JAPAN’S DONE THE CANDIDATE EVENT, DONE THE CALENDAR ANNOUNCEMENT AND NOW IT’S DONE WITH WAITING. IN 54 WEEKS, THE WRC WILL ARRIVE IN NAGOYA, BUT BEFORE THAT IT’S ALL EYES ON THIS WEEKEND’S CENTRAL RALLY AICHI AND A RALLY JAPAN DRESS REHEARSAL.
In celebration of the WRC’s return there, here are wrc.com’s top five Rally Japan moments.
1. The first and best
The prospect of victory on Japan’s first WRC round in 2004 was laughable for Petter Solberg a fortnight before the start. Except nobody was laughing. The Norwegian had just emerged from the biggest crash of his career and co-driver Phil Mills was still recovering in hospital. The next rally was Japan and the biggest weekend in Subaru’s history in the sport. Solberg delivered a stunning and unforgettable win with the Impreza WRC (pictured above).
The new Toyota Supra just came out, right? Wow! Look at this craziness at SEMA. So many “jacked” Supras! Let’s see what the guys from SpeedHunters had to say about their visit to SEMA….
It doesn’t feel like all that long ago we were waiting for the final reveal of the new Supra after an eternity of teasing from Toyota.
It’s hardly surprising then that after such anticipation, SEMA 2019 could easily be mistaken for A90 SupraFest instead. Our team on the ground counted over 30 examples during load-in and the main hall alone, and we’re sure there are more hiding throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center.
This was always going to be the case, as SEMA is the first major international aftermarket show since owners and shops started taking delivery of their own A90s after Tokyo Auto Salon.
You’re all aware at this point of the amount of conversation this car has generated since its official reveal, and it’s not territory which we’re going to cover here again. Everyone has their views on the car already, and it’s probably a waste of time trying to convince anyone to change their mind, either way.
There is, however, one thing which we should all be able to get behind, and that’s the injection of excitement that the A90 Supra has brought to the industry. It’s been a while since we’ve had a new car which has generated this much hype and interest straight from the factory. […]
I Like Long Walks In The Wilderness, Rocks In My Shoes & Dirt On Everything
Trevor Yale Ryan
As I’ve touched on in my previous coverage from the Oregon Trail Rally, I’ve long wanted to shoot an event like this. But at the same time, I knew it would be an incredible amount of work to pull it off properly.
Beyond the 18-hour day that would be required to shoot the event itself, another full day of recce would be necessary if I was going to go about it on my own. As such, I was happy for the opportunity to tag along with my friend Chris Daley for the day, rather than to drive aimlessly through the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest myself.
While I wanted to share a bit of what goes on behind the scenes as well as the various stunning landscapes we encountered on our journey, this didn’t quite fit into my standard coverage of the event. So, here we are…
Hour after hour was spent in the truck on Saturday, and each stage was completely different than (and miles apart from) the others. But before I dive into our adventures from the day it’s best I introduce the cast.
First up is Chris Daley in the #38 vest, who was shooting for the event itself and no less than a couple of dozen regional drivers. As such, there was no wiggle room in his itinerary for the day.
Then, there was another Trevor in the group — Trevor Stevens — in vest #18 and, finally, Curtis Zapar. While Curtis spent much of the day gazing majestically at the horizon, his role as ‘Swahili Translator’ worked wonders with the locals.
There’s plenty of standing around and waiting between stages to catch the cars on course, so having a decent group of guys to hang out with for the day goes a long, long way.
Another important aspect is actually having a vehicle that can travel the courses. Sure, these are public roads so any car can technically make it in good weather, but being able to climb off the trail at any point means you can find your way to a safe spot without having to hike out to it.
This might seem like a small thing, but over the course of the day I logged eight miles of wandering around and, frankly, it didn’t seem that I did all that much exploring by foot. It would have been at least twice this if we had to hike to our initial locations. […]
The 2019 Rocky Mountain Rally has come and gone with a bang. The rally is the second event in the Canadian Rally Championship. Held in the gorgeous Columbia Valley in Invermere, B.C., the two day event had its challenges with the first day being wet and muddy and the second day totally opposite – dry.
Brandon Semenuk and John Hall raced their Ford Fiesta R5 to victory. This was Semenuk’s second win at the Rocky Mountain Rally. They were the leaders after the first day and continued their dominance on day two. Just over a minute back was the Mini navigated by Joel Levac and Stephanie Lewis. The third step on the podium went to Maxime Labrie and Anik Barette, out of Quebec.
The next stop in the Canadian Rally Championship is June 28-30 in New Richmond, Quebec.
Enjoy these rally photos by photographer Colby Spence, a Lambda Motorsports team member.
Well this looks interesting… will Honda come out with a bad ass dirt eating machine? I would love to see the hardcore guys like NOS ATV, Eh TV, XM Army and Elemental ATV get their hands on one of these. What mayhem would they cause! Truck Trend got their first drive in the Honda ROAV. This is what they had to say.
We expected the Honda Rugged Open Air Vehicle (ROAV) concept to shake, fold and reform its red and black panels into a human-shaped robot then stomp off to fight crime. It would be a good guy, we think. After all, it’s Honda, known for safety and radio commercials about community service. While it turns out that the ROAV can’t change into a crime-fighting humanoid, it can transform a dull, hot afternoon in the Mojave Desert into rooster-tailing, dirt-drifting, fist-bumping hilarity, and that certainly saved my day.
We weren’t sure what to expect when Honda invited us out to drive the ROAV concept. We’d seen it at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas in 2018, all gangly rollbars and textured composites, but show cars are usually just that, for show. We couldn’t believe the ROAV ran, let alone that Honda would let anyone drive it. As it turns out, the company didn’t originally plan to allow anyone behind the wheel of the ROAV, but the combined efforts of the PR team and the lead engineer on the project, John Barlow, got the ROAV out to Honda’s Proving Center in Cantil, California, where it loomed over its small Honda side-by-side brethren like an ostrich chick among ducklings. The Honda Talon is perky and fun-sized, what you expect from an off-road UTV. The Ridgeline-based ROAV, even without cab and body panels, is—as the kids say—a big boi.
The Honda Ridgeline doesn’t seem like the most obvious starting point for an off-roader. First off, it’s a unibody, more like a crossover SUV than the traditional body-on-frame pickup, and it doesn’t offer the ground clearance or low gearing of competitors. But Honda has been quietly making waves with the soft-riding Ridgeline and the new Passport, using smart all-wheel-drive programming to make up for the lack of an old-school transfer case, and the ROAV has a special mode just for this build, which sends power to the rear wheels and lets a driver wag the tail like a Labrador puppy. Barlow warns me not to get too crazy on the whoops-filled course, since the dampers and springs are production pieces, but other than the no-jumping rule, it’s pedal-down and dirt up.
The ROAV started as an internal exercise. Honda holds a yearly brainstorming session where employees are given 24 hours off their normal duties and encouraged to present their wild and wacky engineering dreams. Barlow, along with Yousuf Riad and Tony Gloriosa, put together an idea for an open-air vehicle—inspired not by buggies or rockcrawlers, but by a little roadster Barlow once owned and regretted selling. “I just love that feeling of the wind in your face,” Barlow tells me. “It’s like anything bad, any stress, it just blows away, and I wanted to share that feeling.” Barlow’s team didn’t expect their proposal to go anywhere past the fun-idea stage, but the executives at Honda R&D Americas liked it and suggested taking it to a concept form—with a slight off-road twist. […]
As a Toyota Supra fan I cannot be more excited reading articles about the legendary GT-R. Why? Well first off the GT-R is a fully functioning race-mobile. And if I didn’t have my passion for the Supra, it would be my favourite. Just look at the resurgence the GT-R got when it went back into production. Is the same thing in line once the new 2020 Toyota Supra hits the streets? I think so. Check out this event covered by Speedhunters…
When was the last time you spent a weekend surrounded by 1,000hp+ street-driven cars bashing their rev limiters?
Don’t feel bad if your recreational time has been somewhat horsepower deficient, Speedhunters is here to help by extending a virtual backstage invitation to Australia’s Tuners Edge GT-R Challenge.
Who else remembers the time when breaking through the magical 1,000hp barrier was strictly reserved for dedicated race machinery, daydreams, and shit-talking wankers?
Honestly, even if an older, wiser, and more handsome Matthew Everingham [LOL – PMcG] hijacked a time-travelling DeLorean to return to my youth and describe what was possible in 2019, my younger self would have struggled to believe street builds of this calibre could ever exist.
And yet here we are, descending once again on the tiny regional township of Cootamundra, where some of Australia’s heaviest-hitting street cars will fight against themselves and previous records on a 1km-long airstrip.
This year marks the event’s 11th anniversary, and instead of chasing 10-second passes as it once was, the target has been set deep into the low 8-second range. That notion becomes almost absurd when you consider the runway is more like country b-road and less like a prepped race surface.
Typically, there’s a full second margin between personal best times set in Cootamundra and those run on a bonafide drag strip. ‘Coota’ as it’s referred to in the most Australian of ways, is a challenging and unforgiving place to set times; it’s a rough, harsh ride and that’s before you begin factoring in ridiculous headwinds and crosswinds.
The slower time slips aren’t a problem though; the aim of the Tuners Edge GTR Challenge is to simulate true street racing, albeit in a much safer environment and without the threat of Australia’s totalitarian law enforcement getting involved. […]
I have heard about it, yet never made it out last year. Again people started asking if I would make it out to Engineered Automotive’s Cars ‘n’ Coffee – and I said why not! After a long awaited spring I knew this would be a busy event, it was slated to be the warmest day of the year so far. Boy was I right!
As I rolled in, down Confederation Drive, I can see a huge gathering of vehicles and people. Wow, I was impressed. Of course EA’s parking lot was jammed full. But the crowd of people and cars over flowed to neighbouring industrial buildings down the block and along the side streets. You had to be there early to get a good spot. The scene reminded me of the early 2000’s when meets like these were a regular occurrence in local parking lots. It was nice to see the scene alive and kicking.
The variety of cars were extraordinary. You had high end Mercedes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maclarens, and Porsches. And there was a wide mix of import tuners; GTRs, Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, and Mitsubishis. The usual domestic beasts were present; Corvettes, Mustangs etc… There was also a mix of custom vehicles that you could tell took years of dedication to build.
Engineered Automotive’s Cars ‘n’ Coffee is held the first Sunday of each month, starting in May. Check out their website for more details. I hope to bring my Toyota Supra to one of these events. It might even end up being the next one. Just this time I’ll make sure I have time for a coffee!
Imagine, for a second, that we’re back in 1979. Lightyears away from the world we know today, two Swedes named Björn stride the planet as respective Gods. While one needed the help of his three bandmates to warble Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! to #1 in Ireland for a single week, the other Björn had a much longer lasting impact on the local landscape.
While dance halls bounced to the ABBA beat, Björn Waldegård was out delivering the glorious tune of a maximum attack BDA engine around the rally stages of the world.
Armed with the most cutting edge MK2 Escort to ever emerge from Ford Motor Company’s competition base in Boreham, Björn and the RS1800 were a formidable pair. The domination was real, with the affable Swede claiming the World Rally Championship crown with only a single point to spare over Hannu Mikkola, the second Ford works driver. The company also won the manufacturers’ crown, a feat they would not repeat again until 2006.
While winning the world championship was a massive deal for Ford, it solidified the legendary place that the MK2 Escort would come to have in rallying circles. It’s a vehicle that now, 40 years on, remains a fan favourite and in Ireland especially, possibly the ultimate definition of a rally car.
While 260bhp BDA Escorts were thought to be on a different planet in the late ’70s, I doubt anyone in Boreham could have imagined how far the humble Ford would evolve.
Sat before me today, looking menacing in Audi’s striking Nardo Grey paint hue, is perhaps the current ultimate evolution of the breed, a 2019 take on the quintessential 1979 rally icon.
When I say the Escort is loved in these parts, I cannot even truthfully express in words the reason behind it. It doesn’t make logical sense in any way, but even today we can see rally events with north of 70 Ford Escorts on the entry list.
The generation that saw the works teams arriving on our shores, with all the star drivers in tow, passed on the stories, and each few years a new breed of ‘Escort men’ would emerge, thrilling crowds with sideways, tail out action.
As category structures evolved to allow a wide variety of cars to compete, Class 14 became the top dog. A class for modified 2WD rally cars, this is where this Ford Escort lives. With a limited ‘125% of max factory displacement’ engine size rule in place, one particular power plant has come to the fore. […]
Welcome to a warm spring day in late March at Fuji Speedway’s lesser known gymkhana course, nothing more than a big wide open space of tarmac that sits right above the drift course. It’s the perfect venue to hold smaller driving courses, or in this case, shred some serious rubber.
As I pulled in to the carpark, the team I had arranged to meet was already there setting up. The invitation had come from Iikuta-san, a name you may be familiar with if you follow Japanese professional drifting. After seeing his Audi A5 at the Kinokuni booth at Tokyo Auto Salon in January, I knew I needed to follow the development of the car as it was prepared for its foray into this year’s Formula D Japan championship.
FD Japan is what I now like to refer to as the fun professional drift championship in Japan.
Shortly after my arrival, Mori-san from Auto Service Mori rolled in with his Kazama Auto-kitted S15 street drift car. He only stayed for an hour or so, wanting to see and hear what most people were all patiently waiting for that morning; that ridiculous 7.4-liter LSX 454R motor crank into life. In all my years of covering drifting in Japan, I have never seen a team operate as meticulously and as professionally as the guys from Helios, the racing outfit that built the entire car.
There is nothing ‘drift’ about them – they are a full-on, high-level motorsport outfit. You notice it in everything they do, from the way the car has been built to the way they prepared it prior to its first run.
Every single component of the car was checked and double checked before that first start up to gently warm the engine’s vital fluids. It was educational seeing them track down an issue with the fuelling system, with the pumps not priming when given power. They trouble-shot through every piece of the puzzle before realizing the issue spanned from a connector, and moments later we were all greeted with the reassuring buzz of fuel lines being pressurized.
The LSX was then sparked into life, the savage raw idle of its high compression nature resonating against the mountains that serve as a picturesque backdrop to Fuji Speedway. […]
Whenever I catch a glimpse of a Datsun in person it always makes me stop and take a long look at it. First off they are very rear. But secondly there is something about it that makes me want to build one. Is it the body lines? Or is it the uniqueness of it? I really don’t know. I do know that when I saw these pictures I just had to share. This is absolutely the sweetest Datsun that I have seen!
We all have our childhood dream cars.
For some it may be a Lamborghini Countach or a BMW 3.0 CSL, for Andres Lell it was always the Datsun 240Z.
He’s loved the S30 Fairlady design for as long as he can remember; the long nose and small cockpit blend into an iconic, sporty shape. In building this car, Andres‘ childhood dream would be realized.
Working hard has paid dividends for Andres, and he’s now in a position where he can afford more than one of his favorite poster cars. Within his collection are a few cars with rally pedigree, the reason being that when Andres was young he spent a lot of time in a garage with his father who built and prepared cars for special stage duty.
Due to its climate, Estonia is a country where the weather dictates a lot. Long winters necessitate vehicles a little more sensible than a 600hp rear-wheel drive Datsun, so an Evo or an STI is ideal when conditions allow.
But if you want to be really original you go for a Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution – only 2,500 were ever produced after all. The engine did give up in Andre’s example, but a replacement was found in Japan. […]
