Oregon Trail Rally Recap


Going into the Oregon Trail Rally we had the car basically dialed in and with very minimal seat time this would be the beats first real competition outing for the 2016 season. During the press stage we found the brake bias needed to be adjusted slightly to provide more braking to the front wheels rather than the rear. After we got all of that set to how I like it we were ready to hit the stages of PIR on Friday night.

Friday 4/22

PIR was a fun fast and excited night with a sweet little jump. Defiantly learned that this car has way more power than the Open Light 2.5RS I was used to. So learning how much I could push the car into a corner and how much speed I was able to safely carry through was a steep learning curve but I quickly caught on. The car performed flawless without any issues on Friday night so my confidence level going into real stages for Saturday was high.



Saturday 4/23

The entire team was super excited to see the new car get to stretch its legs on some long gravel stages. The first stage was an uphill pretty quick but super rough road with a large exposure on the outside. We quickly found that there was something in the alignment that needed to be sorted out as the car just didn't feel planted at speed on gravel, also noticed that under compression the back end wanted to come around on you. That made us spin and unfortunately got us high centered losing a ton of time. Luckily some awesome Marshalls helped push us out! After going over that with Mr. John Hoyenga he adjust the toe in front and rear to help keep the car solid at high speeds on gravel and also added a couple of clicks of rebound to the MCA Gravel Coilovers.

This made a massive change in the car and we were able to really pick the pace up and start feeling the car out. I quickly learned that having Wilwood 4 pots front and rear my braking zones dramatically decreased compared to where I had to brake in my open light car. I found myself getting on the brakes hard where I thought was right but would slow so far down so quickly we could just coast through the corner! As Saturday went on we keep getting quicker and quicker in the car with no issues. We ended up finishing 2nd in G5!



Sunday 4/24

Coming off of a high from Saturday and feeling at home in the cockpit of the Nameless Performance Dick Hannah Subaru BRZ we were all ready to hit the stages out in Dufur that I have previously raced on many times! We quickly got back on the pace were we left it at from Saturday and started setting some decent stage times! By the end of Sunday we were basically beating all the other fellow competitors in regional besides one SP STI. We set multiple top two fastest stage times and had a solid minute lead in our class.

On the very last stage near the spectator area there were massive rocks starting to get ripped out of the ground and were now in the middle of the road. There was this one football sized rock on the inside apex of a L3. I noticed it on my line at the last second and re instigated my line around it thankfully missing it but caused us to spin. We lost maybe 15 seconds which then took us out of the running to finish 2nd overall for regionally. The fans loved the spin and cheered us on as we took off back down stage to finish the 2016 Oregon Trail Rally! We ended up 1st in G5 and 4th overall!

Pretty excited with how quickly I caught on and learned how to tame the beast and we can't wait till Olympus. Olympus was my first Rally back in 2013 and I just love the stages out there. We have very minimal re prep to do before the event and a couple things that need to be ironed out and the car should be even better than it was at OTR.

Just want to thank you again for the support of the Nameless Performance BRZ and we shall all see you at Olympus here soon!

-Steven Redd


Apr
25
2016


More stories with Steven Redd

Nameless Shop Tour: All Under One Roof

Mar
25
2015

Ford RS2000 Escort Custom Rally Exhaust Build

Mar
25
2015