better. And it was, but only slightly. The day before the rally was to begin was sunny and right near 70 degrees, but that quickly changed. Clouds rolled in and a cold wind kicked up on Friday, with a chance of rain and/or snow that night into Saturday morning as the temps plummeted into the lower 30s. This year’s event turned out to be a dusty, rocky, treacherous, car eating, nasty one. Even a light rain on Friday night was not enough to keep the dust down, trust me, I inhaled a full meal of dust over the course of the weekend. More…
100 Acre Wood, David Higgins, featured, Fetela Rally Team, rally, Rally America, Subaru, Travis Patrana
Rally is a crazy sport with a million variables and sometimes those variables conspire against you. Fetela Rally Team experienced just this, in what I can say is the craziest crash I’ve witnessed first hand. They came flying over the cattle guard in the familiar fashion I’ve seen many times, but it didn’t end how anyone wanted or expected. More…
100 Acre Wood, crash, featured, Fetela Rally Team, rally, Rally America, Subaru
The guys over at Speedway Motors have done it again. Another great recap video from SCCA Solo National Championships in Lincoln, NE. Just in time to get all of us in the cold weather parts of the United States pumped for the upcoming autocross season to get underway. If you’ve never been to Nationals before, this video will give you an excellent idea of all the fun and excitement you have been missing. More…
featured, SCCA, Solo, Solo National Championships, Speedway Motors, video
It looks like we aren’t going to have wait much longer for Ken Block’s Gymkhana 8! The popular YouTube video series will release it’s 8th installment on February 29th, but that wasn’t the only news from the Hoonigan Racing Team. Also revealed today was a new “Ultra-Reflective” livery, that LITerally changes color depending on how and what light hits it. I’m not sure we should be surprised that Block would try to one up his crazy/fun liveries, but this does look pretty crazy. Finally, it appears that Block has a new tire sponsor in Toyo Tires. He will be running Toyo Proxes R1R, I would presume all year, but at least for the Gymkhana video.
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featured, Ford, GRC, gymkhana, Hoonigan, Ken Block, rally, Rally America, Rallycross, Toyo
A couple year’s ago, Ken Block set out to build a car that he could use for rally, rallycross and Gymkhana and boy did he ever. He drove the Ford Fiesta HFHV to victory’s in the Global Rallycross series, Rally America and more. Oh yah, he also made one of those Gymkhana YouTube series videos (it only has 33 million views) that he does from time to time. Now it’s for sale and you can hoon just like Ken Block for the low, low price of $362,000 USD. That might seem kind of steep but it’s really not that bad considering that it comes complete with the full rally, rallycross and Gymkhana set ups from the Hoonigan Racing Division.
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featured, Ford, gymkhana, Ken Block, rally, Rally America, Rallycross
Yup it’s that time of year when some sort of formula determines how each SCCA Autocross will compare to another class. After a full year of stock class cars being on street tires there have been some changes that should make things more accurate. CSP, STF and SMF also had some rather large adjustments. Also of note is the addition of a new Street Touring class, STP.
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Engineering. Working within a set of rules to constantly improve upon an idea. Engineering can be easily lost in the light of a final product. Nobody knows about the 39 WDs that didn’t work, the turbos that flew apart at engine idle, or even the puddles of weird goopy film that lead to the eventual creation of Nylon. Engineering is what happens when nobody is looking; when nobody even knows there’s a problem to be solved. There is a cap at the end of an inflatable life vest not more than an ounce in weight. Now hundreds of people are alive because they floated. Because they didn’t need to run to the back of the plane to get a foam vest. Because an engineer made a great product better.
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It seems like every year Nationals sneaks up on me quicker than the previous year and this year was no exception. I felt the least prepared for Nationals this year than I ever have and my driving showed it, but we’ll get to that in a bit. My Nationals ‘week’ started early, it actually started the Tuesday before as I made my way out to Lincoln Air Park to help set up the fence that forms a perimeter between Nationals and the active air port. Setting up the fence is no small feat, as there is well over a mile of fence to set up and usually a relatively small group to do so. Luckily that group has a lot of practice and we have it down to a science. More…
Autocross, featured, photos, SCCA, Solo National Championships
Photos from the 2015 SCCA TireRack Solo National Championships held in Lincoln, NE at Lincoln Air Park have been posted in the 2015 SCCA Solo National Championships Photo Gallery. Nearly 10,000 photos from all 4 days have been posted and are separated by class. I am working on recovering photos from Thursday morning Heats 1 & 2 from a corrupted memory card and hope to have them posted soon. Also coming soon is a recap of the event and ProSolo Finale photos! Keep checking back for those!
UPDATE:
I recovered about 1000 photos from my corrupted memory card of Heats 1 & 2 on Thursday morning. They have been uploaded and added to their respective class galleries. Photos from the ProSolo have been uploaded as well to the 2015 SCCA ProSolo Finale and Speedway CAM Invitational Photo Gallery
We all knew that Sebastien Loeb was a god among men when it came to rally driving. His domination of the WRC over the years easily proves that. When he decided to switch things up and tackle the WTCC, we were all sad to see him leave the WRC, but excited to see what he could do with consistent grip. Well he shows just how crazy good he is in this video of his 9 minute lap around the Nürburgring Nordschleife in his WTCC car.
Hold on tight, it’s gonna be one hell of a ride.
Citroen, Loeb, Nurburgring, WRC, WTCC
