In case anyone wondered how a BRZ woudl do at Rallycross...| Grassroots Motorsports forum |

irish44j UberDork
10/20/13 8:53 p.m.

The answer: pretty impressive, not surprisingly.

At today's event one of our local stage-rally drivers (who rallies an AWD impreza) brought his new daily-driver BRZ out to run. It is bone-stock and he ran on snow tires (since his GC rally wheels won't clear the BRZ brakes). He up-classed to Modified RWD because that's the largest (and tightest-contested) RWD class locally and he wanted to see how it would do.

I'll note that he said he had never driven a RWD car on a dirt course before and after 1 or 2 runs asked me "how the hell do you guys drive these things?" or something to that effect

After one really messy run to start, he slowly started catching up and by the afternoon was putting up times within 1 second or so of the class-leaders (which are reasonably set-up MR cars with rally tires).

So though he finished near the bottom of the class - mostly due to his first run with 10 cones and much sideways - I suspect that after a few events (especially if he gets rally tires on it) it will be considerably faster than the mass of e30s and RX7s that compete in MR. This combined with the fact that he is a good driver who will probably learn RWD pretty fast.

Wish I had been able to grab a ride with him, but he was gridded a few cars behind me so I didn't even get to see much of him on course.

Not that this is shocking (the car probably cost as much as all the other MR cars running today, combined!), but I think it may be the way to go for the big-money people who want to compete nationally in RWD classes.

captdownshift New Reader
10/21/13 7:23 a.m.

is that Colin's new daily? i've been waiting for someone to do this for grins

Ian F UltimaDork
10/21/13 7:40 a.m.

Didn't Brianne Corn run a BRZ (or FRS) at the Rally Cross national chapionships?

I keep wondering what kind of trade in the local Scion dealer would give me for the E30...

cghstang HalfDork
10/21/13 7:42 a.m.

The obvious is obvious.

Brianne Corn drove one in SR at the scca national championship earlier this month and someone has been running one at AL events most of this season.

Cars (platform-wise) that are good for autocross are generally good for rallycross.

Storz Dork
10/21/13 7:57 a.m.

Awesome, love rwd + dirt

mazdeuce SuperDork
10/21/13 8:00 a.m.

It took Brianne most of the weekend to figure out the right electronics settings on the car and how to drive around what was left activated. After that she was setting fastest runs of the day, but she's quite fast in most any car she straps herself into. The big thing was that the car seems to have the durability to rallycross.

N Sperlo MegaDork
10/21/13 8:03 a.m.

I'm not at all surprised. Sounds like a fun car to drive through the dirt. I have been contemplating what beater I could get to spec before running stages on a budget. I know that sounds like a joke. Rally America? Budget? We'll see...

captdownshift New Reader
10/21/13 8:26 a.m.

N Sperlo wrote: I'm not at all surprised. Sounds like a fun car to drive through the dirt. I have been contemplating what beater I could get to spec before running stages on a budget. I know that sounds like a joke. Rally America? Budget? We'll see...

Nameless prepped and ran a toyoburu at an RA event this year in the northwest. In 10 years these cars will be the new E30 and 36's (which replaced the 240's both Datsun and Volvo) of the rallyworld.

Knurled UberDork
10/21/13 1:26 p.m.

mazdeuce wrote: It took Brianne most of the weekend to figure out the right electronics settings on the car and how to drive around what was left activated. After that she was setting fastest runs of the day, but she's quite fast in most any car she straps herself into. The big thing was that the car seems to have the durability to rallycross.

Granted, she is part alien, but she also picked up something like 30 seconds over the last FIVE runs to take 2nd. IIRC if there was a 6th Sunday run then she probably would have won it.

mazdeuce SuperDork
10/21/13 2:16 p.m.

She actually got third, by 0.6 seconds. The only way she could have gotten first is by doing a re-run on her first run in the mud. She lost 20 seconds to the whole rest of the field because she left the traction control on. The last I talked to her she was going to write up a blurb for GRM about the traction control settings and rallycross. She says the car has serious potential.

captdownshift New Reader
10/21/13 2:51 p.m.

dang water truck

EvanB PowerDork
10/21/13 2:54 p.m.

captdownshift wrote: dang water truck

More like dang rain.

Knurled UberDork
10/21/13 4:31 p.m.

If it had only kept raining I would have owned FACE. AWD driven RWD-style apparently is the best way to do it in the rain... not so much in the dry.

Hntsvl_E30 New Reader
10/21/13 5:02 p.m.

We have one running with us in AL. Does pretty damn good too.

Ian F UltimaDork
10/21/13 5:39 p.m.

In reply to mazdeuce:

Funny... I was trying to think of some excuse to attempt contacting her about that.

Yet another feather in the "why a FRS-BRZ may be my next car..." argument,

mazdeuce SuperDork
10/21/13 7:02 p.m.

I'm sure she'll be happy to talk to you about the car. She had a lot to say. I got a ride back from nationals in that car and the owner had me drive the last four hours. I can confidently say that you'll really enjoy one as a daily driver.