Eating breakfast next to the track.

It’s Saturday morning, 5AM, and Yim is at the door. Time to go! We head back over to the shop to pick up our cars. It’s not even 6AM and Ferdie is quick detailing his car; no comment. We’re all sorted and hit the road. Maybe 40 minutes later, we’re at the Chevron in Rosamond, only 2-3 miles away from Willow Springs, maybe longer, I don’t know. Let’s just say 5 minutes away. We all stop to eat breakfast at Jack In The Box and Andrew happens to show up at the perfect time to join us.

I think I had some sort of burrito, something like that. We go to the driver’s meeting, pass through tech inspection, and prep our cars before the first session of the day. You always want to check your oil, torque down your lugs, adjust your tire pressures, and empty your interior. I have Schroth Profi III 6-point harnesses, so I usually have to spend a minute or two to get my anti-sub straps ready since I don’t use my harnesses in daily driving. I also brought my video camera mount in hopes of learning from my mistakes.

Vince tore his RE-01R to shreds.

The first session wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. You’re never going to set your fastest laps in the first session; warm up your engine, your tires, and your wits. You’re not going to be going into turn 8 flat out your first lap, at least I hope not. But the second session, Vince tore up one of his tires pretty good. I was having cooling issues again and just as I was exiting the track, I saw Vince push out on 9 when he got on the throttle. I didn’t realize how scary that was until I saw it on video. Nuts.

EVO X, GRB STi, GRB STi, Legacy, GRB STi, EVO 9, GRB STi, GRB STi.

It’s a good thing he pulled off before anything real bad could happen. He ended up having to throw Ferdie’s spare Enkeis in the rear and moving his CE28 rear to the front. It’s a damn good thing we’re starting to bring real spares instead of those donuts they throw in your trunk. Vince ended up having to go all the way home to pick up his Toyo R1Rs he bought from Dusty at NNI Racing and mounting them the same day. He didn’t make it back until 6PM later that day.

Legacy, GRB STi, EVO 9, GRB STi, GRB STi.

Meanwhile, my brakes were acting kind of funny. I felt like they were faded or the rotors were warped, getting a lot of modulation under semi-hard braking. I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, but don’t worry, I later found out, the hard way. Ouch. My coilovers were also making weird noises, I guess from the heat expanding the metal. Fortunately nothing bad happened there. Still severe cooling issues, which we later concluded was a result of bubbles in the system. Too bad we didn’t get them out until last night (Monday)!

Amy, Andrew and Yim at basecamp.

Andrew was absolutely dominating me in his stock EVO 9. I’m absolutely confident that he could’ve took first place in Redine Time Attack for Big Willow if he had a fresh set of tires, some KW coilovers, and TBE. Hell, even with just tires, he might be able to do it. I was so impressed with his driving ability. Watching Andrew and Randy drive is seriously encouraging me to get into autox in the very near future, once I get some scheduling sorted out.

Well, all in all, it wasn’t too bad of a track day, although half the team walked away with mechanical issues. I’ll talk about what went wrong in all of our cars next time. That’s racing for you; the best of the times and the worst of times.

Westend Alignment is the best, the end.

After you’ve sunk thousands of dollars into your adjustable coilover suspension (at least 2-way), you’ll need to get an alignment to uncap the potential that now lies within your car. If you’ve got a car that requires additional parts for camber adjustment in the rear, I would recommend you get those parts too and get it all setup at the same time. For us Subaru GR STi owners, Cusco makes lateral links to adjust camber in the rear up to -3 degrees. Darin would prefer to work with lateral links as opposed to the Whiteline Rear Camber Bushing Kit.

Don’t cheap out and use band aid solutions; get the real thing, if you’re serious about performance. Once you know you’re ready, give Darin a call and schedule your appointment two weeks in advance. Two weeks you ask? If you absolutely have to get aligned before hand, I’d take it somewhere else; but if you can wait two weeks, your car will handle like Hades’ chariot of death when all is said and done. Do yourself a favor, wait the two weeks, and thank all parties involved. That’s just how good he is!

When you make an appointment, you better be prepared to bet your life on that appointment and make sure you get there early. Darin aligns every single car himself because he’s a perfectionist and can’t stand the thought of even one car making it out of his shop not perfect. His shop is actually a good size and he could easily hire another guy to go through twice the cars and make more money, but again, if one car isn’t perfect, he can’t bear the thought. That’s the kind of guy you want working on your suspension!

I’ve tried Robispec as well as Firestone alignments; Robispec was above average, however I still think Darin’s alignment is superior. Oh that reminds me, make sure you get corner balanced too; it makes a difference. Now I bet you’re wondering, so how does my car handle now? Handling is so sick, it’s confidence inspiring. When I get on the throttle the rear just keeps on rotating and my understeer problems are a distant memory. Turn-in is significantly improved, and I’m still yet to turn on the track settings.

Darin knows I go to the track often and what he decided to have me do is when I get to the track, max out my camber plates to -4, which will also give me a little toe out in the front. He said it’d be my little secret to shave that extra 3/4 of a second to beat my friends. When the track day is over I can go back to my normal setting and preserve the tires, bringing the toe back to 0. How cool is that? No one does it better.

Westend Alignment
18008 S Vermont Ave
Gardena, CA 90248
(310) 808-9233

Michael Schumacher, the king has returned.

It was announced a few hours ago that Michael Schumacher will be paid a million euros per race, approximately 1.44 million USD with a bonus for each victory in the same amount! I wouldn’t mind earning 1.44 million USD in a year and Schumacher is going to have at it in a single race. FML! The contract won’t expire until the end of the year, so he is guaranteed a minimum £4.25m. You know what’s funny though: seven-times world champion or not, Schumacher is past his prime (which is why he retired to begin with).

Yet rivals Williams and Red Bull are so scared of his return that they’re not willing to let Schumacher test in Massa’s F60 car. On Ferrari’s website, they issued the statement “Guess who opposed the test with the F60? A team that hasn’t won anything for years and yet didn’t pass over the opportunity to demonstrate once more a lack of spirit of fair play.” Williams hasn’t won a constructors championship since 1997!

Then there’s Toro Rosso complaining that their driver Jaime Alguersuari was unable to test his car before Hungary and seeing this as some sort of eye for an eye deal. Ferrari shot back “Just for the record, the Scuderia Ferrari had given its approval to let Alguersuari test, but it seems even in this instance someone decided to stick to the precise wording of the regulations.” I can’t wait for Schumacher to rip them a new one with no testing.

Michael Schumacher will make a dramatic return to Formula One.

Ladies and gentlemen, seven time Formula One world champion, Michael Schumacher, is making a comeback. I get the chills just thinking about how the rest of the race season is going to unfold and let’s not forget, Hamilton just won the last race in Hungary. Schumacher vs. Hamilton? Let’s see it, I want to see it! At 40 years old, it’s hard to say whether he’ll be competitive, but I have faith in the legend.

I do feel bad for Felipe Massa, it’s truly regrettable what happened, and it’s said in the news that he’s making good progress. Still, for Schumacher to come back now, it’ll be exciting to watch him overcome the many challenges facing him. Assuming he’s not doping up, we’ll be seeing him in a month’s time in Valencia, a race I dare not miss! Stay tuned.

Click image above to watch video.

Motor Trend teamed up with Ford and driver Marcus Gronholm to create a very cool video of the rally champ’s 2009 Pikes Peak time attack in Ford’s Fiesta Rallycross. It’s about 9 minutes long and in my opinion, well worth the watch. There’s a couple different camera views, with most of it being in-car footage and it’s all in high definition with high quality audio. All I can say is, if I could drive that road every day, what my life would be, wow.

I can't wait to watch WRC in high-definition.

Starting in October, the Discovery Channel HD will be covering the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), showing every round weekly! They’re also going to be airing WRC related content and news. Imagine Loeb drifting through corners in the mountains with no guard rails in 1080i, 5.1 digital surround high-definition format. I’ve got the television and the audio equipment to take full advantage of the technology and am rather excited.

Honestly I got into the whole motorsports thing a little late and never got to watch WRC on the television when it was still on. It’s just too bad that Subaru’s no longer campaigning their rally car with Petter Solberg and that other guy, what’s his face. There’s a Subaru owner’s day that Subaru of America is putting together on the first of August and I can already picture all the Subie guys whining and moaning that WRC is making a comeback without Subaru.

It’s alright though, Petter as a privateer is still only in 6th in the standings, far away from Loeb, very far. Sadly I highly doubt we would’ve been seeing Subaru on the podium were they still racing in WRC; finally another motorsport to watch on television other than Formula One.

Click image to view video.

Subaru announced its participation in the 37th 24-Hour Race of Nurburgring with its new Imprezea STi last April and I’ve been patiently waiting to see what’s become of it. Well, apparently in car videos started circulating back in May; I’m late to the party! I think the video is definitely worth checking out. Supposedly STi is collecting and testing data to improve the STi’s development (perhaps to compensate for being out of action in WRC), but it looks all the work is going into suspension.

Looks stock, but take another look!

The power output is essentially factory spec, but there’s now an air oil separator where the battery used to be, the radiator’s been upgraded and here’s the big one: the engine has been moved back! I’m no mechanical engineer, but from my understanding, moving the engine back closer in between the struts should improve weight distribution for improving handling. There seems to be a lot of fire retardant going on in there as well, which is always a good thing. My buddy Ferdie is an expert with catching on fire on track (twice he’s caught on fire now).

The best race in Recaro seats.

Note that STi has chosen Project Mu for braking and Recaro for seats; sounds familiar (I have a Project Mu big brake kit in the front and rear of my STi as well as ASM Limited Recaro RS-G seats)! But anyway, that roll cage is so clean; I can only hope if I ever decide to cage my car that I achieve similar results. I also spy a MoTec dash logger; bling bling! I just love race cars.

Click image to view video.

When you drive a Subaru, you simply have a natural affinity for motorsports and rally in particular. Most people had never even heard of it until it showed up in the X Games, but even then, what you see in the X Games is kind of like miniature golf. It’s not quite on par with the real thing (har har) and to see for yourself, click the image above to watch this 5 minute clip for a glimpse into the real world of rally. You won’t regret it.

Cosworth Subaru EJ25 STi short block.

Sometimes I really hate my car and I really hate racing it. That’s what I like to tell myself anyway so that I feel a little less guilty when I’m about to stuff a miniature gold mine into my engine bay. Apparently about a month or two ago when I was at Willow Springs, I overheated so badly with the stock radiator that my heads lifted a little and I now have a permanent but slight head gasket leak. While replacing the head gasket and head studs isn’t exactly expensive if you’re just looking at the cost of parts, the labor is an arm and a leg because you have to take the engine apart.

I figured while I was at it, I’d be smart to make some upgrades to my engine seeing as how I very recently increased my power output to what I’d say is quite a ways from the factory. At first I was thinking of going with the new JE billet pistons, but unfortunately they weren’t as cheap as I originally thought they might be and then there’s the trouble of taking my block assembly to a machine shop to get worked on in anticipation of the new pistons.

By the time I finished adding everything up, I knew what I had to do. I pulled the trigger on a Cosworth short block complete with forged rods, pistons and rings, bearings, completely blue-printed! It’s plug and play, no hassles with machining and taking the risk of something going very wrong. With these sort of things I don’t like to take chances, because if anything were to go wrong, I would lose the engine in end anyway and end up paying even more than I originally would’ve.

While nothing is ever guaranteed, I like to do my best to ensure that the situation is as favorable as reasonably possible. I’d like to think that people feel the same way about websites, but I doubt it. My new short block is already at YimiSport and is awaiting my car to be dropped off next week. Wish me luck, I have exactly a month to get my car ready for Willow Springs.

Click image to view video.

When I first heard that Ken Block was getting into rally, I honestly wasn’t impressed. Even when he started getting pretty good at it, I thought he was still in Pastrana’s shadow, who I wasn’t really fond of either. Not that I’m an expert opinion or anything like that, but when you compare to the likes of Sebastian Loeb or even Petter Solberg, it’s just hard to look at it the same way. I have to hand it to the guy though, he’s a marketing genius and it’s not surprising at all that he was able to build DC Shoes into what it is today.

I like the GRB a lot better, lol.

What probably got him started was the 171 foot jump; it put down a whopping 10 million views. But I think once the Gymkhana Training video came out, that solidified a strangle hold in what would become the best showcase of viral marketing on YouTube to date. After achieving that level of success, why stop there right?

Dual ball bearing twin scroll turbo, I got it bad.

The second installment titled Gymkhana Two: The Infomercial was great, but all the special effects kind of turned people off. Whatever, I say screw it, the GRB chassis looks way better! What was really clever about the second video was all the new Teamworks Gear to go with it, basically a bunch of Subaru targeted apparel and accessories styled in the image of the livery on his rally car at double the price.

Team SCS has a couple of these laying around.

A good friend of mine is a big dealer for all this new DC/Subaru gear and believe me when I tell you, it’s a gold mine for sure. Who else is peddling a soft shell jacket for $200 and getting away with it? Well done Mr. Block.