My Blog

Sandblast Rally 2013

Sat, 2 Mar 2013 13:29:28 -0500

Sandblast Rally was the very first outing for the newly built USUK Racing Impreza. We pushed hard to get everything ready in time for this event. We even managed to find the time to get it painted in the traditional USUK Racing livery. Unfortunately the suspension we were hoping to run did not materialize in time and we were running on a borrowed set of STi struts. The usual agreement on borrowed equipment is you-break-you-bought-it. Furthermore the Impreza is all

New Rally Car Revealed!

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:56:15 -0500

Over the 2012/2013 winter, typically a slow time in the rally calendar, Kieran and Simon embarked on an ambitious plan to build a new rally car. With significant contributions from Crew Chief Mike Miller, they took a 1995 Subaru Impreza LX, caged it and swapped in the engine, drivetrain, wiring harness and dashboard from a 2005 Subaru 2.5RS. Here are the two cars that came together to make the new USUK Racing rally car.

The 2.5RS had been totalled by a previous owner but the engine etc. seemed in great shape. The body of 1995 Impreza, even though nearly 18 years old was in excellent condition with no rust. We had to make some fairly serious changes, especially to the firewall, to get the two cars’ parts to come together. With our design, the cage was built and installed by Chris Schimmel of Competition Cages. Chris also did the cage in the USUK Racing Ford Focus and is relatively nearby so was an obvious choice. While the Impreza was away getting it’s cage, the parts from the 2.5RS were collected and updates and improvements were made to the engine too. Finally what remained of the 05 car was scrapped and the caged Impreza came home to begin its transformation.

We managed to get the car completed just in time for Sandblast Rally 2013 although our competition suspension hadn’t made it. We ran on borrowed STi struts instead. This year we are also sponsored by Axcel Sportswear (providing our new suits) and Rally Core (developers of a combination rally computer and intercom system).

Black River Stages 2012

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 12:10:59 -0400

This event turns out to be the last event for the trusty Ford Focus for USUK Racing. More on that later. This posting is woefully late in coming and is therefore rather short. Suffice it to say, we have a pretty good time at one of our favorite venues. Amazing roads and great people. From a field of 27 cars we finish 9th overall and third in Open 2WD Light class securing 3rd place in the 2012 Atlantic Rally Cup.

Rally West Virginia 2012

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:35:46 -0400

Based at Snowshoe Mountain resort again this year, Rally West Virginia has a lot more new stages and brings back some old stages too. Under new management, running on Friday and Saturday and covering more than 120 stages miles it promised to be a great event. And it didn’t disappoint. Marcel and Justin agreed to crew for us (Marcel was also volunteering to manage the service area for the event). For the first time at RWV we also had the

New England Forest Rally 2012

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:35:45 -0400

Kieran was back in the navigator’s seat with Simon this year at the New England Forest Rally. It was this event last year that the car suffered a catastrophic failure of the front right strut tower necessitating repair and reinforcement. Now with new Hotbits front struts and using Hotbits top mounts rather than the stock Ford ones we were hoping for a successful finish at this event. Here is all our in-car video...