JANG|Evolution

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SCCA RallyCross, May 15, 2004

It was inevitable. I bought a rally car, so it was only a matter of time before I took it out rally racing. Thankfully the SCCA San Francisco Region offers a safe, easy way to get into the sport. SCCA RallyCross is effectively autocross on dirt. Cars enter the course at one-minute intervals, ensuring that one car is headed for the finish line when the next is just entering turn 1 (runs go from point A to point B, not in a loop).

Out of four runs, I disqualified in two due to going off course. Navigating a cone-delimited course looks easy to bystanders, but when you're behind the wheel struggling to balance oversteer & understeer, manage your weight transfer and grind through two gears, you can start to see nothing but a sea of thin orange triangles, especially when the course has several crossovers. When I finally figured out the track, though, my times were pretty decent. In the evening "fun runs," I had a blast.

I hope to attend many more of these events to come, and encourage rally-enthralled owners of any non-lowered Evo, WRX, or even just normal street cars to come on up and join us! We had everything from bone-stock Toyota Tercels to sponsored, highly modified, dedicated rally machines. Visit the SCCA SF Region RallyCross homepage for more info.

Photos

Picture-224 - 640x480 (56608 bytes) Picture-225 - 640x480 (69647 bytes) Picture-245 - 640x480 (49188 bytes) Picture-227 - 640x480 (84135 bytes)
Picture-236 - 640x480 (67074 bytes) Picture-242 - 640x480 (53116 bytes) Picture-243 - 640x480 (76110 bytes) Picture-244 - 640x480 (50246 bytes)

In case you were wondering, yes, the car did get a little dirty by the end of the day! This is after 8 runs:

Picture-311 - 1024x768 (206647 bytes)

Here are selected photos of some other vehicles at the event:

Picture-299 - 1024x768 (139083 bytes) Picture-300 - 1024x768 (159292 bytes) Picture-283 - 1024x768 (195180 bytes)
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Picture-287 - 1024x768 (275735 bytes) Picture-303 - 1024x768 (163109 bytes)

I was so inspired by the excitement of the day that I decided to make the best of one picture that turned out badly, making an ad out of it:

one_cone - 1024x698 (114885 bytes)

Videos

I can't give enough thanks to my buddy Agustin of ThirdWish.com who made the trip up to the track to take some excellent video clip:

Fun Run 1
Fun Run 3
Fun Run 4 (in-car camera!)