Imagine this scene: It's 95 degrees out. A stiff breeze peppered with dust and tumbleweed fragments tickles the back of your neck. You are sweaty, dirty and mildly sunburned. You, and hundreds like you, have hiked two miles up a remote dirt road to sit and wait, and you've been doing so for almost an hour. Then, finally, you hear it. First a crack, like a distant gunshot, then a high-pitched giggle. The sound is so distant most people wouldn't even notice, but here the entire crowd goes silent. All heads turn down the road. Eyes strain. A few loonies run across the road. More cracks and more giggles are joined by a deep, urgent growl. Camera lenses are held at the ready.
Then the first visual sign is spotted. A loose cloud of dust, just ripped from the road's surface a half-mile away, comes drifting over the top of a nearby ridge. Suddenly, the volume gets turned up as, in a flash of blue and yellow, half a million dollars of Subaru explodes around the ridge at an impossible speed. It slides from berm to berm, all four tires alternately clawing at the dirt and dancing a few inches over it. It moves with a mixture of brutality and grace accelerated to fast forward. You stand paralyzed in a pose of crouched anticipation left over from a few seconds earlier. The growling projectile hurls itself at you, suddenly pitching left, then right as it snaps around, shows you its spoilered tail and sends a ballistic bombardment of roadside shrapnel toward you and the crowd.
As quickly as it came, it disappears again, growling, giggling and popping over the hills. Your paralysis melts away as the crowd erupts in cheers. One minute later, the scene is repeated. This time it's a red and white Mitsubishi, then comes another Subaru, another Mitsubishi, a Hyundai and so on.
This scene has been repeating itself for years around the world, but this year, on May 5, the full force of professional world rallying was unleashed on American soil for the first time. And it was good.
Rallying in this country has been stuck in a rut of ignorance and isolation for decades.
Manufacturers, the media and even most of the automotive press have looked at America's ragtag rally cars, at the small entry lists, the remote venues, the unforgiving terrain and the distinct lack of spectators and have dismissed the sport as unmarketable to Americans. Americans, they reasoned, want to sit in giant stadiums with hot dog vendors and watered-down beer. Americans don't want to work for their entertainment. Americans can't understand rallying's complicated scoring. Americans just don't care.
And so, because it was not NASCAR, American rallying has soldiered on for decades in complete obscurity. That is changing right now.
A number of factors converged on the 2001 SCCA ProRally season to make it the turning point that will convert American rallying into a real, high-profile motorsport, complete with high-dollar factory teams, professional drivers and consistent television coverage. The Rim of the World ProRally this May was the debut of Subaru Rally Team USA, a WRC-scale effort that will either drag American rallying into the modern era or bury it in their own dust.
This is how it happened.
Turmoil
October 12, 1996 - Prescott, Ariz. During a period that would later be called Black October, rumors were flying among the workers and competitors at the Prescott Forest rally that the SCCA was preparing to drop performance rallying from the club. Internal support was at an all-time low and the SCCA's vice president at the time, Terry Bassett, had just announced a draconian set of safety regulations that seemed designed to cripple the sport. The organizers of all 28 of the SCCA's rallies banded together and prepared to leave the SCCA and approach IMSA as a new sanctioning body.
At the same time, fearing that this period of turmoil could be the end of the sport, Ray Hocker, Roger Allison and Lynette Allison decided to take action on their own. In December 1996, they incorporated the American Rally Sport Group (ARSG) with the intent of holding one big rally every year away from the control of the unstable SCCA. Their goal was to attract cars and drivers from around the world with a big prize fund to a race that, they hoped, would raise the profile of the sport as a whole, get rallying some much needed attention and perhaps make the SCCA reconsider its attitude toward rallying.
As it turns out, the sight of all their rallies heading for IMSA changed a few minds at the SCCA even before the ARSG got off the ground. Plans for the big rally continued, however, and after searching the country for viable new locations, Hocker and Allison found the roads they were looking for outside Laughlin, Nev., and the base camp they were looking for in the Ramada Express Hotel and Casino.
With their rally finally coming together, they announced their plans at the awards ceremony after the Rim of the World ProRally in May '98. As luck would have it, the SCCA had some ears in the room that day.
Kurt Spitzner had never been to a rally before, but, almost as an afterthought, he had just been put in charge of the SCCA's rally program.
"My job appointment was something like 'you'll be in charge of the ProSolo program and, oh yeah, there's this little rally thing too,'" Spitzner recalled.
But after attending Rim of the World, Spitzner decided the unique piece of extreme motorsport he had just been put in charge of was just begging for a bigger audience. The ARSG's Ramada Express rally was turning out to be the attention-getter they had planned even before the first race, grabbing Spitzner's attention and, by extension, the attention of the rest of SCCA management. Though neither side is particularly eager to admit it, the competition between the SCCA and the ARSG has been healthy for both organizations.
WRX
Attention from the SCCA and a willing fan base still don't equal factory teams. For that, you need a manufacturer with balls. Subaru is just that manufacturer. Demand for a car like Subaru's Impreza WRX or Mitsubishi's Lancer EVO has been building in this country for years, but most manufacturers have been blind to it. Subaru's few cautious first steps into the performance world, however, revealed the pent-up demand. At the introduction of the Impreza 2.5RS, for example, sales of 500 to 600 per year were expected. Actual sales were more than 10 times as strong.
At the same time, a few Japanese-market WRXs peppered throughout the press fleets opened the eyes of the automotive press and their readers. Even our own 2.5RS project car, which began on 2.5RS VIN 00001, did its part. After being turbocharged by A'PEXi USA, it traveled the auto show circuit and its enthusiastic reception helped Subaru make the final decision.
When Subaru was finally poised to release the WRX, demand was so great that the WRX Web site was hacked into one day before the official release and was visited by more than 3,000 enthusiastic fans, 60 of whom actually placed orders for cars. Now, less than six months after going on sale, U.S.-spec WRX production plans have jumped from 10,000 per year to the maximum plant capacity of 15,000 per year.
Besides filling the coffers of one of Japan's smallest automakers, the WRX's instant success has opened some eyes at Mitsubishi. One year ago, if you asked a Mitsubishi product planner about bringing the Lancer EVO VI to the United States, the standard response was "it's impossible. The front-mounted intercooler won't meet U.S. bumper requirements." Today, if you ask the same question about the EVO VII (trust us, we have) the answer is, "Oh, it would be easy, all we have to do is modify the front-mounted intercooler to meet U.S. bumper regulations." Same problem, very different attitude.
With tremendous investment in the World Rally Championship, Subaru, Mitsubishi and Hyundai all have vested interests in seeing rallying become popular in the United States. The intense rivalry between Subaru and Mitsubishi in particular has moved a lot of cars out of both makers' showrooms in Japan and Europe. In the United States, however, it is Hyundai, now in its seventh year of competition, and Subaru, with its new world-class effort, that have the most interest in the series. With that in mind, the two companies have made the unprecedented move of co-sponsoring Speedvision's coverage of the ProRally series. But the "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" technique is far more effective if Monday's car is actually similar to Sunday's. Proof of that fact could be seen in the parking lot around the Palmdale, Calif. headquarters of the Rim of the World, where dozens of examples of the recently introduced WRX mixed it up with earlier vintage Imprezas representing Subaru clubs from around the country (for an American rally, this is a large crowd). There was no such following for Hyundai or Mitsubishi at the race.
The Future
The Subaru Rally Team USA, run by Prodrive and Vermont Sports Car may have elevated the speeds, the budget and the profile of the ProRally championship, but what next? Subaru seems to have stepped so far ahead of the rest of the field that all the racing will now be for second place. While watching the blue streak of Mark Lovell's Subaru may be entertainment enough for the rest of this season, Subaru needs serious competition to make the series thrive.
Hyundai may well be in the best position to be that competition. With six-and-a-half seasons under its belt, (and many more in the collective experience of John Buffum and his crew), Paul Choinere and Noel Lawler probably know these rally roads better than anybody. But Hyundai is flailing in the face of this year's stiffer competition. Its cars, at this point, are simply too old and tired, and mechanical problems are plaguing the team at every race. An all-new Tiburon is set to debut this winter, however, so next year's cars will have to be new. According to Hyundai Motorsports PR manager Toni Honsowetz, Hyundai is exploring a few different options, including bringing over some of the Accent WRC cars from Europe. The Tiburon is seen as a better marketing fit, however, so we're placing our bets on a new Tiburon-based rally car from the current Libra Racing team.
Mitsubishi is even more uncertain about its future in the dirt. Currently, it is backing Rhys Millen and his Lancer EVO VI, but only for the ARSG's Ramada Express rally, the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb and about half of the SCCA rallies. A full season's commitment with the EVO VII seems the natural counterattack to Subaru's big, blue offensive, but Mitsubishi PR manager Janice Little said there is still no decision about next year's plans. Rally money comes from the marketing department and marketing budgets don't get set until the fall. Ultimately, however, Mitsubishi's decision pivots on whether it can make a case for selling the EVO VII in the United States. That decision should also be made by the fall.
Group B, USA
Surprisingly, the SCCA's rules package allows for faster, more powerful cars than the WRC rules in Europe. WRC cars all have to have 2,000cc engines that breathe through a 34mm restrictor, which effectively limits power output to 300 hp. U.S. cars are allowed a 40mm restrictor and have an adjusted displacement limit of 5100cc (the actual displacement depends on the number of valves per cylinder, turbochargers, etc). If competition intensifies sufficiently, we could see cars with as much power as the legendary Group B cars of the '80s, but with modern suspension and brake technology. If this were to happen, America's thinner crowds would be more a safety benefit than a publicity liability.
American rules also allow some interesting cars to compete on smaller budgets. Currently there are two two-wheel-drive open classes, Group 2, which is under 2,400cc (again, depending on the number of valves per cylinder) and Group 5, which includes turbos, rotaries and anything else up to an adjusted 5,100cc. In national-level competition, these classes will be consolidated into one open two-wheel drive class next year. (In local, ClubRally competition, the two classes will remain separate). Two-wheel drive drastically reduces the cost of the cars and maintenance, but with unlimited power and modern rally car technology, the action should be every bit as exciting.
At least two manufacturers will be competing in this new two-wheel-drive class by next year. By the time you read this, Mazda should have debuted its two-wheel-drive Protege at the Main Forest ProRally in July, and by October, should be joined by another, as yet undisclosed manufacturer. All we know about the mystery team at this point is that it is a domestic manufacturer--and it isn't Ford.
Foot and Mouth Disease
In addition to the many factors we've already explored, there are some bigger forces poised to help American rallying grow. Great Britain has a strong rally series of its own, besides the high-profile World Rally Championship; with the WRC as a carrot and an interested, captive fan base, Britain's rally series has bred more intense competition than our own. This year, however, hundreds of drivers and navigators across the pond have been denied their sideways seat time by the foot-and-mouth epidemic sweeping through the same countryside where they usually race. Fear that mud-soaked rally cars and fans will spread the disease more quickly has wreaked havoc with the 2001 rally season. Desperate for somewhere to race, several of Britain's talented drivers are looking into our series for some relief. There are already several European drivers dominating U.S. podiums and this outbreak is likely to send even more our way.
Rallying is good and it's only getting better. How can you get your fill? Simple. The Web sites listed at the end of this story will help you find the rallies, the Speedvision schedule will help you watch them and, of course, we'll be covering them in these very pages. Keep it sideways.