Ken really was an absolute class act.

Oppos who have been around for a while may remember that back in 2018 I flew from Massachusetts to Texas to pick up a 2016 BRZ (inspected ahead of time by @EL_ULY, thanks again!), which I drove first to the Lake Superior Performance Rally, then back home to become my three-season daily.

It gave me four flawless years, needing nothing beyond scheduled maintenance. It was always fun to drive and, as a bonus, returned far better fuel economy than the EPA said it should, with highway mileage well into the 30s even after swapping out the Primacy tires for grippier but less efficient rubber. I had every intention of keeping it a good long time, then covid came and knocked the used car market on its ass.

After a lot of consideration, and watching the sale/trade value of my car skyrocket, I decided to turn in the keys.

Now, instead, I own a BRZ.

Earlier this year I found a dealer willing to order me a new BRZ for MSRP, and give me a very good offer for my 2016. Two weeks ago the car finally arrived stateside, one of the first 2023s and the first car I've ever purchased new.

I'm about 600 miles in, so still breaking in the motor and not pushing it yet, but so far it's exactly as advertised, like the old car but just that bit better in every category. So far the only thing I miss from my old BRZ is the analog fuel gauge. The new model uses a dozen big digital bars and I will always hate that as a fuel gauge design. The turn signal is the kind that returns to center when you flick it on, which I thought I would also hate, but I've gotten used to it a lot faster than I expected. One of the most random positives of the new car: map lights! The old one just had a single central dome, the new car has a pair of proper map lights you can tap to turn on and off. Second random positive: more than one color for the gauge/interior lighting. In the old one everything was lit red, including the entire tach gauge, which made knowing where redline was while driving at night a bit more interesting.

Aside from removing the clutch pedal spring for more feel the new car is stock, and I intend to keep it that way for a while, but if I do modify anything speakers may be first on the list. I do think they improved the sound system slightly between the 22 and 23 models (going off my memory of a test drive of a 22 back at the start of the year, so I don't say this with confidence), but sound quality still isn't great. Fuel economy seems to be about 2-3 mpg worse than the first gen based on the first couple tanks of gas. My second tank, which was almost entirely highway miles, came in at a fraction under 30 mpg. For an extra ~50 HP though (based on what other owners are seeing from dyno results) that seems like a fair trade.

The final kicker: my old car is now listed on the dealer site for just under $26 grand (which the site says is "market price"), four thousand more than I paid for it in 2018 and just seven thousand less than my new one cost. I'm sure from my experience with them they'll be more than willing to negotiate that down a few grand, but still wild to see that as the starting point.

EDIT: Now about 2,500 miles in. Highway economy seems to peak at about 31.5 mpg, so still about 1 mpg down on the old model, but a lot closer than I expected

So three weeks ago I get a DM from Ryan Millen (son of Rod, brother of Rhys). We got to be casual friends a few years back when he was campaigning a RAV4 in Rally America. He knew I'd done a couple desert races in the stock class early in my career and every now and then we'd talk about me going down to join him in prerunning Baja. He didn't DM me to invite me to prerun Baja. Instead, he offered to hire me to co-drive for him in next week's Vegas to Reno desert race in a Spec Trophy Truck. If it goes well I could end up doing the Baja 1000 with him in November in the full Trophy Truck of the legendary Terrible Herbst team.

What. Is. Happening.

Today the Lake Superior Performance Rally, the last rally of the 2022 American Rally Association national championship, began in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but it began under a massive shadow.

Last night, driver Al Dantes, who has been competing since 2007, was fueling up at a gas station when a drunk trucker plowed through the station, hitting Al and starting a fire that burned the entire station to the ground. This was Al's home event, the gas station was only about a mile from his house.

In the time I've been involved in rally Al has always been one of the biggest and most enthusiastic personalities in the community. Always fast with a joke, always smiling. He was the ring-leader of the "last stage selfie" for the rallies he was at and the one gathering up event updates and stories for the rallies he wasn't at. His car, an LS-swapped FC RX-7, was as unique and as loud as he was and he always drove it to the limit. He also had six daughters, who he absolutely adored.

This evening the ARA announced that it is officially retiring Al's car number, #50, only the third number ever to be retired.

Rally on, Al.

Last week I sent an email to Vermont SportsCar, the outfit that operates Subaru Motorsports USA in rally and rallycross. I asked for permission to hold the awards for Oppo Rally in their front parking lot. The response I got back was basically "what about doing it inside our lobby overlooking the shop floor instead?" (The exact words were "I'd hate for you guys to come all this way and only see our parking lot!")

At this point this is not a sure thing, it is contingent on them finding someone who can come by on Sunday morning and open the place up for us. But best case it means getting a look at the shop floor and the cars in the VSC museum, and maybe even getting a bit of a tour of the facility! No guarantees on what cars will be on the shop floor (maybe the Airslayer and/or Family Huckster?), but the museum typically has Pastrana's "Action Figures" stunt car, Pastrana's New Year's No Limits" jump car, an authentic 22B, and at least one of the old rallycross cars.

The Oregon Trail Rally is this week, so it may be a week or two before I have an answer since their priorities are elsewhere right now, but fingers crossed on this being official soon.

Today, by the way, is your last chance to earn the full 15 bonus points for early registration.

We made a scoobaru

Hard to imagine testing a Fiesta R2 as one of the less interesting parts of my day, but...

Some of y'all may have heard about rally driver Sam Albert and his project of swapping a Ferrari V8 into his STI rally car. Good news: the engine is in, it's running, and the car now drives. Over the weekend Sam took the car to DirtFish for its first official shakedown run and holy shit does it rip.

Sam plans on running Olympus Rally in April as the car's first event, likely following that up with Oregon Trail Rally in May. After that who knows, but hopefully many people will get to hear that screaming Ferrari motor echoing through the trees.

Today was qualifying for Vegas to Reno, and while Ryan had extensive experience with the truck I was going in completely cold. The procedure was to do one sighting lap in the truck, then we'd all line back up and go all out to qualify. Ryan has rally experience so we wrote pace notes for the five mile course, hoping it would give us an edge over those just using a GPS trail.

The good news is the notes were an excellent help. The bad news is the truck was a bit down on power. Not sure why yet, dirty air filter, burnt plug wire, bad tune, bad torque converter. Whatever the reason we ended up qualifying eighteenth, almost 20 seconds down on the top time.

Tomorrow is tech inspection, tire change practice drills, and hopefully troubleshooting and fixing the truck. Then Friday we head up to the ghost town of Bonnie Claire to start the race. If all goes well we should complete the 500 miles in about 9 hours. As the only person on the team doing the full distance I'm curious to see how dead I feel after that.

@Shoop said in One month to Oppo Rally and entry list is up to 15:

@Engineer-In-Motion thats on sunday no? Make the trip from burlington to watkins glen!

Only a six hour drive!

@derp I mean Vermont being Vermont there's always an opportunity to wind up off road if you try hard enough

The Swedish contingent looks like it will be out in force, making up over a quarter of the entries. Get your entries in before June 1 if you want any early entry bonus points.

@deekster_caddy I am very not good at remembering tags.

Added

@functionoverfashion check-in at the start point is 8-9 AM. 9 is when the rally begins and competitors can get on the road. The finish check-in is 7-9 PM, but it's optional and mostly just a way for teams to hand over bribes and tell stories of why they deserve extra points, as well as compare notes with other competitors. That said, if you want to do a virtual late check in where I email you the route book after 9AM and you just go for whatever you can from wherever you choose to start I'm willing to make that work.

@EssExTee said in Exciting Oppo Rally News! (Maybe):

@ZHP-Sparky-the-5th then WHY is there NEVER a northeast MEETUP???

@facw said in Exciting Oppo Rally News! (Maybe):

How ashamed should I be if I sign up but later have to bail sure to life changes?

No shame. There's always a handful that have to pull out for one reason or another

@AkioOhtori said in Exciting Oppo Rally News! (Maybe):

As someone about to go on an Oregon Trail road trip this week let me be the first to say: Wait what?

Come hang out!

Last week I sent an email to Vermont SportsCar, the outfit that operates Subaru Motorsports USA in rally and rallycross. I asked for permission to hold the awards for Oppo Rally in their front parking lot. The response I got back was basically "what about doing it inside our lobby overlooking the shop floor instead?" (The exact words were "I'd hate for you guys to come all this way and only see our parking lot!")

At this point this is not a sure thing, it is contingent on them finding someone who can come by on Sunday morning and open the place up for us. But best case it means getting a look at the shop floor and the cars in the VSC museum, and maybe even getting a bit of a tour of the facility! No guarantees on what cars will be on the shop floor (maybe the Airslayer and/or Family Huckster?), but the museum typically has Pastrana's "Action Figures" stunt car, Pastrana's New Year's No Limits" jump car, an authentic 22B, and at least one of the old rallycross cars.

The Oregon Trail Rally is this week, so it may be a week or two before I have an answer since their priorities are elsewhere right now, but fingers crossed on this being official soon.

Today, by the way, is your last chance to earn the full 15 bonus points for early registration.

Some cars we've seen before, and a few we haven't. Looking like a good mix so far.

With a little over seven weeks until the rally there's still plenty of time to sign up! Head over to the info and registration page to see how.