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Tag: rally

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Ferrari Swapped Subaru Rally Car Shakedown

After dyno tuning with John Reed of John Reed Racing, we were set to do a test day out near the Olympus Rally roads the weekend after. Unfortunately, a heavy winter storm pelted the Pacific Northwest just a few days before forcing the organizers to postpone the test day. Disappointed, yet understanding of the situation, I had to at least get the car out to see how it felt. Parking lot drifts anyone?

Alright, so I agree with the postponement of the test day. It’s meant for teams to prep for the Olympus Rally and snow and gravel rally tires really just don’t get along. While not the sensational debut I was looking for, it was still fun to get the car out nonetheless.

In lieu of some forest roads to stretch the car’s newfound legs, I called up DirtFish to see if it would be possible to spend a few hours slinging gravel… they thankfully obliged.

“Keeping the car cool was my biggest concern.”

The biggest concern for me was the cooling system. The car had mostly proven itself on the dyno as being able to run and deliver power without issue. It held the temperature, and despite the driveshaft failure (entirely my fault), the day went relatively smoothly. At the dyno, it was freezing cold out and each of the power runs was relatively short. It would be a different story entirely to have prolonged runs with various ground speeds to send air cooling down the motor. Prior to the shakedown, I hadn’t installed any air feed vents to the radiator. As a reminder, due to the increased size of the engine, I had to install the radiator in the back of the car similar to top-level rallycross or drift cars. I wanted to experiment and see how much venting I really needed. While I hoped for none, that proved to not be the case.

While the car did get a little hot, there was nothing egregious. Moving through a series of opening windows and roof vents, ultimately it took removing one of the rear door windows to keep the temperatures stable.

Photo by Romain Beaulieu/DirtFish

Probably one of the most common comments I receive on social media is how badly it’s going to handle with the “massive” V8 up front. If you remember from one of the previous build videos, the car clocked in with a 57% weight distribution. That makes it nearly identical to the weight distribution in its previous form. The only caveat is that I now have to run with a 50kg weight penalty in order to stay within the rules. This is ultimately a bummer as we all know lighter cars just generally do everything better.

Now DirtFish is not without its limitations. As a school, the roads are designed to keep speeds reasonable which means the roads are generally pretty tight. My car has always been fairly difficult to drive there owing mostly to the aggressive diff setup I like to run all around. I’d fail miserably at rallycross if I kept that setup. This causes the car to be a bit of a chore to handle at low speeds and sharp corners with the benefit of excellent grip and stability at high speeds. I was expecting the same outcome.

I did have one ace up my sleeve though. Previously I ran the Subaru’s center differential at full lock with only a cut out for when the handbrake was pulled. With the new Motec M1 ECU I am running with the Ferrari engine, I now have the benefit of greater control over the center diff. I came up with a “loose” map prior to the shakedown that would let the car favor far more torque distribution to the rear than I would normally run. It worked.

Overall I would say the car mostly handles the same as it did before except that I can feel that added weight while under braking coming into the corners. The best part of this setup however is the ability to control the overall power output. As a naturally aspirated V8, everything feels linear and you get exactly what you ask for. Need to go a little wider, add some throttle. Want to get a little tighter, ease off a bit and drag the brakes. The inputs are the same with any AWD car, but the fidelity is nothing like the turbo motor. With how aggressive the torque would come on, it was a bit of a guessing game as to what you would get. This is where left foot braking really comes in handy as you can dampen the effects, but that’s just addressing the symptoms.

“The power delivery is phenomonal!”

What you might be wondering is how much faster it is. I can say that it certainly feels quicker than the old version of the car but it’s not out of this world uncontrollable power. Sure, I hooned a bit during the shakedown video (who wouldn’t?) but I would say it just feels like what I want it to feel like. Consistent, smooth, and utterly fantastic. The new motor makes far less torque than the EJ25 did but makes up for it in high RPM horsepower. This results in a beautiful torque curve at the wheels that I just can’t wait to feel at the Olympus Rally in April.

Before I go, I need to mention the obvious; the sound. While it might not be everyone’s favorite, videos just can’t do it justice. Those spectating at the shakedown continued to bring up two observations. You hear the car twice. First, as it comes navigating through the course, and again as it echoes off the hills. Olympus and Oregon Trail Rally spectators will be treated to a symphony of flat-plane madness. The second…

If you’re like me, your favorite part of going to watch fireworks is not the sight, or even really the sound… it’s the feel. A few fellow DirtFish instructors got up close and personal with the action and reported feeling the percussion of the exhaust exiting the side piped exhaust as it came by. You’re welcome, but follow the rally marshall’s instructions.

See you all at the Olympus Rally on April 22-23! If you haven’t yet, check out my YouTube Channel and watch the F136 Build Series!

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Development Resumes for Olympus Rally

Well, we all know it’s been a tough year and for us, it’s been no different. Luckily though, it looks like we will finally get to go rally this year at the rescheduled Olympus Rally on November 14-15th in Shelton, Washington. We started 2020 with some ambitious plans for development of the car with majorly revised bodywork, geometry, and suspension. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, a lot of that was put hold. The car has been in storage for the better part of the year after it was vandalized by some opportunistic thieves who also walked away with some of our spare parts and tools including a brand new Garrett Turbo. On top of those losses, the financial hit of the economy also slowed down progress. Despite this, and thanks to our sponsor, Method Race Wheels, we will still be able to make some progress towards our goals!

So what’s happening?

Widetrack v1: In my post earlier this year, you got to see a hint of some bodywork development. This is still happening. Expect to see modern WRC inspired front fenders and widened rear quarter panels. Eventually I hope to have these made in kevlar, but for Olympus we will most likely have metal prototypes for fenders and FRP quarter panels. This will make the car strikingly different in appearance with a nod to the Group B era. However, the looks are just a byproduct of the end goal; more grip! By the regulations, the wheels and tires need to be covered by the bodywork when looking from the top of the car just like most road rules. What that means is we are widening the overall width of the care to contain the increased track of the vehicle. How much wider? Let’s take a look:

Geometry Comparison
Stock Dimensions Compared to WRC Regulation Width

At the time of this writing, the American Rally Association doesn’t place a restriction on the overall width of the vehicle. In the FIA however, they increased the overall width in 2017 from 1820mm to 1875mm. If we use that as a reference, that gives us about 135mm we can grow into. That’s a lot and wider is better to an extent. Here’s what an additional 60mm per side looks like up front:

Wide Fender Prototype
Front Group B Era Inspired Fenders

So, with this additional body width we will be able to increase our track width with the goal of increasing overall grip. My original plan was to go with bespoke uprights and incorporate longer dampers to get extra wheel travel. That as you can imagine is a bit expensive. For the time being I’m converting to 5×114 uprights and bolt in hubs to get stronger bearings. We’ve had our fair share of wheel bearing failures from the inferior 5×100 bearings including our wheel completely detaching at Pacific Forest Rally last year, so this was a needed change anyway. This also allows us to keep our current Reigers with only a change to the lower perches up front to accept the larger 5×114 uprights. Big thanks to Blaze at Reiger Suspension USA for getting us those parts.

With the change to 5×114, the first step to going wider will be incorporating a different offset wheel from our sponsor, Method Race Wheels. They will setting us up with the MR502 VT-Spec rally wheel. Our original MR501 VT-Spec has an offset of +48mm whereas the MR502 has an offset of +15mm. There’s the first 66mm of extra track width and that’s where v1 of this project will end with no change to the control arms, tie rods, axles, etc. Yes… it’ll look a little funky not filling up the body work.

Method Race Wheels MR502 VT-Spec
The Method Race Wheels MR502 VT-Spec

The Future: Widetrack v2

Now, it’s not quite as easy as throwing on some lower offset wheels and calling it a day. This has implications on the suspension geometry that needs to be addressed. The most affected will be Scrub Radius. Admittedly, there’s not much I can do about it in v1 aside from adjusting ride height but that’s where v2 comes in.

In v2, I’ll be looking at fabricating custom control arms, figuring out a way to incorporate front uprights on the rear, correcting all the geometry, etc. I’ll save that for a different post, but those changes will likely occur in 2021. I have some of the designs already made, but I need to dive deeper into the kinematics to get as close as possible to the end result to reduce the amount of rework that is likely to occur.

More Boost!

Aside from getting v1 ready for Olympus, we’re going to get back on the dyno. Last year we only tuned the car to 2.5bar (21.75psig) of boost to stay within CRC’s rule and anticipating ARA lowering their boost limits. ARA ended up abandoning that rule change so now we have the ability to increase boost up to 2.86bar (27psig). This will be pushing the efficiency of our Garrett turbo so I’ll be working on a better intercooler to help control intake air temperature. It will also take a bit of tinkering with target boost and ignition timing to see where we actually make the most power with our current setup.

That’s it for now, but Krista and I are beyond excited to finally get back in the car together and compete. Look for progress updates on my Instagram and Facebook page and I’ll create another blog post when v1 is complete!

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2020 Season Preparation Update

The 2020 American Rally Association is about to start this week with the Sno*Drift Rally out of Atlanta, MI, but luckily for most of us in the Pacific Northwest, we still have some time on our hands. I figured I would share what we were up to in preparation of the start of our 2020 season at the Olympus Rally on April 25 in Shelton, WA.

New Car…. sort of!

Sorry to get carried away there, but I’m really excited for what’s happening with the car. We will be sticking to our tried and true 2004 Subaru STI but… it’s not exactly going to look the same. I don’t want to over promise and under deliver, but if you’ve been paying attention to my Instagram stories lately, you’ll notice it contains a lot of SolidWorks. Wide track, long travel. As easy as it is to sum it up in those four words, I can’t express how much work is going into this revision. Hopefully it’s done before Olympus, but no guarantees. We are also redoing the entire wiring harness and incorporating some new electronics to the car… more on that later. Here’s a sneak peak….

That’s current WRC regulation width!

Sponsorship!

The off season is usually filled with renewing contracts and trying to find new support for the upcoming season. We just renewed with Motul USA and are stoked to have them on board again for the third year in a row. I am a huge fan of their products and trust our spendy RallySpec block to their oils. We are working on a couple more and hopefully there’s some announcements soon! Head on over to our Sponsors page to see who we are currently working with.

New Business Venture?

As some of my closer friends know, I’ve moved down to Portland, OR and am only instructing at DirtFish on a limited basis now. I’ve been trying to avoid the corporate world, so I’ve been trying to find that niche that fills the void between motorsports and income. So as of late, I’ve started working on building a Motorsports Consulting business centered on motorsports wiring and electronics.

I’ve always been keen on wiring (which apparently makes me odd) and programming said electronics to work right. While I don’t see myself getting a dyno anytime soon, I’ll soon be taking on some wiring projects from friends to help me figure out some business processes. I’ll also be redoing my rally car in its entirety to what I call “Professional” spec in that it will be completely sealed and will utilize lots of Deutsch Connectors. If you have a project that needs wiring, feel free to reach out to me at samalbertrally@gmail.com and hopefully we can get you sorted.

I’m looking at offering harnesses at the “street,” “club,” and “professional” level to cater to different budgets. Also, while I’ve done a bit of wiring before, I recently received certification from the guys over at the High Performance Academy on constructing wiring harnesses. I’m excited to help others out with their projects.

The planning is the hardest part.

So while on the surface, that doesn’t seem like much, there’s a lot going on. We’re getting closer to the parts making stage and out of the design stage. Hopefully that means I’ll have some cool photos to share sooner rather than later. Rally on!

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Budgeting in Stage Rally: Part 2 National Events

Car 457 at the New England Forest Rally
Photo by David Cosseboom

                Intro

                This is Part 2 of Budgeting in Stage Rally breaking down the cost of rally for competing at national events both locally and across the country. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, I suggest doing that now as I expand on some of the topics I covered there. Understandably a national event is going to cost a bit more than a regional one day event.

                In this part, we are going to take a look a the cost of doing a national rally with a comparison between a local national event versus one that is completely across the country. Again we will be focusing on the cost of running the rally itself without regard to preparing the car, annual fees, etc. We’ll still use an all volunteer team of codriver and crew just like in our regional event example and base our efforts out of DirtFish in Snoqualmie, WA. The event we will base our entry fees and stage/transit miles will be the Olympus Rally in Shelton, WA. I’ll also show the additional logistics costs of having to travel across the country to the New England Forest Rally in Newry, Maine in italics in the section below.

                Costs

                Entry Fee: $1,222                              

Early entry for the National event including bank fees for paying online. If you’re one of the first ten Subaru entries, you can get a discount of $500. Contingency is also available for Subaru, Ford, and other manufacturers and is worth researching. Regular entry was $1450 if you missed the early entry cut off which was March 31st this year. Registration deadline was April 26th. Three to four weeks before the event is pretty standard for early entry cut offs. Note that you can also enter the event as a regional only competitor and do the exact same stages but for cheaper and not get the national recognition. Regional entries were $800 for early and $1,100 for regular entry. There is also a Subaru discount of $300 for the first ten Subaru regional entries.

                Lodging: $450                    

This was our share of splitting an AirBnb with another team from Wednesday to Sunday. I find this to be the most cost effective way of getting a good night’s rest, having some quiet areas to do note review and not cramming everyone into a single hotel room. Camping, sleeping in a trailer, etc are all budget options but consider the quality of your weekend for you and your crew if you’re not going to provide modest accommodations.

                                Lodging cross country: $240           

It takes on average 3 days to tow across country if you’re pushing and sharing driving duties. The lodging cost goes up if you stayed in a cheap motel for two nights each way for a total of four nights at $60 per night. This is an easy place to cut costs and just sleep in your truck but consider your total rest. Also consider putting in a buffer day on the way out if something breaks down. You don’t want to miss your event because your trailer lost a wheel in North Dakota.

                Towing fuel: $112            

350 miles / 10 mpg x $3.20/gallon. 200 miles round trip from DirtFish to Shelton plus some extra for getting around (150 miles) and getting 10 miles per gallon towing. You can also use the IRS rate of $0.58 for mileage to help take into account wear and tear on the tow vehicle and trailer (350 miles x $0.58/mile = $203). Notice this is slightly more than what we did for Tour De Forest in Part 1 which is virtually in the same location. I added an additional 100 miles of towing to account for towing the car around the extra days.

                                                Towing cross country: $2,020                        

6,160 miles round trip and add in the additional 150 of getting around tow miles. This is generally going to be the biggest additional cost.

                Recce fuel: $116                              

543 miles / 15 mpg x $3.20/gallon Since the Supplemental Regulations didn’t include a complete stage schedule, I just doubled the total mileage of event (271.5 including stage + transit). Almost every rally is going to have repeat stages so this includes a buffer and likely over estimates. You can do recce with another team but I highly advise against it. As a side note, the Olympus Rally route is actually fairly low for a national event because of the short transits (part of why it’s one of my favorites). The New England Forest Rally route for example is 440 miles long of stage and transit miles.

                                                Recce Car Rental: $400  

Consider if you’re just taking a truck, trailer, and rally car across the country, you’re probably not going to have an extra car around for the crew to go get things done while you’re on recce. Add in that it might be logistically challenging to just get the car for a day, or you have people flying in, and you’ll probably end up having to rent it for the whole event. Absolutely necessary? No, but convenience goes a long way. Also think about full insurance if you’re taking it on recce. A couple extra dollars up front is a lot cheaper in the long run than replacing the oil pan you smashed going through that rain bar on recce.

                                                Airplane Tickets: $880   

$440/person from SEA to PWM. This part can also be really rough. We generally all have to work and not everyone can take the days off to tow out, do the rally, and tow back. Think about asking someone to take six additional days off of work to tow out and back with you. Four to six days of missed work is probably more expensive than a plane ticket if they can’t use PTO. If you’re trying to do a cross country event on the cheap I recommend finding people local to the rally to join your team for the event. This can cut costs and time off requests dramatically. Let’s say for this event you had to fly your codriver and your crew chief out and you got another crew person to join you for the tow.

                Other fuel: $60                 

Rental car? Crew? You’ll probably use it.

                Race fuel: $240                 

135 stage miles / 4mpg + 135 transit miles / 8mpg + 9 gallons extra = 34 + 17 + 9 = 60 gallons. 60 gallons x $4.00/gallon = $240. Easiest to just use the Stage Schedule usually found in the Supplemental Regulations and compute using your stage fuel rate and transit fuel rate plus some buffer. I’m using E85 if you’re curious about the numbers. Understanding your car’s fuel consumption rate for stage and transit is important for knowing how much fuel to bring, how many fuel cans or drums, and how much fuel to put in the car at refuels.

                Tires: $1000                       

Plus mounting if you’re getting a brand new set of Hoosiers in the 205 size. I went into detail in Part 1 about cutting costs here. On the flip side, I went through three sets of tires at Olympus Rally in 2018. Yes, that’s $3000 dollars worth of tires gone in 135 stage miles. If you’re thinking of moving up to a higher powered car beware that you will go through tires. Most people can make a new set of tires last a whole event and even more but performance will quickly go.

                Food: $540                         

Again using  the $15 per person/meal as the generic formula to budget food. A spreadsheet can help here to figure it out.  We had a four person team (driver, codriver, and two crew) with ten meals between Thursday night  to Sunday evening. Being that these are longer events, your crew might not show up until later in the event and you can save money in many aspects. Take a look at the event schedule and find out when they’re needed. Usually tech inspection is their first major commitment but you can do that too if notes are not your first priority.

                                                                Cross Country Food: $360.          

You can probably get by on $40/day for two people on a road trip eating gas station food and coffee. I’d want at least one decent meal a day so $60 is more realistic.

                Media: $20 – $150            

You’ll probably want a photo from your event and a full photo package is going to be well over $100 for a multiday rallies.

                Shakedown: $150           

Not all national events have shakedowns or practice stages. Some you only have to pay per run and some you basically pay for a block of time. This is a pretty typical fee.

                Miscellaneous: $500      

At least have a reserve to cover a wrecker coming out to the woods to retrieve your car should you have a major off. This covers all the random things that can come up during a rally weekend. Parts run, a new windshield, etc. It all adds up rather quickly.

Car 457 at the Olympus Rally
Photo by Emotive Image

                Wrap Up

                That’s a budget of $4,630 for doing our local event, the Olympus Rally. Now if you add in the additional costs of traveling across the country, that’s a total of $8,418.

                 You can see how easy it is to spend this much money just going to an event. Use each section above to see where you think you might want to cut corners and save. You may even want to spend more to make things nicer, more convenient, or less stressful. Getting local crew and cutting out plane tickets, staying in a motel vs. an AirBnb, getting pizzas etc. are all legitimate ways of cutting costs. I’ve spent a good bit less than this to run a national event and I’ve also spent double that cross country total when hiring out the team and there’s multiple rental cars, a full support truck and trailer, etc. You can easily spend upwards of $25-40k an event doing an arrive and drive program in a top spec car.

                If you know of ways to run a national event for cheaper, comment below and share your experience or even better, what your budget breakdown was. Somebody might learn something from it and you will be helping the rally community as a whole. Thanks for reading!

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Budgeting in Stage Rally: Part 1 Regional Events

                Intro

                This is the first of a multipart series of budgeting in stage rally for new people getting into the sport based on my experiences. Motorsports is an inherently expensive activity to participate in but understanding the costs involved will help you budget better, know where to cut costs, and understand the implications of cutting corners should you choose to do so.

                Part 1 is going to take a look at competing at the last event we did in 2019, the Tour de Forest Rally in Shelton, WA. Tour de Forest was a one day regional event and the most affordable event we did in all of 2019. The focus will be on the hard costs associated with the event and ignore reprep of the rally car, licenses, insurance, etc. Those topics will be covered in a different article. Let’s assume you have a rally car ready to go and you and your friends (codriver, crew) are ready to go rally. In this scenario we’ll be starting from DirtFish in Snoqualmie, WA as our start point for figuring out mileage but a little simple math and you can plug in some details to get a more accurate representation.

Car 457 at the Tour de Forest Rally
457 at Tour de Forest Rally

                Costs

                Entry Fee: $490                

Early entry including bank fees for paying online. Definitely take a look at event supplemental regulations and see when the early entry fee deadline is. This saves you money and helps the event out so they can better plan their logistics. For this event the regular entry would add another $95 to the cost.

                Lodging: $300                    

For this event we elected to stay the night before and night after the rally to make a more relaxing schedule. We split an AirBnB with another team to help with the costs. It also affords you the opportunity to cook food in the kitchen rather than going out to eat. Unless you’re grabbing fast food, this can be cheaper and allows for a healthier option. For the more budget minded you could just get one hotel room Friday night at the host hotel for $104/night + tax and cram the whole team in one room. This is fairly common. For the even more budget minded you can camp, sleep in your trailer, you name it.

                Towing fuel: $80              

250 miles / 10 mpg x $3.20/gallon. 200 miles round trip from DirtFish to the Ridge plus some extra for getting around (50 miles) and getting 10 miles per gallon towing. You can also use the IRS rate of $0.58 for mileage to help take into account wear and tear on the tow vehicle and trailer (250 miles x $0.58/mile = $145)

                Recce fuel: $32                 

150 miles / 15 mpg x $3.20/gallon There’s a couple ways you can do this. The most accurate is to map out your full recce route starting from your accommodations and ending where you’re going to park it. The organizers can help here and you can get mileage from supplemental regulations or a recce route book. You can also just take a look at the stage mileage and transit mileage and double it for anything not repeated. In this case the entire route was repeated so it should be pretty close to what it was for actual two pass recce. I think this is good enough for a budget estimate after adding a buffer but you may want to be more accurate.

                Other fuel: $60                 

Need to get a recce car there? Crew? Don’t forget to add that in.

                Race fuel: $180                 

60 stage miles / 4mpg + 64 transit miles / 8mpg + 10 gallons = 15 + 8 + 12 = 45 gallons. 45 gallons x $4.00/gallon = $180. Easiest to just use the Stage Schedule usually found in the Supplemental Regulations and compute using your stage fuel rate and transit fuel rate plus some buffer. I’m using E85 if you’re curious about the numbers. Understanding your car’s fuel consumption rate for stage and transit is important for knowing how much fuel to bring, how many fuel cans or drums, and how much fuel to put in the car at refuels.

                Tires: $1000                       

Plus mounting if you’re getting a brand new set of Hoosiers in the 205 size. You can spent a lot more here too if you went with 10 brand new tires using four on the first loop, four on the second loop, and had two new spares in the car. On the other end of the spectrum you could use up your used tires from previous events or found some good used ones from another team. Good used generally run anywhere from $50 to $150 depending on the condition. Keep in mind that the more worn a gravel tire is, the less “bite” it has on the surface and will decrease your overall performance. If you’re just trying to finish, run whatever gravel tires you can get your hands on that are in decent shape for cheap.

                Food: $300                         

We use $15 per person/meal as the generic formula to budget food and is a good rule of thumb. We had a four person team (driver, codriver, and two crew) with five meals between Friday night to Sunday morning. This might sound like a lot but don’t forget waters, sports drinks, snacks and post event beers for the team.

                Media: $20 – $60              

Photos are always good to have for the memories, helping out your sponsors, and getting photographers to keep coming to events. Single photos generally are $20-30 a photo. Chris Daley Photography was offering a $60 photo package for the event. Prices can vary however, especially for national events. On the other hand, you don’t have to spend money here and that’s acceptable too.

                Miscellaneous: $200      

It’s always good to have a little extra room in the budget for things that pop up. Forgot your tarp at home? Need to make a run to the auto parts store? Having it in cash helps but technology like Venmo is making this less necessary. Don’t forget you may end up having to hire a wrecking service come get your car out of the woods if heavy sweep can’t do the job. The more involved the event, the more of a reserve you want to have and not bust your budget. This is a good starting point.

Budgeting in stage rally can be tough
Resources can be tight

                Wrap Up

                That’s a budget of $2,702 for a one day event covering 60 stage miles! Now think of adding reprep of the car, renting a rally or recce car for the event, hiring a codriver, hiring crew, etc. and you can very easily spend 10x to run the rally. If you’re looking to cut corners though, tires and lodging are the first places to look.  Scored four used tires for $100 bucks and convinced everyone to toss a hammock in the trailer and you just saved $1,200. Just know your whole team probably isn’t going to be well rested and you’re not going to have the greatest grip. You saved money at the potential cost of performance and that’s the trade off.

                 Looking at these costs can also help you direct your efforts on obtaining sponsorship and entering contingencies to help make rallying more sustainable. It may be a tough pill to swallow but budgeting in stage rally and understanding the numbers will help you stay within a budget, be financially responsible, and keep you on track to rally as much as you’re capable of.

If you want to learn about budgeting for a national event, check out Part 2 here.

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Preparation in Rally – How To Win

                Most of us have heard the phrases “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” or similarly the 7Ps of performance, “proper prior preparation prevents piss poor performance.” These could not be more applicable to rally. In my ten years of competition, not finishing an event was most commonly attributed to not properly preparing for it in the first place. While we might not all have the time and resources of a fully supported team, we can take lessons from the professionals in our sport that we can apply to our own personal efforts.

                I can break down rally preparation into three categories: mechanical, mental, and physical. Mechanical is pretty self explanatory as it has to do with the mechanical preparation of the car. The second two have more to do with us as drivers, codrivers, and even applies to members of our crew. Let’s look at these with a little more detail.

Photo by Sam Albert

Mechanical

                First off, recognize that every part of a rally car is consumable. I’m not going to go into detail of how to build a car for longevity but know that every part will wear out, crack, bend, break, or expire. It takes careful attention to detail to inspect the car to make sure everything is good to go. Let’s take a look at a punch list and talk about a few things.

  • Fluids – The heat of rally racing breaks everything down faster. I personally replace engine oil, transmission oil, and differential oil every event. They protect some of the most expensive pieces of the car and it’s cheap insurance to keep those surfaces lubricated. Dampers and CVs are commonly neglected as well. Some fresh high temperature CV grease will keep your axles going a long time. If you have ever serviced an old CV joint used in rally you’ll notice the grease has almost turned to water and is doing little to keep things lubricated. Dampers, are generally easy to service without having to do a full rebuild. A quick re-oil or regrease and a quick check of the nitrogen level will help make them last for seasons. A damper with aging lubrication or inconsistent nitrogen levels will affect their behavior on stage. This could lead to the car behaving differently in all four corners which isn’t going to perform well on stage and also ruin your confidence. A consistently behaving car allows you to learn to be faster and push harder.
  • Brakes – A little tidbit I learned from my old crew chief, Tony Torchia, is that the insane level of heat you produce with the brakes will actually draw out the resin attaching the brake pad material to the backing plate. A seemingly healthy looking brake pad that’s only 50% worn could actually have severely diminished braking performance because that resin is also contacting the rotor. If they’re getting worn and it feels like you’re losing braking effectiveness, swap them out (and make sure you bed the new ones properly).
  • Bearings and bushings – A worn out component especially in your suspension is going to change toe, camber, etc. on stage again leading to inconsistent handling. If you’re taking things seriously, track all of the components and see how long it takes things to start to wear or fail and you can set up a preventative maintenance schedule. For instance, I replace wheel bearings every three events or at the first sign of wear. Along with that means checking the hub and knuckle to make sure you’re not putting in a fresh bearing on out of spec components.
  • Alignment – This goes back to making the car consistent to give you the confidence to push harder. I like to get the car on scales at least once a year to check my corner balance but you should at least do it when you’re doing your very first setup and with any major changes to the car. Getting the car balanced allows everything else to work that much better. You don’t need to go get a laser alignment every event. A string alignment kit and camber gauge are cheap to purchase or make your own and there’s plenty of guides out on the internet on how to do a four wheel alignment. Properly setting toe more than anything else is the focus. Again make it consistent side to side and find some specs that work on your car. Do this for every event. For the curious, I run -1mm front side to side and -0.5mm rear side to side. The toe in up front help keeps the car neutral under braking from the deflection in the bushings and the rear toe in keeps it stable on those high speed straightaways. If you’re using proper weight transfer, you shouldn’t need any toe out to get the car to rotate. There’s a great online course from RaceCraft on alignment and I recommend it if you want to learn more.
  • Spares – The inevitable will happen and despite your best efforts, something will break, you’ll hit something, whatever. Put as much effort into making sure your spares are ready to go as well and not just something you pulled from the junkyard and put in a bin. Those spares can quickly become your primary and you don’t want to have a wheel fall off a few miles after you swapped out a corner. Ask me how I know…
  • Nuts and bolts – Check them all. Suspension, motor mounts, crossmembers, etc. All that vibration works them loose. One of the most common bolts I would find loosening up is the transmission crossmember bolts.
  • Time – Do not procrastinate. We have all seen the stories of crazy last minute prep to make an event but it’s one of the worst things we can do and almost always leads to compromise and reduced expectations. The more time you have, the more you can pay attention to detail, save costs on shipping, and the more things you can do to prepare to win. Make a list early on, set priorities, and just start knocking them out. It’s less stress and you will be more successful.
Photo by Alex Wong

Mental

            As if the car doesn’t take enough of your time, there’s a lot of things we can do mentally to be prepared for the event as well. A little extra effort beforehand can make the event itself be less stressful and you’ll be armed with a little more information rather than kicking in the door and hoping for the best.

  • Get familiar with the event – Most people will tell you their second time at an event is usually much better than the first. They know where the service park is, where’s the nearest coffee shop, and the general flow of the event. Take a look at the supplemental regulations and pull out a map and start getting familiar with where everything is. Take a look at the names of transit roads, how far away things are from your accommodations, etc. etc. This is where an experienced codriver can come in handy and they can help draw the picture of what the weekend will look like. As a driver, don’t wait to read the supps the night before recce. Just having the situational awareness of where things are and the schedule when you’re not initially familiar with the event goes a long way to just feeling comfortable and minimizing the unknowns.
  • Review stages – You can find nearly every stage posted up on Youtube and even some organizers will post up recce video way in advance of the event. I don’t recommend trying to memorize every single stage as that brings about a certain level of risk but you can definitely start to pick out recognizable sections and gotcha corners that stick out to you. Get an idea of the flow, the surfaces, sight lines, how narrow the roads are, etc. You’ll be that much more prepared.
  • Managing Stress – Last minute car prep, lack of sleep, three days of shift towing to an event, the list goes on. The more time you can give yourself and the better you use the that time, the more you’ll be on top of things. Reality is going to have its say but you should also try to prioritize yourself a little time to decompress and rest. As competitors we always feel like we have to be doing something, especially once you show up to an event. The excitement creeps in and we get amped. Slow down and give your brain a break and you’ll attack those stages with that much more clarity.
Photo by Sam Albert

Physical

                There is no doubt that a long rally weekend is a test of your endurance and stamina. Heart rates are often up in the 140s to 150s which is like going out for a jog. There’s a lot of physical stress that comes with rallying but there are definitely some things we can do beforehand to help handle that stress. Being healthy first and foremost is the big one. Lack of exercise, sleep, and poor eating habits are going to limit your performance no matter the endeavor. Add in the stress of a rally weekend and you’ll get tired faster, lose focus, and be at a greater risk of making poor judgment and potentially having a major off. If you look at any of professionals in the sport, they all have some sort of exercise routine that usually focuses on core strength and moderate cardiovascular exercise. A full detailed plan is a topic of another article but being physically prepared goes a long way into giving you confidence once the rally weekend hits.

                Nutrition is an important thing to look at as well and I like to tell people to be careful of the temptation to get easy fast food leading up to and during an event. They tend to be high in carbohydrates that will spike and crash your energy levels. Eating a balanced diet with whole foods will keep your energy levels consistent throughout the weekend.

Conclusion

                This isn’t meant to be the end all, be all of rally preparation but rather something to help get you thinking of ways you can be better at preparing for an event. Making the actual stage miles the fun and easy part of an event lets you focus on your driving and getting the most out of you and your team’s performance. Waiting ’till the last minute, worrying about whether you tightened that bolt, and coming down off a sugar high is no way to be driving a rally car. What you want is to be able to drive up to that start line with a free and clear head focused on the next few corners ahead of you, with a car you trust, and armed with the confidence that you know that you did everything you could to perform your best.