Drift
"Use your feet to hold the GPS equipment in place. Oh, and keep an eye on the dash display to make sure we have a satellite signal. And use your right hand to hold this wire here. And don't put your arm there." Engineering editor Chen's yelling through my helmet as I strap myself in. It's a hell of a lot to think about while being thrown around like a helpless sock on tumble-dry for 10 minutes.
With fiberglass doors awash in graphics, a turbocharger bigger than a human head and a wing that could keep a 747 grounded, Stephan Verdier's Formula Drift competitor WRX is anything but subtle. At idle, the noise is like four angry cooks banging metal ladles against giant empty pots with no particular rhythm. Every now and then, they throw all the steel on the ground, only to pick up and start again.
Drifting isn't a subtle sport. And Verdier's not a subtle guy-he's much more familiar with the e-brake than with braking zones. Most of his racing career has been spent flinging rally cars around. As my head whacks the roll bar amid another violent swing, it's easy to see those rally roots. Verdier says the track is really dusty, which is why we're generating such massive slip angles.
Late braking is redefined in a drift car, because the turn itself scrubs off so much speed. As we hurtle around cone after cone, the sheer horsepower makes itself known. A trail of white smoke is a constant companion as I look out the side window. There's barely enough opportunity to notice it before we're flung violently in the other direction. A lot of the time, it feels as if the car would net better results with a little less power.
Unlike some of Verdier's rally rides, this WRX isn't required to run a restrictor plate, which means it pounds out a claimed 460 wheel-hp and an even 500lb-ft of torque. Most of the oomph is thanks to the now-notorious Crawford Performance, who installed a Garrett GT30 turbo and proprietary front-mount intercooler. Before plunking the new plumbing into the engine bay, the engine was pulled to receive forged Crawford pistons, head studs and head gaskets-to guard against everything going wrong in a car that will spend most of its time banging off the rev limiter. The head is fitted with 720cc/min fuel injectors, but other than that is completely untouched-not because Verdier is self-funded, but because working the head was unnecessary in order to attain the horsepower goals.
Getting the horsepower to the ground the way Verdier wanted-through the rear wheels-meant removing the front differential entirely, and welding the center diff locked. If you're thinking this will affect the car's performance when Verdier goes back to all-wheel drive for rallying (this car is destined for open-class rally competition), remember some of the most successful cars in the sport had locked center differentials-the Audi Quattro, for instance. Clutch Masters came through with a clutch and flywheel to transfer the power to the driveshaft, and a Cusco rear differential was employed to keep wheel spin predictable.
The drifter came equipped with more sets of Enkei RPF1s than we've seen outside the Enkei factory itself. The front wheels measure 18x7.5 inches and are covered with 235/40/18 Cooper Zeon 2XS rubber. The rear wheels, which are replaced so often they should have a quick release, measure 18x9.5 inches and are wrapped with 265/35/18 rubber of the same variety.
With the help of Rhys Millen Racing in Huntington Beach, California, Verdier dialed in a set of Cusco Zero 2R coilovers. When asked about the specs, he simply laughs. Drifting is a competitive sport and Verdier himself has pioneered much of the development on his Subaru. However, he will admit to using a Cusco 22mm front anti-roll bar in conjunction with the stock bar out back.
After getting the chassis acid-dipped and seam-welded, Verdier installed and painted an APR Performance widebody kit, a Seibon hood and trunk, a huge APR rear wing and four fiberglass doors. By himself. In three days. In his girlfriend's backyard. Finally, Rhys Millen Racing built a WRC-spec roll cage.
Taking my helmet off, I note the GPS equipment I was supposed to so diligently hang on to is everywhere. Wires flung across the dashboard, no satellite signal reporting on the display and my feet are definitely no longer holding the GPS ECU-it's anyone's guess where that thing went.
Grip
Giant 245/40/17 Hoosier A6 rubber, on Enkei NT03 17x9.5-inch wheels, bulge an inch beyond the grasp of the rear fenders, giving Scott Vanderheide's STi the appearance of a 70's Can-Am car. Like one of the insane racers of the bell-bottom decade, its purpose is singular: stick to the ground-hard.
Vanderheide's STi was given the grip mission statement during its time at Robispec in Apple Valley, California. Owner Robert Fuller is notorious for his brass-balled antics on track, and also for his ability to set a car up to withstand such punishment with ease.
Fuller uses a special blend of KW Variant 3 coilovers (he calls them Robispec Clubsports), which employ unique high-speed damping on 2mm larger pistons, for better damping control. He couples these with custom spring rates (7kg/mm up front and 8kg/mm in the rear). The coilovers are designed to work with Whiteline Automotive 27mm anti-roll bars front and rear. The fronts are two-way adjustable and the rears have three settings. Whiteline endlinks are used front and rear.
Whiteline is also contracted for its competition anti-lift kit and Max-C camber plates, which also add two degrees of caster. In the rear, Whiteline lateral and toe links are used in conjunction with Whiteline toe lock bolts. These replace the eccentric bolts with non-eccentric types, and can be used because the new arms are completely adjustable.
With a suspension stiff enough to be fitted to the back of a dump truck, the chassis would flex like a pretzel were it not for the addition of an Autopower six-point rollcage and DC Sports titanium strut tower braces front and rear.
In the cockpit, it's a neck workout just to keep your head upright as the car is flung from corner to corner. Powering out of corners with four sticky tires and all-wheel drive really highlights how much grip the drift car doesn't have. Despite having stock gear ratios, the car feels like it has a shorter final drive when Vanderheide bangs through the gearbox. The increased grip at times allows an additional shift by the end of the straightaways.
The sticky rubber means Vanderheide can brake a lot later than Verdier in the street-tire shod drift car. In the braking zones at the end of sections three and five, I find myself dangling from the seatbelt. A post-ride inspection reveals DBA 5000 slotted two-piece rotors and Hawk Blue brake pads.
Like the drift car, Vanderheide's car leaps over the pavement undulation in the middle of section five. Landing is timed perfectly with an upshift, which causes a two-foot flame to spit from the APS three-inch turbo-back exhaust. The eagerness with which the car accelerates after it's found a gear makes it hard to believe there's a stock turbo under the hood.