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Tag: American Rally Association

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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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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.