Subaru Drive Performance Magazine

Fancies of Spring

In southern Wisconsin, the snow has finally melted and the forsythia is about to blossum.

The racing season is well underway, but we're still waiting -- patiently -- for the debut of Subaru Rally Team USA's 2008 Impreza WRX STI and of Subaru World Rally Team's Impreza WRC2008. At recent auto shows and performance events, we've had previews and seen concepts of the cars.

Typically, waiting for these race cars to compete on the road (dirt, gravel, mud, etc.) would seem unbearable.

So I made the wait easier for myself by buying a new Impreza 2.5i 5-Door with Premium Package and a five-speed manual transmission. It's also helping to divert me from my annual springtime malaise concerning cars -- I always yearn for a new one during spring.

Coming from a vehicle that didn't even have ABS, I wasn't quite prepared for the value represented by this car, even though I write about the Subaru line every day. For less than $20,000, this car has equipment that was not available in many luxury cars 10 short years ago. At that time, variable valve timing, stability control, traction control, and brake assist were just trickling down into the entry-level luxury models, and Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems and in-dash CD changers were rarities.

The naturally aspirated engine in this car gets overlooked, too, with enthusiasts focused mainly on turbocharged WRX and STI models. Even without charging, the 170-horsepower 2.5-liter is gutsy. The five-speed is the smoothest-shifting manual transmission I've had since my 1973 Volvo.

Probably more than at any other time of the year, springtime weather makes me want to go on a road trip, preferably to a race or rally. After clocking about 1,000 miles in short trips in my new travel companion, I'm ready. This car will take me many miles. I can feel it. The long road trips to Subaru events around the country start next month!

Watch for me -- in a silver 2008 5-Door with Wisconsin Green Bay Packers plates. I still have some T-shirts to hand out!

Enduring Endurance Racing

I was able to go to Daytona Beach for the Grand-Am weekend at Daytona International Speedway a couple of weeks ago. Although I was there primarily for the KONI Challenge race on Friday, I stayed for the Rolex 24-Hour starting Saturday afternoon.

When I went, I was ready for some changes. I had seen coverage of the 24-Hour the last few years, and I knew that a Ferris wheel was part of the layout for the weekend. As much as I thought I was prepared for the difference between this year’s event and the last 24-Hour weekend that I attended (some 15 years ago), a few things took me by surprise – most of them pleasant:

• The crowd – much larger than I had experienced in previous runnings of the 24-Hour; so much so that there was no infield parking by mid-morning on Saturday
• The entertainment – carnival rides in addition to the Ferris wheel, bands on a stage in the paddock, and fan decks above the team garages
• The food – rows of tents with food native to a number of countries

The weekend had a festival atmosphere, with bands playing so loud that I couldn’t hear the cars screaming across the start/finish line. I suppose it would be possible to visit the Speedway during the weekend, have a great time, and never see a car run competitively on the track.

Still, endurance racing remains at the heart of the weekend, with all that it entails. Its qualities pervaded the three-hour KONI Challenge race on Friday as well as the Rolex 24-Hour during the weekend: Perseverance. Patience. Teamwork. Preparedness. Luck. Experience. Exuberance. Every car had a story – approximately 160 of them between the two races! Mix in the sun, rain, heat, and cold and you can begin to sense this event’s allure.

For me, nighttime racing is the best, with its high speeds in the dark. Some cars still throw flames from their exhausts, adding to the racing’s natural drama.

Approximately two-thirds of the 66 starters finished the 24-Hour this year. Perhaps you’ve heard that to finish an endurance event is to be a winner. After standing witness to such races for as many hours as I can stay awake, I believe that to be true.

Only to Begin Again ... Almost

The new year was hardly upon us when motorsports series were to start up. Every year, I've looked forward to following the Dakar Rally. Traditionally, it started on New Year's Day, but this year it was to begin January 5.

It didn't. Terrorist threats caused the sanctioning body to cancel the event just before it was to begin.

For those who don't know about Dakar, it has an interesting history. The rally runs during a period of two weeks and covers thousands of miles. It's excruciatingly brutal on competitors and their machines. And it's inherently dangerous, whether due to terrain, weather, or hostile natives. Dakar is worth the study, if you have some time.

Dakar's cancellation has left a hole in the beginning of the year.

So we move on to the next event that kicks off the racing calendar -- Daytona. I know most auto racing fans think NASCAR when they hear the word Daytona, but I think of 24-hour racing, the first event of the famous Daytona Speed Weeks. I've only been able to attend twice, but both times were magical. I remember best the race that ended with Al Holbert, Jr. and A.J. Foyt racing door to door to finish the race. There's nothing like taking a catnap and waking up to high-powered prototype sports cars flashing by in the middle of the night.

This year, the Subaru Road Racing Team is entered in the Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series race (Fresh From the Farm 200) on Friday, January 25 -- the day before the start of the Rolex 24-Hour event. The two Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT spec.B Sedans -- #111 and #141 -- are entered to fight it out in the ST Class. Having made a mark in the series last year, I'm looking forward to following them throughout the 2008 season.

Come out and follow the team with me. I'll be wearing black Drive Performance T-shirts at Daytona ... and I might have a couple of extras with me.

A Wonderful Year of Discovery

When I was about 10 years old, my family took a trip from Illinois to Arizona by car -- a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon. While I remember quite a few things about that trip, one memory that stands out was going for a walk with my father. We had found a motel, and we had a little time before we were going to go eat. Dad wanted to find out more about the town; he wanted to go exploring. "Let's see what we can see," he said. What I learned was that Dad was always curious about new places.

I'm one of the luckiest people I know because my work allows me some time to see what I can see. I get to travel, to explore new places, to meet new friends, and to drive new cars. Where others find travel odious, I look forward to the every trip, especially if it's a driving trip (which makes seeing what there is to see a lot easier).

Best of all, readers of Subaru Drive Performance and Drive magazines and their Web sites benefit because travel gives our staff a better understanding of Subaru, its vehicles, Subaru Motorsports teams and how they prove and demonstrate the vehicles, and Subaru customers and potential customers. In that way, our articles are more factual and have greater depth. Also, the images that we generate often have no backup from other sources; they cannot be duplicated. So readers have access to photos they might not otherwise view.

Although there were others, here are some highlights of travel with Subaru through 2007:

• Exploring the Subaru Road Racing Team's shop -- ICY Racing in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
• Taking in the SRRT's test sessions at BeaveRun Motorsports Complex near Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, in March -- there was still some snow on the ground
• Attending the Subaru press conference at the New York International Auto Show for the unveiling of the 2008 Impreza WRX
• In April, going to the SRRT's first Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series race of the season at Homestead-Miami (Florida), where Chuck Hemmingson earned pole position
• Spending time with Subaru Rally Team USA at the Oregon Trails Rally (April) -- first trip to Oregon
• Tromping around Laguna Seca during the SRRT's next Grand-Am KONI Challenge weekend and photographing the SRRT cars in the fog (May)
• Driving the California coast from Monterey to Los Angeles for a meeting the week after the Grand-Am race
• Meeting with Subaru engineers in California as they tested SPT parts for the new WRX (May) and enjoying some great Japanese food
• Enjoying the SRRT's first win at Lime Rock Park (Connecticut) in May, and catching Kristian Skavnes launching the #111 car off the Uphill
• Following SRT USA's participation in X Games 13 Rally in August -- being amazed at the work on the stadium floor to create the big jump for the rally cars and then at the cars jumping
• In August, spending a couple of days with a 2008 Impreza WRX 4-Door driving through the Shenandoah National Park
• Going to Bemidji, Minnesota, to track SRT USA through the dirt and dust at the Ojibwe Forests Rally (August)
• Driving to Virginia International Raceway to take in the SRRT's 6-hour endurance finale in the KONI Challenge Series and being able to watch some night racing (October)
• At the end of October, attending the SEMA Show and finding the Subaru vehicles there
• Going to California again to take part in the 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI long lead in November -- driving one of the most twisted roads I've ever seen as well as the track at Laguna Seca

Take the time to see what there is to see!

Happy New Year everyone!

SEMA Show Wanderings

Maybe you've heard of the SEMA Show -- the annual convention for the Specialty Equipment Market Association. It's huge, on a number of levels. The show is the largest and most important for the association. Even though it's open for four days, you never feel like you've covered it all. Plus, it's held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where walking all the halls takes strength and fortitude.

The show is huge in other ways, too. It brings together people from just about every aspect of the automotive industry. Whatever your interest (dare I say, "passion"?) in vehicles might be, it's addressed there in some manner. That's why I love this show.

Every year, dozens of automotive personalities are featured in a variety of booths throughout the show. I encountered a few as I cruised the aisles, including Carroll Shelby, Jack Roush, Mario Andretti, and Richard Petty. The Subaru booth drew attention with members of the Subaru of America, Inc. racing teams in attendance. Travis Pastrana (who had just won the Rally America drivers' championship), Ken Block, Dave Rosenblum, and Kristian Skavnes all spent time signing posters and meeting fans.

The Subaru booth's cars were a draw, too, including the Impreza 22B featured in Drive Performance last year (Version 3.2) and a WRX modified for the show by AEM and Harman Motive. This car will be featured in the next issue of Drive Performance, to be mailed at the end of November. Also, the booth featured a rally team show car, a WRX modified by Kicker, another one modified by Sport Compact Car, yet another one by Subaru Performance Tuning, and one with Halloween graphics.

The SEMA Show gives an enthusiast just about anything automotive. There are bits of heritage, cutting-edge technology, maintenance products, and driving experiences. Hot-rodders, customizers, tuners, racers, manufacturers -- they're all here. There's always something to make you smile. One showgoer described it as a toy store, but I think that it's more of a place of dreams for car lovers.

One Season Over

The 2007 season ended for the Subaru Road Racing Team at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) a week ago (images included below). While this particular six-hour ST Class Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series race didn't go well for the team, I think they have every reason to be proud of their accomplishments during the season. The guys on the team worked hard and raced hard. Out of six races of their limited season, they managed a pole position (in their first race!) and four top-10 finishes -- two of those at the top of the podium.

For me, though, the best part of the season was being involved with the team from its first practice early in the year through the last lap turned at VIR. There was still snow on the ground when the two Legacy 2.5 GT spec.Bs tested at BeaveRun (Pennsylvania) in March. The days were reasonably warm, but we had to watch for approaching storms. While each venue during the season was a story in itself, it was just one of several chapters in the team's book for the year.

Through the course of 2007, I was introduced to tracks that were new to me -- Homestead-Miami and Virginia International Raceway -- and got to travel to a couple of tracks I haven't visited for a while -- Laguna Seca and Lime Rock. Although I didn't make it to all the races in which the team participated, I felt at home with the team early on, and I look forward to following the team's season next year.

At this point, I'm not sure which races the team will be entering, if not all of them. But the Grand-Am sanctioning body has released its full KONI Challenge Series calendar for 2008 (www.grand-am.com), and you can keep up with the team's news at www.icyracing.com.

Why don't you join us?

Here are some images from the Subaru Road Racing Team's weekend at Virginia International Raceway October 4-6 (shown day by day).

 

Passion

Cycles affect us in ways we maybe don't realize. The waxing and waning of the moon, the rhythm of the waves on shore, the thumping of tires against the blocks of pavement on an open highway, the daily drill of work -- these can inspire or confound you.

Early on, I realized a cycle that fueled a passion. I recognized its effects twice a year, in the fall and in the spring. At these times, I still feel pulled -- a longing that has made me irrational at times or sullen or even giddy. The effect depends on timing within the cycle.

The inspiration for this -- the call to my passion -- is cars. Growing up, I'd wait for the new models, hanging on every word in the magazines, watching the roads for the first new cars I could see. That call has remained into my adult life, and now is one of the times of the year when I have to visit new-car showrooms. It's new-model introduction time.

Car manufacturers make matters even worse by slowly unveiling their new products.

It seems like we've been waiting for the all-new 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI forever. The official introduction to the press is less than a month away -- October 24, at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show. Subaru has added fuel to my impatience by opening a microsite for the STI last week -- http://www.subaru.jp/impreza/wrx_sti/index.html.

Take a look! A shadowy image of the car can be found under one of the tabs.

Heroes on Wheels

The invention of the internal combustion engine put humankind's propensity for competitiveness on two and four wheels, often leading to heroic acts ... and sometimes "edgier" ones. For good or ill, men and women who push the limits of their own endurance and mechanical capability open up whole new worlds for their fans -- sometimes worlds of possibilities, and sometimes knocking down geographic boundaries.

Here are some racing heroes and crazy automotive-type people who have piqued my interest and captured my imagination through the years. I even got to see some of them drive!

• Erwin G. "Cannonball" Baker -- the first to cross the United States on a motorcycle in 1914, when roads often amounted to no more than rutted trails (11 days, 12 hours, 10 minutes from California to New York)
• Juan Manual Fangio -- Formula One ace who won the F1 championship five times in the 1950s (find F1 films of him from the period to appreciate how impressive this feat was)
• Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. -- motorcycle wild man whose jumps over man-made and natural objects escalated from cars to canyons in the 1960s and 1970s
• Rufus "Parnelli" Jones -- able to drive anything well, often against A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti
• Anthony Joseph Foyt -- mainly for his sports car racing prowess, often enough wheel-to-wheel with Al Holbert
• Al Holbert, Jr. -- who was a joy to watch drive the Porsche prototypes in the 1980s
• John Buffum -- for making rally a household word
• Ivan "Ironman" Stewart -- for his grit and perseverance in off-road racing
• Michael Schumacher -- determination and unparalleled driving skill as witnessed particularly in his pre-Ferrari days

An automotive superstar from another part of the world is coming to America to participate in events for Subaru. He is Japan's Eiji "Tarzan" Yamada, who has competed in a variety of motorsports during the last 25 years -- including Formula Three, sedan racing, drifting, and time attack. He helped bring drifting to this country. With his orange hair, he's easy to pick out of a crowd.

Tarzan will be at the wheel of a Subaru Road Racing Team Legacy 2.5 GT spec.B in the Koni Challenge at Miller Motorsports Park this weekend (September 12-15), and he'll be involved with a number of activities at Virginia International Raceway's GT Live/Koni Challenge Series weekend October 4-7.

Maybe he'll be one of your heroes.

Gravel and Dust!

Dust was like water, flowing in waves around and away from the rally vehicles. The clouds would rise, then drift, leaving a thick film over anything in its path -- cars, cameras, tents, clothes, and all the surroundings. It was thicker than heavy fog, and you didn't dare open your eyes in the middle of it.

Spectators at the Ojibwe Forests Rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, last weekend saw some fast, hard rally racing. They also went home covered in dust! The dust was so thick that extra time was allowed between starts for the competitors to give the air a chance to clear. And it did ... a little.

Subaru Rally Team USA came out on top of what first-place-finisher Travis Pastrana called the "everyone had bad luck" rally. Travis Pastrana/Christian Edstrom had a lead of more than 40 seconds at one point, but that cushion went away quickly when car #199 punctured a tire. The misfortunes of the other teams worked out in favor of the SRT USA car. Teammates Ken Block/Alex Gelsomino in car #43 finished second.

Whether a rally has dust, gravel, mud, tarmac, snow, ice, rain -- any kind of driving surface and condition -- rally cars and trucks tackle it. Sometimes it seems like the worse the rally conditions are, the more the men and women in the vehicles savor the event. If you have a chance, come out as a spectator and see for yourself!

The following images of the rally were taken from a spectator's point of view.

For more on the Ojibwe Forests Rally, go to the Subaru of America, Inc. image gallery for the event (www.rally.subaru.com/event_2007_ojibwe_gallery.html) and Rally America's site (www.rally-america.com).

The answer to last week's Pulse Poll question ("In this week's Editor's Track blog, where were the photos taken of the editor's drive in the WRX?"): Shenandoah National Forest in Virginia.

 

Show Time for the New Impreza

Since last week, we have driven the new Subaru Impreza WRX, and so have a number of consumers in California. Plus, Fuji Heavy Industries announced that the Subaru WRC Concept will be shown next month at the Frankfurt auto show.

Last week we were lucky enough to drive the new Subaru Impreza WRX for a few hundred miles. Since most our Subaru driving is in a Legacy, we arranged to drive a 2007 WRX and 2008 WRX back-to-back for a fresh comparison.

These cars are great fun! They're light, maneuverable, and easy to drive smoothly. And that's all before you unleash the turbo.

After more than 550 varied and sometimes difficult miles in the 2008, the new car (91 miles on the odometer when we started) averaged better than 27 miles per gallon. The majority of the miles were in 95-degree heat with the air conditioner on, and we plied through stop-and-go rush hours traffic four times in our tour. But whether cruising an interstate or diving into 35-mph curves in the mountains, this car never missed a beat. As ever, power was always ready when we wanted it!

Differences between the two cars are most apparent in the ride and the interior space. There's better isolation from road noise and bumps aren't as jarring. Inside, there's more than enough head room, plus legroom is more comfortable.

We'll have more impressions in the next issue of the magazine.

Here are a few shots from the drive. Question: Where were these shots taken? (See the Pulse Poll.) I'll answer that next week.

As mentioned last week, Subaru held an Impreza ride-and-drive event at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, on the 11th . Of the 1,019 attendees, 766 drove the 2008 Impreza. Besides the ride-and-drive, the event featured a Subaru car show and an event village, which included a merchandise tent, Subaru Rally Team USA Tour trailer and car, DJs sponsored by Fader, a gaming tent sponsored by Complex, HPI Remote Control car course, Subaru Performance Tuning tent, vehicle walkarounds, and more. Here are some images from the event.

STI watchers, take a look at the Subaru WRC Concept to be shown at Frankfurt next month!