I finished 8th overall at my debut European Rally Cross Championship event this weekend in Portugal.

Learning a new discipline is a process and I’m happy with the result – especially considering the level of competition here and how tricky this track is. Of course I made mistakes this weekend, but I tried to learn the associated lessons and build on this experience for next time. I’m somewhat familiar with the track in England, so I’m looking forward to battling it out there — while realizing I’m still on the steep side of the learning curve.

The team is quickly working things out with the cars and I am starting to come to grips with how to get them around the track. It’s hard to describe just how fast the Rockstar Energy Ford Fiesta is. All the cars in the top class have twice the horsepower of a World Rally Car! And the aggressiveness of the other drivers is also something I may not be able to do justice in words. Even so, I got caught behind some wild guys in an early heat and almost got black-flagged myself for being too aggressive.

Like a rally, there are so many variables that are out of our control, like short rainstorms that can affect your results, but unlike rally the most important thing is: every single corner!

My next round is ERC Great Britain at the end of the month (May 29-31). Hope to see you out there.

April 30, 2010

We’ve arrived in Portugal for the first round of the European Rally Cross Championship. The new Rockstar Energy Fiesta Rallycross car looks awesome! With a new turbo design from Garret it should be pushing more than 50lbs of boost.

The competition will be good here with some of the best rally cross drivers in the world taking on this contest. There will be more than 30 top-level cars and dozens of competitors in other classes this weekend.

Today is scrutineering and we’ll get out on the Montalegre rally cross track to compete tomorrow. The track is extreme. Most of the track consists of tight gravel turns, but we’ll see 115 mph on the front straight.

Look for the coverage of this event and others from the European Championship on ESPN2 later this summer.

I wasn’t sure what to think about Round 4 as we cruised by the Vegas Strip on our way to Thursday’s test session.  Round 3 at The Wall in New Jersey was an absolute disaster for the team and I knew the guys had done all they could in the interim five weeks to solve the issues that caused me to spin in both qualifying laps.  The mood was a bit different in our pit this time, the jokes were a bit more personal and the competition pressure was pushed squarely in my court.

The test session didn’t answer many questions.  I wasn’t willing, with all the concrete around, to simulate the same scenario that had caused the car to spin in New Jersey.  I approached the limit slowly, too slowly, and it looked conservative.  Sure, we made suspension and gearing changes to hone the car for this new, diverse course, but I wasn’t taking the same committed lines that JP or Ueo demonstrated because I knew that a little too much angle could still cause the front tires to rub the frame, locking them up and spinning the car straight into the wall at over 80 mph.

I strapped some on for qualifying and threw the car hard into the first left hand corner at 84 mph.  It over rotated and my worst fear was happening as it began to back into the wall!  I was at full lock and half-expecting a spin as I looked behind the passenger B-Pillar at the impact point.  Something was different though and the car began to come back to straight as it slid sideways now at 60+ mph.  I let out the clutch and added throttle only to stall the engine!  Red warning lights in my face and the wall quickly approaching I shifted to second and popped the clutch while the car was still at a descent drift angle.  The NASCAR TRD V-8 fired and I finished the run without losing drift or the line… it wasn’t pretty but it was enough to get into the show.

What happened there was exactly what I needed.  I found the new limit of the car and could now proceed with a bit more confidence.  After Qualifying, Stephan, the team manager, told me not to worry about bending the car this weekend.  “Just push hard and don’t be a p#$$y.” he said.  That “pep” talk was actually much needed, and I threw the Scion into the course as hard as I could for the rest of the event.

Every run felt better and better.  I could get on the throttle earlier and earlier, which was smoking out the place.  The Rockstar Scion TC sounded awesome, the Hankooks took the most ridiculous punishment imaginable in stride and the win was as sweet as I’ve ever experienced.  Thanks go out to Formula D for a great event, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the hard-core Vegas fans and the guys on the Rockstar Drift Team (Stephan, Sean, Carlos, Rob) for a job well done!

Tanner Foust

I haven’t done well in Atlanta for the last few years and 2009 stuck with that trend.  I think we did a great job of getting this car set up for the track–I could run full throttle for almost the second half of the course.  The sound of that TRD NASCAR V8 at 9000RPM was awesome and I could hear the crowd screaming after a big burn.  I’ll be honest I was having a blast!  This set-up got us the number one qualifying spot, but my eagerness to attack in the tandem runs got us knocked out in the Round of 16. 

The first tandem battle was against Calvin and it went smoothly. He had been fighting his car all day but put together great runs.  I came a bit too close at one point and had to make a sizable correction but we still moved on.  The next was a run against Ken Gushi in the other Scion TC.  Leading I took a small advantage but following I still attacked, unfortunately.  Coming into the first corner was cool, two Scion drift cars mirrored up sideways.  I was enjoying it but Ken went into the apex a bit early.  It forced him to hold the hand brake a bit longer than he had in previous practice runs I did with him and at that moment I realized my mistake.  I was closing too fast.  “Go Ken Go!” I was yelling in my helmet but he couldn’t.  I didn’t hit him hard, just enough to rotate me into a slow spin.  Obviously, it wasn’t his fault that I was leaving no room for error.

The Atlanta fans were awesome, FD MC Jared DeAnda was in rare form on the Mic and even Shawn, my tech, signed some boobs!  The only downer was Pat’s DQ for soft tires.  I won’t get into it because there are many that know more about this subject than I, but some of the testing procedures for illegal tires are much more suspect than the tires themselves.  The current regulatory system is not doing its job of protecting the teams who are running legal tires, off the shelf, from those that may be modifying stock tires to improve their performance.  I’ll leave it at that.  Hopefully, Pat, your bogus situation will be a catalyst and get FD to rethink the tire regulatory methods.

Back to the point.  After hitting Ken I proceeded to spin slowly.  I kept my foot in it towards the end of the spin, probably out of frustration, and for a short time was standing still with the tires spinning at a calculated 105 MPH!  The Hankook tire smoke billowing out of the car was ridiculous.

We put a video of some of our first runs of the weekend on Youtube.  You can check them out here. Thank you Rockstar, Scion, AEM and Hankook for supporting the team, I’ll try to do better in NJ!

Click here for a video from the testing at Atlanta

We won three stages on Saturday and entered the second service in the lead by one second. Unfortunately, the surprisingly high torque of the Libra Racing prepared motor was taking its toll on the drive train.  A bracket holding the transfer case gave out and left the drive shaft to shake freely for two of the afternoon’s stages putting us back 25 seconds.

Day Two would be spent using the spare gearbox which was a synchro box. Unlike most transmissions used in rally racing, a synchro gearbox is just like the stock transmission and requires using the clutch to shift.  There was a lot of footwork involved to left-foot and unusually for rallying right-foot braking.  It was the first time I’d put my right foot on the brake pedal during a stage for three years!  We lost a little more time on Day Two but Ken Block had mechanical issues so we managed to podium with a third place overall.

The race this weekend was a rare scene–Evo’s and STI’s battling it out for seconds a stage at the top. The factory  and non-factory Subarus have traditionally dominated the US Pro Rally scene but with Rockstar’s new EVO X and Andrew’s quick EVO IX the pressure is now on them.

On Wednesday and Thursday the guys at Papadakis Racing went back to the shop with my laundry list of adjustments and emerged with a totally different machine that was ready for battle. We made very minor changes throughout Friday and Saturday’s festivities, mainly just learning the characteristics of the Hankook RS3 Tire.

To walk away from the event with a third place podium spot on the Rockstar Energy / Scion Racing TC’s maiden voyage is a huge success. The guys in the shop worked so hard; I’m just glad i could reward their great efforts with a good result. We’re all very stoked!

Saturday was a long day! We ended up running 18 times in tandem competition with 4 “one more time” rounds. The Rockstar/Scion didn’t miss a beat the whole time with no temperature or mechanical issues. So many tandem runs were great practice for me and the new car is showing great potential!

We made it through the rally virtually problem free. John Buffum’s Libra Racing crew took care of any issues quickly but their diligent preparation before the event is what made the good result a possibility. My co-driver, Chrissie, was on every note perfectly the whole weekend so my job was fairly straight forward… find a comfortable set up, build speed and don’t crash! We didn’t put a tire off during the two day event except for one cattle crossing jump. The car felt good over the two previous jumps so I hit the third fairly fast. The photographers said we flew 3 car lengths further than anyone and we came down pretty hard on the nose. With only cosmetic damage the hard landing didn’t cost any time.

The last two stages were the only tighter, more technical stages of the rally and suited the Evo X very well. We had a tight battle going with ACP for second, who was clearly faster on the high speed stages, so we were exited to attack on those last few stages; and with the addition of 7 inches of snow at the end of the race our power disadvantage was no longer an issue. On stage 14 of 15 we made great time in the snow, passing Dave Mira on the very narrow stage (which was exiting) and still beating ACP and Ken Block. The last stage was surely our chance to chase down ACP but it wasn’t meant to be, the stage was canceled! Chrissie and I are incredibly competitive so we were bummed at the decision but we can’t complain about our third place podium finish on this difficult rally.

I had a blast in the new Rockstar EVO and stoked about it’s potential in the tighter, more technical rallies to come!