August 1st 2010
On July 31st 2010 Johnny competed in the CSCC Super Special DiRT Cup! After a long day of racing Johnny managed to win the AWD class!! Thanks to Marc L for offering his car to race while the rally car is apart for repairs, and congrats to Marc for placing 5th and fellow VEX driver Orrin for finishing 1st in FWD!!
July 25th 2010
J Sums has been busy getting seat time in the STI Type RA running Autoslalom, track events, and teaching! To sign up for an event go to www.cscc.ab.ca !
July 24th 2010
Wow, it has been a VERY busy period of time lately! The 2010 Mountain Trials rally was a huge amount of fun, and a great learning experience! We made several improvements to the Rally car, and our team and ran very strong. Our brakes, although built extremely aggressive, faded quickly on the first stage up a twisting road on the side of the cliff. The pads started shooting flames and all but disappeared on the race down the same stage! When we made it to service our crew chief Marc, replaced our pads with help from a fellow competitor Graham Bruce! Thanks again Graham!
Now we were ready to attack, and attack we did. Up a very sketchy stage called Princeton Cutoff for our second pass. What an amazing stage! However, it has a reputation as a car killer. We caught a puncture 5 km before the end in our left rear tire! We pushed hard on the flat, and even launched the car in the air into a sideways slide that transitions to pavement! It was fun. Omac and I jumped out right after the stage to change the tire as fast as possible to make it around for another pass on time!
We started the next stage and unbeknownst to us, Princeton Cutoff had punctured our Transmission as well. The gearbox started failing as it was out of oil, and we had to run 2 more stages, with the metal on metal sound, until service. We radioed ahead to Marc and he prepared our service area to pull the bottom off the gearbox, and the team made an amazing repair sealing the puncture!
As we drove the transit stage to the final 23km stage which we had to race twice, we noticed that 4th and 5th gear were now missing. Ouch. The last stage "Helmer" is a long, flowing yet technical stage which we would be using high 4th gear a lot! We finished the first pass with our motor carrying constant high revs and halfway through the final stage a rod bearing finally failed, and we shut down to save the rest of the motor.
At this point we had moved up to 4th overall, 2nd in class, and 1st rookie! We also gained a lot of invaluable experience. We were disapointed in the damage to the motor and gearbox, however pleased at our speed and how much we learned. We have pulled the car apart now to repair and improve various components and we are looking forward to competing back out in Merritt for the Pacific Forest Rally in October!
New Partnership Announced!
FLIPP Advertising has come onboard with us for marketing, and has designed the new look for our race car and our team! More pics and info coming soon, check out our sponsors page if you need an amazingly innovative marketing team for your business!
Not to mention the tongue-in-cheek-ness of a rally car being sponsored by a company called FLIPP, we hope it's not prophetic.
May 29th 2010
We had an amazing rally at the 2010 Rocky Mountain Rally! The conditions were treacherous, with mud and warm wet and heavy snow lining the roads, but Johnny and Co-Driver Orrin managed to keep it on the road and post some decent stage times! The new car held up really well, yet still suffered a center diff malfunction so the rally was run with rear wheel drive only! Our service specialist Marc did an amazing job in the service area keeping the machine and the drivers working well. The team has developed a huge list of improvements to make us more competitive as we venture forth. For now we are super pleased with a 6th place overall finish and 2nd in rookie, for this race making it to the end is an awesome achievement in itself! Looking forward to the Mountain Trials rally June 12th!
May 17th 2010
WE WON THE 2010 CSCC RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!! Awesome! After a ton of hard work and another win in the 8th event we have won the first series we ran the new car in! Thanks again to all our sponsors and the whole team that made this possible!
May 14th 2010
Sponsorship announced!
Epic Welding has supported the race team by providing welding services. Custom CARS Rally spec restrictor was made by the experts at EPIC, and much more will be coming soon! Thanks so much Jason at EPIC.
May 8th 2010
The open class rally car and the version 2 STI type ra will be on display at VEX Performance for the Western Subaru Club Super-Meet! Over 120 Subaru's and 250 people will be enjoying the community at VEX today. Stop in and see some amazing rides! 12:00pm - 5:00pm Saturday May 8th.
April 25th 2010
J Sums secured another strong finish with 2nd place in the CSCC Rallycross event #7 today. He also posted the fastest time of the day (FTD)! J Sums is currently leading the championship with just one event left!!
April 11th 2010
Another 1st place finish in the 6th event of the CSCC Rallycross series solidifies the 3rd strait win in the new car! Also posting FTD overall, J Sums gained more familiarity with the car and is getting quicker and more relaxed as this series rounds it's final 2 events! Although J Sums is currently in first place the AWD class is still really tight, stay tuned for results from the last 2 events.
April 3rd 2010
J Sums displayed a very competitive performance today at the CSCC Rally Cross series event #5, with the fastest single lap (FTD) and finishing first place! This latest finish moves him into first place for the series so far, as he continues to gain familiarity with the new car!
Photo by Ian Gulinao
March 31st 2010
We are extremely pleased to announce that we have won the very first event that the VEX Subaru Impreza Rally Car has competed in! On Sunday March 28th Johnny was seconds ahead of the competition driving the new rally car at the fourth CSCC Rallycross event of the series!! We want to thank the whole crew and all our sponsors, and we are excited for a long career for Johnny in this car!
Photographer Derrick Leung was there to catch Johnny in action, thanks for all the great pictures Derrick! A link to them all is HERE , and some will show up on our site soon too!
March 16th 2010
We drove the new car today!! oh my, it's amazing. The OS Giken differentials and clutch are other-worldy, smooth and dare I say perfect! The TechWorks built motor pulled hard and ran flawlessly, and the VEX full build was solid and strong. We have a few more things to do but the car will be ready for the March 28th CSCC Rally Cross!! Pics and Vids coming over the following weeks. Thanks to our awesome sponsors and the amazing team behind the whole project!
March 8th 2010
We have been working extremely hard to finish the new Subaru race car. The whole team has been working as much as possible to get the car ready for the upcoming races, and should be race ready very soon!
Also having run the first 2 events for the winter CSCC Rally X season, we are excited to have the new car coming soon! Enjoy the footage from the new HD in car camera!
January 15th 2010
We have exciting new sponsorship news!!!
OS Giken Sponsorship
One of the worlds leading race engineering companies has just sponsored Johnny's new rally/race car!! OS Giken has provided 2 new prototype Subaru super-lock LSD's and an OS Giken twin plate race clutch, and movement alteration kit! Johnny and VEX Performance are pumped about this new partnership!
TechWorks Engineering Sponsorship
TechWorks has built the motor for the new rally/race car! This world class engine builder has supplied their expertise and years of experience building strong and competitive motors to the new race car project. This fully built 2.0L turbo boxer motor will supply strong, reliable power for the new car.
