SCCA Rallycross - No Special License Needed

All you really need is a driver’s license, a pulse, a small sum of cash, and access to a tin-top car to experience off-road rally thrills in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) RallyCross.

The format is straightforward – like autocross. Transplanted into a field it’s called RallyCross. Like autocrossing, each competitor completes multiple runs as quickly as possible without knocking down the course marking cones. The formats diverge in scoring – at an autocross, only the best recorded run counts. RallyCross mimics stage rally. All of the runs count towards a cumulative time, so you can be leading your class, make a mistake on your final run and hurt your overall position. Steady and smooth driving can really pay off at the end of the day.

SCCA’s San Francisco Region owns and operates Thunderhill Raceway Park, just west of Willows California. A gradually sloped field near the track’s access road serves as the region’s home site. I talked with (at the time) RallyCross Chief Skylar a couple of years ago. Stein got involved at its inception in Northern California. “I bought a Subaru WRX in March of 2002, and I wanted to do something fun. I started to autocross, because that’s all there was to do. The first RallyCross in this region was in July of ‘02. I came out to that, and came away saying – damn, this car just wants to be in the dirt.”

Compared to other events under the SCCA umbrella, RallyCross is its own animal. A set of national rules recently appeared, and there’s been talk of a national runoff, but it hasn’t advanced past that. Stein explained, “We actually run the California Rally Series (CRS) classes. They’ve been around a long time – running events out of Southern California. Several of our events even pay points into the CRS championship.”

There’s no need to flip through a two-inch-thick car-classification book, as the CRS rules are pleasantly simple. Essentially three classes are split into two and four wheel drive categories. Street Stock, Street Modified, and Open. Put rally tires on the car and it’s in the open class. Period. Street tires are defined by a measurement of the non-circumferential sipes (cuts) between tread blocks. Roll bars and cages are encouraged, but not required, except on trucks. My STI (well it actually belonged to Subaru) with its sticky (on tarmac) Bridgestone RE 70’s slotted into Street Stock 4.



Registration was a breeze; hand over some money, show them your helmet, (loaners are available also) and pick up a tech card. The inspection was a self-performed checklist of common sense items like battery hold-downs, wheel play, and loose items in the car. Before things get started, competitors walk the course to learn the sequence of turns and speculate how bumps, ruts, and irregularities might influence potential fast lines. While walking, I ran into Mark Anton and Mike “Boomer” Malsed. They became friends years ago racing remote control cars. “I was spending more than $4k a year on R/C cars.” Boomer said. “Mark tried RallyCross with his Ford Probe and was hooked - told me about it – so I went out and bought a Honda Civic for a grand.” Sounds like a good thing to do with a $1k car to me.

A brief driver’s meeting explained the running order and the rules. Timing is recorded on a rally clock in hundredths of a minute. Each cone toppled adds two hundredths to your time, and if you DNF a run – by going off course and rejoining somewhere else- the slowest run of the group plus two-tenths is recorded. Jump the start and expect a .1 penalty. All drivers must share the workload; shagging cones, manning flags, or working the timing equipment or face disqualification. Each run group starts with a parade lap of all the cars, to give drivers a chance to see the course from behind the wheel, and if there’s time at the end of the day, fun runs are a buck each.

Looking across the impromptu paddock, it was a sea of Subarus. Roughly half of the cars were “Subies” several of which were fitted with full WRC (World Rally Championship) replica roll cages. The balance of cars ranged from a stock Ford Focus and Dodge Neon to a rally-tire shod 1973 Mini Cooper all the way up to full-blown stage rally cars like the Volkswagen Corrado of Viet-Tam-Luu. Luu started out rallycrossing last year in a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO, and switched to the fully prepped VW earlier this year.

RallyCross regular Pete Cowan designed the course. He laid it out on a giant sheet of paper with a scale model car, and spent Friday afternoon setting up the real course for Saturday’s event. “I tried to mix it up with technical sections and some longer straights to equalize the cars.” Pete’s technical section referred to back-to-back u-turns that looked tighter than our STI’s turning radius. (That’s tight.) Ultimately, Cowan took top time of day with his own open class Subaru STI.



The actual seat time is fleeting, but it’s adrenaline packed. Typical times hovered around a minute and a half – giving most competitors about five minutes behind the wheel. Even though you’re only in first and second gear, relative to the size of the course, you’re covering loose ground quickly. It’s busy behind the wheel, as you toss the car with opposite lock from side to side, and maybe a dash of e-brake to initiate rotation on the tighter stuff. My first runs were pretty clean, and I felt like I was sliding the car a bit. I tried different settings on the adjustable center differential to get a sense of nuances in power delivery when it was doled out at varying percentages front-to-rear. For my last run, Travis Brock hopped into the car and said, “Hey can I ride along?” Brock is a member of the “Gravel Crew”, a group of rallycrossers from Southern California who compete for points in CRS and put on their own CRS sanctioned rallycrosses. (you may be familiar with his father, sports car and Datsun 510 legend Peter Brock.) My own rear wheel drive road racing style became apparent as Brock instructed me how to use the throttle and four-wheel drive to pivot the car around the tight corners. His instruction to “Hit the throttle” would come as I was just gathering the car into the corner. I obliged, and the STI rotated itself sideways and leapt forward as if it instinctively knew where to go.



I rode along with Brock in his own normally aspirated Subaru 2.5RS for a humbling ride with an experienced driver on Pirelli P Zero Gravel rally tires. Despite a general lack of interior and full WRC style cage, it serves as his daily street driver. He tapped his right foot until the last few hundredths of the start countdown and we were off in a hail of spinning tires and shooting rocks. Aside from the phenomenally improved grip afforded by the rally tires, I was impressed at how much he used weight transfer to pivot the car in the tightest corners – even before using the hand brake, it felt like the back of the car was up in the air, and the fronts were hunkered down grabbing the dirt. Brock finished second in class and overall.

Most of the competitors I talked with had been involved with RallyCross between 1-3 years. Some were hooked by rally video games. Others found out about it through the SCCA memberships that came with their new Subarus. The CRS contingent from the south had a heavy influence from off-road desert truck racing. Brock’s buddy John Jimison sold his full-blown rally car when SCCA pulled out of sanctioning special stage rally events at the end of 2004. “I’m one of the guys that freaked out, before we found out the events would continue under new sanctioning bodies.” He’s also got a D1 drift license to fall back on. While some were set on RallyCross as the destination, many are looking to hone dirt skills they could take into performance rallying.

It’s also a great place to shake a rally car down without getting stuck in the woods. Jack Maranto was into SCORE off-road trucks before he got involved three years ago through a friend at the Ridgecrest Rally School. “The first year we ran the whole season in rental cars – a different car each event. Last year I ran the first ¼ of the season in rental cars, and won my class.” He was running an STI that was piece by piece evolving into a fully prepped rally car. It’s backdated with 15” wheels and gravel tires, a steering rack with fewer turns lock-to-lock, and a giant hand brake right next to the steering wheel that simultaneously cuts power to the rear diff. “Sometimes rally guys like Leon Styles and Rhys Millen come out to our events, and we can beat them. It’s all about the cleanest line, smooth is fast. You’ve got to remember – in like a lamb, out like a lion.”



On average, turnouts hover between 40 and 60 cars as the program continues to gain momentum. The atmosphere carries over from rally - it’s low key and competitors are friendly and eager to help newcomers. “It turns out that not everyone wants to get their cars dirty.” Stein said, but for those who are willing, playing in the dirt has a whole new meaning.

STi, STI, or STI? 2005, 2006, and 2008 - which one?

I’ve had the privilege of driving a number of Subaru’s rally bred sedans in all conditions for Sports Car International magazine. A couple of years ago I took a 2005 STi and ran it in a local SCCA Rallycross event, did some dirt roads, and some aggressive backroad driving. Following that, I covered the launch of the 2006 STI (note the capitalization of the “I” for 06 and beyond) and drove it up Pikes Peak under closed road conditions just like the hillclimb event. Later in the year I was also able to spend time with the ‘06 both on and off road. A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to put some miles on the 2008 STI with its revised hatchback styling. So which one do I like best? I have to admit, for the sheer fun of driving, it’s tough to beat the ’05.

(above - 2005 STI near Willows, CA)

Let’s cut to the chase. All of these road-going rally cars are really quick for the money, and generally fun to drive both on and off of the pavement, but surprisingly each version has a distinct personality when pushed towards the limits of adhesion. A big portion of the character of these cars depends greatly on one complex piece of equipment – the center differential and how it apportions torque around the car for changing grip conditions. Everyone I talked to about the 2004 STi seemed to be in general agreement that the way it distributed torque made it a little too front biased – or understeery. For 2005 the factory played with the Driver Controlled Center Differential (DCCD) and allowed for a more rear-biased torque split of 35/65% front/rear. Keep in mind all of the versions will throw 50% of torque at the front wheels in the locked settings, or as needed when grip is low and the center diff is set in the automatic settings.

So on the road, with the diff settings all the way back, the 2005 STi behaves more like a rear drive car and rotates the rear end more generously than subsequent versions. The center differential was an electronically controlled unit – taking data from yaw sensors and wheel speed to calculate the variable torque distribution (when not locked) and wasn’t totally without fault. When driving the 2005 STi in quick back and forth switchbacks – throwing its weight quickly from side to side, as the car transferred weight, I experienced a rubbery feel as the car changed the torque distribution based on the yaw sensor and grip level at each wheel. It was like the torque delivery was a fraction of a second behind, and as a result the car felt like, just for an instant, the tires were under-inflated and it would move on the sidewalls. As soon as the torque split adjusted itself as the car loaded up, it felt normal again. At the time I didn’t realize what was happening exactly, but knew that it felt odd for a split second in that no-mans-land while the weight transferred from side to side on grippy surfaces. Most cornering didn’t bring out the trait.


(above, 2006 STI on Pikes Peak)

Later on, (at the launch of the 06 car) I talked with Subaru’s engineers about the phenomenon, and they explained that there was a slight lag in the impulses sent to the electronically controlled center diff that distributed the torque. This prompted the change from the electronically activated unit to a mechanical center diff for 2006, with revised torque splits. In aggressive driving, the mechanical diff did the trick to eliminate the weird delay, but two more center diff changes for 06 slightly mellowed the STI’s character. Torque splits front/rear were also moved forward a bit to 41/59, and a new steering sensor added steering data to the mix of information used to distribute the torque.



Heading down Pikes Peak in the '06



When the pavement ends, the steering sensor really comes into play. On the ‘05 version the throttle could be used to kick the car around sideways, then the yaw sensor would yell at the computer to throw the power to the front – making dramatic power slides look easy. The 2006 STI knows which way your wheels are pointed, the forward transfer of power happens sooner, and it squares itself up from a slide more quickly. So for dramatic looking drifts, you’ve got to rotate the car as it enters the corner by trailing off the throttle and allowing it to rotate – then apply the throttle and let it claw its way out. Off road, you should be doing this anyway – but I felt a little more comfortable pushing the 06 STI harder on the loose stuff.


2008 STI

2008 STI


For 2008, the STI was redesigned as a five-door hatch. It looks and feels bigger, and from the outside in base trim, the wheels evoke a Pontiac Vibe feel at first glance. (To get the cool gold rally-look spoke wheels you’ve got to order the navigation package, putting your 35k STI dangerously close to the $40k mark.) The platform is softer, and has more body roll than the ’05 or ’06. On the pavement, the best cornering feel (pulling the car out of understeer most rapidly) is achieved with the center diff set in one of two auto settings, and even when the torque bias is set (manually) rearward I encountered lots of mid- corner understeer. I’ve read that the manual setting will deliver up to 25/75% torque front/rear, but the softer platform keeps it from feeling that way. The one time I was able to rotate it on-throttle from a stop, when the body roll maxed out, the car shot forward, where you could continue to drift in the previous versions. Quicker? Perhaps, but for me the setup compromised the “fun” factor. The additional body roll and softer shock bump may ultimately give the car more grip, but it loses a bit of that tossable feel during quick direction changes too. Off the road, it’s the most capable of the three in terms of covering ground quickly, and posts slightly better acceleration and slalom numbers than its predecessors.

In the end, I had the most fun with the ’05 STi, despite any time lag from the electronic diff for its willingness to slide, hang there for a bit, then claw itself out. Plus I think the grill and front-end treatment is the easiest of all of them on the eyes. All three have the same torque related issues with the front differential, making the car turn into a corner slightly differently on and off throttle – if razor sharp steering is your biggest hangup, the Lancer Evo has a leg up in that department. If ride quality is an issue, the newest version is the most refined of the bunch.


2005 STi