What I was thinking!

[AnthonyS]

Maybe you have seen Matt aka 4bangen aka rumbuilder’s rally Mustang thread. Maybe you haven’t. If you haven’t you should. He is having insane amounts of automotive fun for not a ton of cash. He and I had talked RC in years past, so I reached out to ask him more about rallycross. I’m glad I did. I’ve had way more fun for cheap than I’ve ever had doing anything automotive. In November 2020, I got a bone stock high mileage Subaru RS. I was looking for a WRX but most of them are rusty or modded. The last thing you want rallycrossing is a POS slammed on crappy coilovers with a cold air kit and a kaTUNE. In a Subaru a tune easily leads to kaboom.

By the time I got the car back from AZ (fly and drive), the North TX rallycross season was over. The car had high mileage blown struts all around so new KYBs were ordered. Someone told me about Lonestar rallycross, so off to Austin with new front struts and blown rears. Driving AWD on dirt was new but I gained mad time as the day proceeded and most of all I had insane amounts of fun.

I don’t have the original purchase photos on this phone, but I do have early ones shortly after the first rallycross. I did a sorta Subaru rally livery in December or so. I let the neighborhood kids help so it’s not perfect, but it works.

Don’t let Matt be the only one having fun!

This is at the first North Texas Rallycross I did around February 2021. The car was stock, with new struts, stickers, and 500 tread wear all seasons. Those tires were so hard they squealed on dirt!

[bird_dog0347]

That sounds like a ton of fun! What's the ballpark rough estimate total cost to do what you did?

[AnthonyS]

I spent 4K on the car, $300 on new struts and it was ready to rallycross. You can do it a lot cheaper too. In all honesty rallycross is the most car fun per dollar you can have. I spent a little more on the car over the past two years that I will detail in future posts. You can be having insane rallycross fun for $1-$2k depending on what you can find. I’ve gone way beyond that now which will also be detailed in future posts…. I think that’s why Matt wanted me to start a thread.

[AnthonyS]

Okay, so rallycross is hella fun and cheap. It’s also a lot longer on course than drag racing or autocross. The runs at NTX are typically 60-90+ seconds and you get way more runs. You can easily get 6, 8 or even 12 runs depending on you and the car. I’ve done 6 to 8 while sharing the car. It costs $10 to the venue and $20 to the event. You can rallycross anything, any car.

Okay the next part will spawn disbelief, but so be it. Rallycross comes down to a few things, driver and grip. The amount of grip you have comes down to the car, suspension, tires and the surface. All rallycross venues are not alike. Even courses a mile apart can be very different. At north Texas Rallycross when running on the hill, the course gets very hard and well packed as the day goes on. As a result, high performance street rubber is king! A lot of rallycrosses swear by snow tires, rally tires, or other tires. At NTX you want high performance autocross rubber. The fast cars run RE71s, RS4s, etc.

So after 3 rallycrosses, I went to Bridgestone S007s which are 260 TW. They aren’tt the best but they were cheap and had way more grip than my 500+ TW all seasons. I found a set of Japanese made forged Enkeis off a Saabaru and painted them gold too. The car had so much more grip it drove different.

[AnthonyS]

Oh, and I drove the car to each event, beat on it, let others drive it, and then drove it home. Matt drove it once. My son has driven it, dad drove it, and a few others. You can rallycross anything reliable. Stock suspensions with full travel are good!

[Murph Tang]

I've done a fair amount of RC. Its really cheap fun.

If antilock car pull the fuse/disable. Left foot brake while still gassing. I can't wait until fall so I can get back into it again.

[AnthonyS]

I pulled the ABS fuse on the Subaru before the first rallycross, 12 events later it’s still out. I never left foot brake though. I can easily modulate the gas and toss the car making the tail slide to control speed in corners. Braking pushes the bias forward more and the car is already nose heavy.

[4bangen]

this car was super fun to drive.

[AnthonyS]

Sadly this car is going to a new home, since I do not have space for four fun cars. I really need to get that down to two this year. I will post more about this car this weekend.

And for those curious, all you need for rallycross is a car and helmet. Some sites have loaner helmets too.

[AnthonyS]

So how much grip do cars have on dirt? This much!



The new owner is flying in to pick this car up and drive it to Ohio. There is more to this story though, and there is a different Subaru in the garage.

[AnthonyS]

You can have a clean rallycar too.

[AnthonyS]

I actually had 3 kids from my old neighborhood including my daughter help do the graphics. I got a few wrinkles with all the extra help, but we had a lot of fun doing it. The real rally cars had loud graphics and this car was used mostly for that purpose. The next one will be all rally and show and it will be a pretty hardcore replica.



This photo was taken before last seasons end of the year night race. It had gotten cleaned and I did a headlight restoration to help with lighting. Rallycross at night is fun.

[AnthonyS]

The day after a rallycross. Sometimes you get to clean the driveway.

[AnthonyS]

how to see monitor size

Sharing your rallycross car is also fun. One day I had my dad and son also drive. This me with dad driving laughing pretty hard.


how to see monitor size

[BMCSean]

Bubbles?!?!