Oregon Trail Rally is kicking off today for an action-packed three days of competition. The fun starts off today with a Parc Exposé in downtown Portland, followed by the start, tomorrow at Portland International Raceway. Competition runs through the weekend out of the Hillsboro Fairgrounds and the town of Vernonia.

I always think it's more enjoyable to watch (or follow online) an event when there's some perspective to go along with it. So, for the first time ever, we're making our coverage of the 2007 Oregon Trail Rally available to watch online for free (this is the same feature that ran on Portland television last year.)

For 2008 can Ken Block of the Subaru Rally Team USA perform a three-peat in the Rally America series? Will Australian Andrew Pinker win Oregon Trail for the second year in a row? How about Travis Pastrana and Tanner Foust? Pastrana's motor blew last year, taking him out of contention for the event. Foust made podium, but wanted to win it outright. Should be some fantastic competition.

Click over to the Driving Sports TV Rallysport Channel and select which segments you want to watch. The full meal deal on the 2007 event is just under 30-minutes long. All the segments should be up by the end of the day today.

How do you think the podium will look at the end of the event? Here's my guess:

1. Pastrana
2. Pinker
3. Block

Last fall I visited the Prodrive test facility in Warwickshire, UK. Check out the video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FP2NBAgpl28

Subiesport Magazine launches new Site!



For 2008 the Subiesport Magazine website has received a complete makeover. You want more news about your car, how to get the most from it, what's going on in the world of rally sports and what's happening in the Subaru community -- from a source you trust. We heard you! The new site combines the power of our digital edition along with a web log of the latest news from the world, and online.

Not into checking the site every day? We have you covered. Sign up for our automated email update service and Subiesport.com will automatically email all the posts from the day. Not just clips -- the complete stories! This service is free and can be canceled at any time.

http://www.subiesport.com/updates-by-email.html

Prefer to get your info on the go? The new Subiesport.com features advanced RSS feeds to keep you hooked up. Just visit the site and click "RSS Feed" to get started. This is great for mobile phones and other portable devices.

Check it out: http://www.subiesport.com

Be sure to update your bookmarks! The old site (mag.subiesport.com) will continue to stay up, but will no longer receive updates.

Block/Gelsomino Threepeat at 100 Acre Wood
Many Teams Suffer Damage in Icy Weather

By Jeff Zurschmeide, Subiesport Magazine

Photos: http://www.drivingsports.com/blog/2008/03/...gelsomin-1.html

The plan in the Rally America season is to hold just one true snow rally. Sno*Drift in January leads off the season, and some competitors skip the event in favor of the much more temperate Rally in the 100 Acre Wood held in Missouri a month later. But this year, Mother Nature caught many teams with their long johns down as winter weather again dominated the results at the second round of the 2008 rally racing championship series.

The day before the event, snow, ice, and freezing rain paralyzed the nation’s heartland and kept drivers, co-drivers, and some teams waiting for the St. Louis airport to reopen. Several participants had to make forced drives at the last minute to arrive in time to start the event, but when they did start, the conditions were anything but hospitable, leading to one of the most difficult 100 Acre Wood rallies in recent years.

Coming out of Sno*Drift, the Canadian duo of Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard had the winner’s momentum, but this will be the hardest year yet for the Rally America championship. Several top teams are ready to pounce on the slightest mistake or misfortune.

Last year’s champion Travis Pastrana was first on the road with a brand new co-driver. After several years and two consecutive championships, SRTUSA veteran Christian Edstrom chose to step out of the car following a rally-ending impact with a deer at Sno*Drift. While a co-driver of Edstrom’s stature is not easy to replace, Subaru tapped past WRC champion co-driver Derek Ringer of Scotland. This is the latest of many indications that Subaru is seriously grooming Pastrana for WRC competition.

http://www.drivingsports.com/blog/images/2...00aw08block.jpg

But it was SRTUSA teammates Ken Block and Alessandro Gelsomino who took the lead starting with Stage 1 of the event, winning the 10-mile opener by 6.1 seconds over second-place L’Estage/Richard. Pastrana/Ringer were 12 seconds off the lead on this stage, but still at least 14 seconds over the rest of the top 10. Block/Gelsomino repeated the win on Stage 2, came in second to Pastrana/Ringer on Stage 3, and were back on top for Stage 4, the last stage of Day 1.

Stage 3 claimed several competitors - the start of a destruction tour that may well affect downfield points races through the entire season if competitors can’t get their cars fixed by April’s Olympus Rally in Washington State. Most significantly, L’Estage/Richard retired on this stage with a mechanical problem in their modified AWD Hyundai Tiburon. With the second place car out of the way, the rally quickly turned into a Subaru Rally Team USA juggernaut.

In the 2WD ranks, a particular hill on Stage 3 proved a literally insurmountable challenge. With ice rather than gravel as the racing surface, several teams found themselves unable to climb the slope and complete the stage. At least one team, the #628 1996 Saturn SL piloted by Minnesotans Dan Adamson and Christopher Gordon, chose to withdraw from the day’s event, but returned for the second day with a brand new set of ice tires on the car.

At the end of the first four stages, Block/Gelsomino led the competition, followed by Pastrana/Ringer, with the Rockstar Energy Drink team of Tanner Foust and Christine Beavis holding down third. Two-time Production GT class champions Matt Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey finished the day in fourth place, and 2007 Group 5 champions Kyle Sarasin and Mikael Johansson completed the top five.

http://www.drivingsports.com/.shared/image...00aw08turbo.jpg

The second day of the event changed little except that Johnson/Wimpey moved up to third position. With the exception of Stage 10, taken by Canadians Andrew Comrie-Picard and Marc Goldfarb, every stage was won by Block/Gelsomino or Pastrana/Ringer, most often with the other SRTUSA team in second position. The battle in this rally was for third place, with Johnson/Wimpey, Comrie-Picard/Goldfarb, Sarasin/Johansson, Foust/Beavis and their teammates Andrew Pinker and Robbie Durant fighting it out.

When the podium was announced, no one was surprised to see Block/Gelsomino at the top of the standings in their 2006 STI. The pair ran a fast and consistent event, winning 9 of 14 stages outright and finishing second on an additional 4. In fact, the only stage on which Block/Gelsomino were not first or second was the final stage of the rally, where they dropped to 5th-fastest. Still, the team finished the event almost a full 60 seconds ahead of second-place Pastrana/Ringer in their 2006 STI and 4:22 ahead of third place Johnson/Wimpey in their 2003 WRX.

Comrie-Picard/Goldfarb finished in fourth place in their 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, despite serious damage sustained in an encounter with a tree that failed to move out of their way. (You should have come with us on the Alcan Rally, Andrew! - JZ) They were followed in the results by Sarasin/Johansson and then by the top Production GT car, a 2004 Subaru WRX piloted by Stephan Verdier and Scott Crouch.

Group 5 honors and 11th place overall were taken by Christopher Duplessis and Martin Headland in their 1990 Volkswagen GTI, while Production was won by Jim and Marianne Stevens in their 2004 Suzuki Swift. No Group 2 or Group N cars finished the National portion of the rally.

This rally was brutal on tires, with many teams limping home to the finish on their rims. The ordinarily fast roads turned treacherous with ice, leading several teams to turn up at their service areas with body and radiator damage. Along the way, Pinker/Durant, Foust/Beavis, and L’Estage/Richard all fell by the wayside to mechanical or impact troubles. Celebrity BMX rider turned rally driver Dave Mirra and co-driver Alan Ockwell also failed to finish the event due to a crash on Stage 14.

Fortunately, there’s a good interval between this rally and the upcoming Olympus Rally, to be held in Olympia, Washington on April 19-20. Competitors such as Amy Bebervanzo and Aubrey Volger, who struck a tree in their 2006 WRX, will need the interval to repair their cars.


####

Can I have a drum-roll please? Visit the official forum for more info.

Hey all you Subie-holics! I'd like to announce a new vendor to SubieClub, Rally Armor! If you're looking for some high-quality, rally-ready spats or a skidplate for your car, these are the guys to call:

Rally Armor is a NY based manufacturer of protective automotive products with a focus on Subarus. Rally Armor is committed to manufacturing premium quality performance products including skid plates and mud flaps and offering enthusiasts the kind of automotive wares that not only help modify their cars but also protect them. Visit http://www.rallyarmor.com for more information. Rally Armor proudly sources materials and fabricates its products in the U.S.

Sno*Drift 2008 Rally Report
Story: Jeff Zurschmeide | Subiesport Magazine
Photos: Lars Gange -- rally.subaru.com

More pics at:
http://www.drivingsports.com/blog/2008/01/...ift-2008-r.html

In Rally Racing, it’s not enough to have the best ride and the best service crew, and the best in-car team. You can’t just set ‘em up and knock ‘em down in this business, because anything can happen at any time. After the top teams fought the 2007 season to a razor’s edge finish, the 2008 season has started up again in the same thrilling, unpredictable fashion.

Subaru Rally Team USA stars Travis Pastrana and Christian Edstrom took the final event win of the 2007 season with just a 3.5-second margin of victory. With that win came the Rally America National Championship for the year. In the brief off-season, Pastrana competed in the WRC Production class at Rally GB and finished a humbling 11th. So he’s back to the 2008 Rally America series with two challenges in front of him - to defend his back-to-back championships in a series that gets tougher every year, and to hone his skills for further WRC opportunities.

Australian Andrew Pinker and co-driver Robbie Durant finished the 2007 season in second place, a total of 1 minute, 33.5 seconds behind Pastrana at the critical final event. Pastrana’s SRTUSA teammates Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino finished the season in third place. The wild card in 2007 was the team of Tanner Foust and Chrissie Beavis, who ended the season in fantastic form. If the duo had not missed a critical pair of events due to Foust’s drifting schedule, the championship might have been theirs.

But 2008 is starting out with much more than a repeat of the same closely-matched teams. A number of strong teams have moved into the Open class to contend for the win. Leading the pack are two-time Production GT champions Matt Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey. With their extensive experience in the Subaru WRX, look for Johnson/Wimpey to make a serious challenge this year.



18 year old Kyle Sarasin and co-driver Mikael Johansson are moving up to Open class from Group 5, where they won the 2007 rookies of the year and took second in the Group 5 national championship race. The young standouts are certain to put some pressure on the top teams this year in their 1994 Impreza. The dark horse teams of Piotr Wiktorczyk and Martin Brady in a 2002 WRX or Will Corry and Alexander Kihurani in a 2006 STI may also make an impression on the standings this year.

Also in the hunt is the Canadian team of Antoine L’Estage, paired with top co-driver Nathalie Richard in a highly-modified Hyundai Tiburon. Fellow Canadian Andrew Comrie-Picard will again team with Marc Goldfarb to try for the championship in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

Coming in from the X Games world is BMX racing star Dave Mirra, who is teamed with veteran co-driver Alan Ockwell for the season. Mirra is driving a Subaru supported by Vermont SportsCar and will share service crew with SRTUSA, but is not a formal member of the factory team.

The new teams gunning for the top are joined by all the top finishers from 2007, so the field was thick going into January’s Sno*Drift event in northern Michigan. Conditions were typical - snow and ice, and lots of it.

To set the start order for the first event of the year, the teams of Pastrana/Edstrom, Block/Gelsomino, Foust/Beavis, and Pinker/Durant were subjected to a random draw. Foust/Beavis won the draw and elected to start first. Because of the fresh snow, going first is not necessarily a great advantage. Pushing aside heavy snow can slow a car, with later runners taking advantage of a packed surface. "We were so slow, I can't believe it," said Foust.

It didn’t take long for the frozen conditions to claim their first victim. Pinker/Durant lost the engine in their STI a scant mile into the very first stage, taking them out of the rally and perhaps out of the running for the top spot in 2008.

Pastrana/Edstrom won the first stage of the year, besting second place L’Estage/Richard by 8.6 seconds on the 7.17-mile run. Block/Gelsomino were another 1.1 seconds behind the Canadians, with a wide gap on fourth place Foust/Beavis, likely because of their charitable snowplowing service.

Sno*Drift begins on Friday afternoon, with the first car taking the stages just prior to 3 p.m. Stages continue well into the chilly night; the first car starts the sixth and final stage of the day around 8 p.m. Pastrana/Edstrom won three of the day’s stages, Block/Gelsomino another two, and Comrie-Picard/Goldfarb won a single stage. At the end of day 1, Sno*Drift was shaping up to be another Subaru Rally Team juggernaut, and potentially the beginning of a dominating year for the defending champions. As the teams went to bed for the night, Pastrana/Edstrom led the rally by 45 seconds, followed by Block/Gelsomino, and with L’Estage/Richard in third place.

But a new day brings new chances, and on the slippery stages of a Michigan winter rally, anything can happen. In the morning, it looked as though the competition for the win would be between the SRTUSA cars. Block/Gelsomino won two of the first three stages, with Stage 8 going to L’Estage/Richard. But then on Stage 10, Block and Gelsomino’s luck ran out - the pair went off the road on a sharp left over a crest and found themselves high-centered on a frozen berm. "We just got sucked into the snow," Block said.

Block and Gelsomino lost 10 minutes liberating their car, succeeding just as Matt Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey stopped to help them. That delay took Block/Gelsomino out of the fight for the podium, and the stage win went to L’Estage/Richard. But as if to prove that they weren’t the sort to give up, Block/Gelsomino went on to win the next stage and the final four stages of the day.

On Stage 12, it was Foust/Beavis’s turn to get stuck in the snow, and the delay cost the team about 7 minutes, dashing their podium hopes for the event.

Although their teammates were down in the standings, the rally was well in the pockets of Pastrana/Edstrom. Going into Stage 16, the champs had a 2 minute margin on the rest of the field. But in order to win, you have to make it to the end - and there is no allowance for bad luck. “With a huge lead and just a few miles to the finish, we hit a deer at over 60 mph. It all happened so quickly, we were shocked. The car sustained heavy damage and couldn't continue. Amazingly bad luck,” Pastrana said. Thankfully, Pastrana and Edstrom were not hurt. It’s safe to assume that the high-speed collision didn’t do the deer any good.

With both Block/Gelsomino and Pastrana/Edstrom out of contention for the podium, the field was opened to those other cars who gave consistent performances throughout the event. Going into the final stage of the event, L’Estage/Richard moved into the lead. The pair had finished in the top 4 positions on 15 of the 16 stages of the rally, and won Stages 8 and 10. Comrie-Picard and Goldfarb held onto second place with top 4 finishes on 7 stages, winning only Stage 3.

In the end, Block and Gelsomino’s victories in the final four stages of the event couldn’t make up their deficit from Stage 10. The rally win went to L’Estage/Richard in their Hyundai Tiburon, followed by Comrie-Picard/Goldfarb in second place in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. “I have mixed feelings. I’m happy, but at the same time, I feel so bad for (Pastrana and Edstrom) because they did a great rally. They were the fastest, but we’ll take the win,” L’Estage said.

But the real news of the weekend was with Kyle Sarasin and Mikael Johansson. Coming up from a Group 5 Ford Focus to an Open class Impreza this year, the young duo gave an outstanding performance, consistently finishing each stage well up into the top 10. “Our game plan was to be consistent, try to stay in the race and get a top-10 finish. Some stuff happened, some people went out, and we ended up getting third overall,” Sarasin said. This result should put the sport’s leaders on notice - Watch your mirrors.

Fourth place went to Matt Johnson and Jeremy Wimpey in their first Open class event. With their prodigious Production GT experience and skill at carrying speed in a lower-powered car working for them, look for this team to move up onto the podium soon.

Block and Gelsomino finished the rally in fifth place.

In their first Rally America national championship event, Mirra and Ockwell finished 18th. Not a bad finish for any team’s first big event - to say nothing of an event held in knee-deep snow. With support from Vermont SportsCar and guidance from his friends at SRTUSA, look for Mirra to move up the standings this year.

The Production GT competition was intense, with 6 different teams claiming stage wins for the class. Travis and Terry Hanson won five stages in their 2002 WRX. The teams of Patrick Moro and Mike Rossey in a 2002 WRX and Todd Moberly and Rebecca Greek in a 2003 WRX each won four stages.

The teams of Evan Cline and Jason Grahn (1991 Mitsubishi Galant VR4), Bryan Pepp and Jerry Stang (2002 WRX), and Nathan & Brandye Conley (2003 WRX Wagon) each took one PGT stage win. When the scores were totaled up, it was Moro/Rossey in first place, followed by Pepp/Stang and then the team of Robert and Mariusz Borowicz, who earned third place with a consistent performance in their 2002 WRX.

The Group 5 and overall 2WD victory went to Christopher Duplessis and Martin Headland in their 1990 Volkswagen GTi, followed overall by Jan and Jody Zedril, who took an impressive Production class win in their 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer ES. No Group 2 or Group N cars finished the national portion of the event.

Sno*Drift is unique as the only true winter rally in the Rally America national season. Results here are not necessarily indicative of the rest of the year, but it’s clear that there are more qualified teams ready to wrestle for the season championship than there were in 2007. This is good news for rally fans, because it means that anything can, and probably will, happen in the months to come. Stay tuned for Round 2 of the 2008 Rally America National Championship, the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood, scheduled for February 22 and 23 in Salem, Missouri.

Driving Sports is starting to roll out the footage I shot during my recent trip to the UK. It includes a tour of Prodrive, interviews with SWRT and then taking in WRC Rally GB.

Opening in Cardiff:
http://www.drivingsports.com/blog/2007/12/...ales-gb-vi.html

Stage 1:
http://www.drivingsports.com/blog/2007/12/...ales-rally.html

More coming, stay tuned to our sister-site:
http://www.drivingsports.com

Reviews of the new 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI have started to hit the Interweb.

Motive Online Magazine
Edmunds Inside Line
Popular Mechanics

The December issue of Subiesport Magazine also features a complete review, along with telemetry data from the lap at Laguna Seca.

We don't have an "official" announcement from Prodrive yet, but we just confirmed that Prodrive America will be closing its doors at the end of the year. If you were hankering to score some hot Prodrive wheels, now is the time to hit up your local dealer.

That said, we have a second set of Prodrive PFF7 wheels to give away! We'll have complete details on that contest when I return from the UK (First week of December).

Best wishes to Horacio, Dan and the whole crew over at Prodrive USA. Truly the nicest guys in the business.

http://www.drivingsports.com/blog/2007/11/...ive-usa-cl.html

If you want to read the results from our testing with the 2008 Subaru WRX STI, you'll have to get the December issue of Subiesport since there is a press embargo until December 1.

However, I can share this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwLDZ-am0dM

It's my warm-up lap from testing.

Lake Superior Pro Rally & Rally America Season Recap
By Jeff Zurschmeide | www.subiesport.com | Photos: Lars Gange rally.subaru.com

In the world of professional open wheel racing, fans are used to complete dominance. For years in Formula One, the only question was who would finish second to Michael Shumacher. This year in Champ Car, Sebastian Bourdais had his fourth championship locked up halfway through the season. That’s the way of things in that kind of racing.

But not in Rally.

Because of the way Rally America points are structured, any of the top three contenders could potentially walk away with the championship going into this year’s final event, and a fourth wild card who might decide the crown. This series was a nail biter, with four excellent teams coming into the last race of the season to fight for speed on every yard of every stage. Drivers, co-drivers, service crews, and car preparation were all critical factors for Travis Pastrana, Andrew Pinker, Ken Block, and Tanner Foust. There was no room for error.

After last year’s juggernaut by Subaru Rally Team USA, most observers expected that 2007 would be a repeat performance – that Rally would go the way of all professional racing and be dominated by the team with the best program – the team with big-budget factory support. But that’s not how it played out at all. This year’s Rally America series saw 4 separate overall rally winners in 9 events, and with 2006 Champ Travis Pastrana out of the game early at the Oregon Trail and Olympus rallies, the field was wide open.

Foust found himself in a position to play kingmaker after winning the X Games gold medal and the Formula D drifting championship. With co-driver Christine Beavis, the versatile team offered an increasingly threatening performance all year.

Coming into the final event of the season at the Lake Superior Rally, the SRTUSA team was dealt a potentially lethal blow by Rally America officials. A mysterious 5 point penalty was levied against both cars for an unspecified infraction by a “team associate” earlier in the year. In a race this tight for the championship, a 5 point penalty could make all the difference.



Sixty-nine cars entered the Lake Superior Rally, based in Houghton, Michigan on the rural upper peninsula. Weather at this time of year is changeable, so teams must be prepared for conditions from warm and dry to the first fall snows. Over the next two days, 16 stages lay ahead covering over 100 stage miles – and in the end, the margin of victory was just 3.5 seconds.

Day 1 started out looking like the Foust/Beavis show – the pair won the first two stages and established a lead of 6.4 seconds over Travis Pastrana/Christian Edstrom. SRTUSA teammates Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino couldn’t catch a break, and flatted a tire on each of the first two stages, putting them well back in fourth place, over 20 seconds behind. Their bad luck continued and after holing the radiator on stage 4, the team ground to a halt on stage 5, ending their national rally bid.

Stage 3 was canceled by the organizers, but afterwards Pastrana/Edstrom came back strong and swept the remaining 5 stages of the day. In a single run on stage 4, Pastrana/Edstrom picked up 11 seconds, erasing their deficit and giving themselves a 5 second lead. Foust/Beavis placed a strong second on every run for the balance of the day, but it wasn’t enough to stay with the defending Champ. The points-leading team of Andrew Pinker and Robbie Durant gave a strong and consistent showing, finishing third on all seven stages of the day.

Defending Production GT champion Matthew Johnson and co-driver Jeremy Wimpey were the top PGT team through stage 5, then a broken gearbox put them behind Stephan Verdier and Scott Crouch on stages 6 and 7. An earlier delay had placed Verdier/Crouch well down in the standings, leaving Johnson/Wimpey with the class lead for the day. Johnson and Wimpey borrowed a gearbox from the competing team of Patrick Moro and Mike Rossey and worked overnight to get it ready for the last day’s push.

At the close of stage 8, Pastrana/Edstrom led the rally, followed by Foust/Beavis and Pinker/Durant. Less than 30 seconds separated the three teams as their crews worked through the night to prepare for the final run at the season title.

Day 2 of the rally threatened Pastrana/Edstrom from the beginning. Stage 9 was claimed by Pinker, who tied for the stage win with Block/Gelsomino. Though time-barred for the national, the SRTUSA team returned in true sportsmanlike style to run in the regional competition on Sunday. Foust/Beavis finished the stage a scant 0.9 seconds behind the top teams. Pastrana/Edstrom reported clutch trouble as they turned up in fourth place 21.9 seconds behind the leaders.

By the first service of the day, Pastrana/Edstrom had yielded their lead to Foust/Beavis, and the SRTUSA crew made a lightning-quick transmission change during the 30 minute service. With a seven second deficit to make up, SRTUSA could not afford any time penalties for excess service time.



In the end, the rally win, and with it the season championship, came down to last stages of the day, the rally, and the season. Going into the final three stages, Foust/Beavis led Pastrana/Edstrom by just 7 short seconds – less than the time it takes to read this sentence.

But an unexpectedly poor finish on stage 14 dropped Foust/Beavis 10.4 seconds behind the stage-winning time and erased their lead for good. Block/Gelsomino made a final curtain call for the year with a win on stage 15. Then, on the very last stage of the year, Travis Pastrana and Christian Edstrom won the stage, the Lake Superior Rally, and the 2007 Rally America National Championship.

Overall for the event, Foust/Beavis finished just 3.5 seconds behind Pastrana/Edstrom, while third place went to Pinker/Durant, 1:33.5 behind the winners. Fourth place and first in Production GT went to Johnson/Wimpey, earning them a well-deserved class championship.

Group 2 honors at the Lake Superior Rally went to brothers Tom and Dan Burress from Washington in their 1976 VW Rabbit. Group 5 was won by Cary Kendall and Scott Friberg in a 2006 Dodge SRT-4 Neon. Production honors went to Jan and Jody Zedril in a 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer ES. Tops in Group N were Arkadiusz Gruszka and Grzegorz Dorman in a 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX STi.

For the 2007 Rally America national season, the overall 2WD prize belonged to Kendall/Friberg, along with the Group 5 honors. The Group 2 championship went to the team of Christopher Duplessis and Martin Headland in a 1990 Volkswagen GTI. The Production Championship and the prestigious Donison Cup went to Zedril/Zedril. And the Group N national championship was earned by the diligent team of Otis Dimiters and Alan Ockwell in their Subaru WRX.



To sum up the 2007 season, this was the best year yet for Rally in the United States. As rallyists and enthusiasts, we can thank our lucky stars that SCCA chose to walk away from the sport in 2004 and that Rally America was there to pick up the flag and give the sport the attention and promotion it deserves. With just a few more years like this, Rally Racing is likely to break into the consciousness of race fans who are growing bored with season after season of predictable rolling commercials.

Victory at the Lake Superior Rally came down to a service interval. Pastrana/Edstrom’s crew could have lost them the rally if they hadn’t had the skills needed to get his transmission changed in a single 30-minute service. Had they been even a minute late, the 6 second “road penalty” would have cost the team the event victory, and potentially the championship.

Further, if Tanner Foust had attended the Rally in the 100 Acre Wood or Susquehannock Trail, he might well have won the Rally America championship as well as the Formula D drifting title. Look for Foust/Beavis to be back next year in search of the top spot.

Throughout this year, victory and defeat were most often separated by times best measured in heartbeats. That’s what makes a great racing series, and we can look forward another great season of rally racing beginning in January.

##



Get rally news, pictures and event updates direct to your Mobile Phone. Text RALLY to 38714 or signup at http://www.rallysports.mobi on your mobile browser. This is a free service from the publishers of Subiesport Magazine, but be aware your provider may charge for incoming and outgoing SMS messages.

STI Launch Party

Be among the first in the nation to get up-close and personal with the all-new 2008 Subaru WRX STI... before it makes its LA Auto Show debut!

Event #1

Thursday. 11/15/2007 @ 6PM to Midnight

K1 Speed
17221 Von Karman Ave
Irvine, CA 92614
949.250.0242
http://www.k1speed.com

Print and bring this announcement. First 500 qualify for a free kart race. See details (below).

Thanks to everyone that participated in making this first World Meet a huge success! At the Subiesport HQ we had near 80 cars attend! We can't wait to get a global count. Our hats off to the local organizers, the photographers and all who came out. The next World Meet will be even bigger! Until then, we plan to keep working with local clubs and enthusiasts to organize meets just like these.



The Subiesport Photo editor, Yuji, asked me pass along the following information regarding pictures:

-----------------------

Make backups. Then, if possible, make backups of your backups. This was a historic meet and we don't want to run the risk of loosing the photos before they're published!

As we will be getting tons of photos from around the world, please edit your photos down to....
One per car - individual shots of every car/driver
4 max - Group photos
10 max - Meet&Gathering / Event atmosphere shots

Since they are so many individual photos of each car to run, we will first be prioritizing who makes it in (with the thousands that attended we have to draw the line somewhere) first by our paid membership, next by our registered membership then we'll fit the rest as possible.

File name should be:
Location name_photographers full name_numbers.jpg

For example:
lasvegas_yujiro_otsuki_001.jpg

Please start with individual photos of car#01.

Information sheet (WORD file please) should include,
Photo file name / full name / Color & Car MY/ What city they are from / short comment
for example:
japan_yujiro_otsuki_001 / Nobushige Kumakubo / Orange MY04 RWD Impreza GDB / Fukushima, Japan / RWD FTW! Kumakumbo brought out the very car he won the 2006 D1 championship with!

We will have an FTP set up shortly to receive the photos if you need to mail a disc (you can't FTP for whatever reason) let Yuji know and he'll send you mailing instructions. When the FTP is available there will be a post in this thread. But please back up the images in the meanwhile.

If you have any questions regarding this, please PM "YUJI" on the board.