So according to this article, a Bank Robber was accused with robbing 2 separate banks to buy a Subaru from a local Subaru Dealership.
A Valley man is accused of holding up two banks 100 miles apart. The first occurred Tuesday in Visalia and Wednesday in Merced. The financial officer at Herwaldt Subaru says he needed the cash for a down payment on a sports car.
He wanted to buy the blue sports car… Stockdale says Sugarman had no credit but lots of cash to make a hefty down payment. He didn’t qualify for the new car but a used car fit in his price range. Sugarman said he would be back Wednesday.
So I guess he really wanted a Subaru so badly that he robbed a bank. I wouldn’t recommend it but who says that Subaru owners aren’t passionate?
Our friend Stephan Verdier keeps impressing us with his driving skills, being the only Privateer to compete in the main event at Global Rally Cross in Irwindale, CA this past weekend. We had a chance to talk with Stephan as we always do after his performances and get more info on his win!
Q: Fresh off his 3rd place podium at the Global Rally Cross main event, we have Stephan Verdier! Thanks for joining us again at Subie-Life.com. So please tell us when you started converting your drifting / rally cross Subaru STi into a full dedicated Rally Cross vehicle and how that process went:
A: Always nice to talk to you Yukio. At the end of FD season I knew that needed a new car to be competitve in that sport, unfortunatly during the winter I wasn’t able to findd any money to build a new car and do the season of FD (at the same time). In the other hand my Subie was a great car to run in Rally Cross. Beginning of February I decided to strip the entire car and do some major modification to lose about 200 lbs. All the work was done at GTI in San Clemente. Crawford Performance supplied the engine, transmission and Motec ECU, Tein suspension, Cooper tires / the rallycross tires, Exedy clutch, Garrett Turbo, Ignite fuel with the E85 and Enkei Wheels. Converting the car back to awd was pretty simple, the car was pretty much stock in FD so I just needed to put the center diff and front diff in the gear box and voila!
Q: How did the build into a full Rally Cross Vehicle differ from the Drift Car Build this time around?
A: The build wasn’t that much different. We cut right in front of the shock tower and built a full tubular frame front end that can be change or remove really easily in case of damage. We took some weight off the A, B, and C pillar, and I had GP Motorsport build me a full custom wiring harness but otherwise it’s the same car as last year.
Q: A couple of weeks leading up to the Global Rally Cross at Irwindale, how did you prepare yourself and your vehicle to compete? Did you have time to practice?
A: Because I don’t have much of a budget, all the work has to be done for free from my sponsors. They dedicated as much time as they could but they have to take care of there customers too. I had to work a lot during the last month so I couldn’t spend a lot of time on the car. We were way behind on the prepartion and we worked like mad men within the last 10days. We finished the car on Thursday at 2:00 am. I went into the first event with no practice and bunch of untested parts. We put a steering quickner but the pump is too slow. It was like driving without power steering. It was hard for me to get any feed back from the car with such a hard steering. We also added a pedal box but I we put the wrong size master in it, so I had to push so hard on the brake pedal (to stop)! My right foot is still sore from it (pedals). We didn’t have time to set up the antilag and launch control and the center differential was stuck in open mode. We are fixing all this problems for the next race. It’s nobody’s fault, we just ran out of time to test the car. No big deal.
Q: Tell me how different Global Rally Cross from the Formula Drift events that you competed in for several years.
A: The main difference, there is no judge. You can’t argue with the clock. It makes easier to see how to improve, if your too slow you need to go faster, pretty simple. In drifting you have to adapt to a person (judge’s) view of what is perfect, and you have 3 people to please with different view of what is perfect, it’s kind of tricky!
Q: Let me set the record straight, do you like Rally Cross / Rally or Drifting more as a driver and competitor?
A: Rallycross/ Rally has always been my favorite. I love drifting too, it gave me so many new skills and made me a better driver.
Q: So day 1 of Global Rally Cross, you and the other competitors didn’t get much practice on the actual course so, how did you adjust to be competitive in a completely new course?
A: You’re right we didn’t get much practice but it was the same for everybody. The bank was the hardest to set up your car for and the most important part of the track. We were behind since I had to learn the car before I could make any changes. I wasn’t concern about the race on Friday, I took Friday event as a test day in preparation to Saturday.
Q: How did you feel about your first day of competition?
A: It was prettty good. The car was reliable and fast, but needed a lot of work on handeling. The big part was me too, I only had an average of 4hours sleep/day for the past week. We made a lot of changes to the set up and it worked, the car was 3 seconds faster on Sat.
Q: Day two must have been exciting for you. We saw you get very aggressive and we even saw a few competitors get very close to your doors / bumpers. Tell me how the first few rounds went for you.
A: First I came in with a good night sleep. We got a lot more practice on the track and found some good speed in the set up. The competion was really exicting. Racing next to Marcus (Gronholm), Rhys (Millen) and Tanner (Foust) was a lot of fun. During the regular heat I wanted to be agressive to show the other drivers that I’m not going to be push around but I didn’t want to hurt the car either. In the Main (event) I didn’t care.
Q: During the last main event we saw you follow Tanner Foust and Marcus Gronholm for the first few laps and then you did your joker lap over the jump. Was that your strategy to keep close to those guys or did you see an opportunity that most of the viewers didn’t get to see then took the opportunity? And that is why you jumped when you did?
A: The strategy is always take the joker last if you’re not held up by the car on front of you or if you’re in the lead. Something bad can happen really fast on the big jump, so you want to keep it for last. Marcus (Gronholm) and Tanner (Foust0 were not slowing me down at all, so I choose to stay behind and hoping they would make a mistake.
Q: How did you feel when you realized that you were locked in as a 3rd place winner in the main event when you went around the last dirt turn?
A: It was aweome, coming out of the jump I saw Tanner and knew I could give him a run for his money in the last corner, but I over cooked the braking and went wide. I was pretty mad about that but then as soon as I crossed the line I realize that I got 3rd and it was fantastic.
Q: Finally, how can our readers find more information about you and would you like to thank anyone that has helped you?
A: There is a couple place they can find info, Facebook, www.stephanverdier.com. I want to thanks all my sponosrs and firends, Crawford Performance, GTI, Cooper tires, Ignite Fuel, TEIN, RMR, Sparco, Exedy, Enkei, Block DCB, GP motorsport.
Thank you Stephan for taking time to talk to us at Subie-Life.com! Good luck on the rest of the season and we hope to see you at more events!
Safety is very strict in motorsports and for good reason. Jimmy Keeny was an unfortunate person who had to put the safety standards to the test. Autoblog had a quick triggered photographer that captured Jimmy’s flip at the recent Global Rally Cross. Luckily he walked away with no major injuries.
Ahh yes, Stephan Verdier. He’s been a really cool guy with us, taking time to talk to us and showing us great photos of his car and sharing his stories with us. Our friends at MotoIQ had an exclusive look at Stephan’s Rally Cross STi that was a former drift car. This car has seen a lot of action in the past few years but it looks like it’s going to stay as a Rally Cross car and we can’t be more excited for him!
Here are some images of the build:
The front end is business. Well, most of the car is business but it’s got a Crawford Performance built motor and also the entire front end is built for crash protection. Hence the whole entire front end is pretty much a bar. Of course it will covered by a bumper but this is pretty nice looking.
According to MotoIQ, Stephan had the whole entire chassis acid dipped to remove excess gunk, insulation, and debris to have a clean chassis. This actually lightens the chassis and you can see how “new” the car looks!
Suspension is vital in Rally Cross. Hence, Stephan went with the WRC Spec Tein Suspension. This is no ordinary coilover system too.
So what is this? Looks like an air conditioning unit? Maybe a tumble dryer? Nope! It’s the rear mounted radiator so it keep it from harm like some love taps that the cars get when they’re door to door against each other.
Want to see a super expensive transmission? Here it is. Dog engagement / sequential shifter keeps Stephan going around the track.
The cage is different from a standard roll cage. It doesn’t utilize a main hoop but it’s more of a enclosed cage. It’s supposed to disperse crash loads. Interesting since rally cars do roll intensely during competition.
This weekend is the premier of Global Rally Cross at Irwindale Speedway in Irwindale, CA! Our one of our favorite Subaru Rally Team USA member, Dave Mirra will be there to compete!
That’s right, folks! Those great events that we saw last year will now be coming to 4 major cities this year!
Next week on March 26th, they put these cars against each other again in a wheel to wheel dirt on dirt action in Irwindale, CA at Toyota Speedway. Check out this teaser video:
Factory Five is building a WRX powered kit car that is track ready and they want you to design it in their latest contest! Our friends from Autoblog gives us the low down:
Massachusetts-based Factory Five, the builder of some exceptional Shelby Cobra replicas and the GTM race car, has announced a new project vehicle. Starting with a Subaru WRXdonor car, the Factory Five team says it will be able to produce a mid-engined two-seater for under $15,000… and you can help design it.
It’s a sure bet that they will get a ton of feedback and designs of this new track ready kit car.
Factory Five is teaming up with Grassroots Motorsports Magazineto run a public design contest. The goal for the this as-yet unamed sports car will be to feature the WRX running car and weigh in at just 1,800 pounds. It will have a removable top, 95-inch wheelbase and the Subie engine will power the rear wheels.
The winner will receive $5,000.00 cash and have their concept drawing made into the real deal. So, Subie-Life.com readers, get your creative minds at work!
Subie Life: For the Love of Subaru 