Subiesport Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 53)

SHOWS was 100 feet wider than the one at the X Games, that one was taken at just 63mph. True to his word, Block baptized the ramp with his 2008 STI, and – as Foust had predicted earlier in the week – the car pitched forward alarmingly in the air, coming down into the dirt nose first and breaking the front bumper. With the schedule now running very late, the teams had time for just one full practice run each. It didn’t take long for the action to start, though; Pat Moro’s 2005 STI immediately had engine trouble, leaving Matthew Johnson to be the first to take the jump in anger. Unfortunately he came up short and headed straight for the face of the landing ramp. By some miracle the wild-turquoise-and-pink car bounced up over the lip, leaving a selection of lightly used STI parts behind him. Surveying the damage later, Johnson said, “It busted the radiator, it bent the frame, it bent up the lower radiator support. So our rally car took a proper beating-up on the nose.” Johnson’s team was able to get the damage fixed, but meanwhile Jeff Moyle had found trouble elsewhere. Perhaps there had been too much emphasis placed on the big jump, because the jumps in and out of the stadium were to cause trouble all day. Moyle landed heavily on both stadium entry and exit, ripping the oil filter off the car, setting it on fire and ending his day very early. His premature departure from the competition, however, set up the David-and-Goliath story of the day. Having driven the breadth of the country just to be an alternate, Travis Hanson stepped in – only to be pitted against 2004 PWRC champion McShea. Practice concluded without any other changes to the lineup, so the teams had a few minutes of hectic work to get the cars back in the best shape possible. It was an unusual scene – the Home Depot Center stadium filling with eager spectators, the sound of a sledgehammer beating on a skidplate reverberating through the stands as the tension built. Before the main event, though, there was an elimination round to pare down the field. Most of the bigger names had prequalified for the finals, but the elimination heats provided a chance for some of X GAMES WAS DOMINATED BY SUBARU THIS YEAR. JUST JEFF MOYLE WHO DROVE THE #44 EX-COLIN MCRAE CAR SEEN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE AFTER THIS YEAR’S EVENT, PHOTO, DIED OF INJURIES SUSTAINED WHILE PARASAILING. the dark horses to appear on a bigger stage. The first heat would pit two relative newcomers against each other. Kyle Sarasin, just 19 years old, took on renowned moto-x star “Cowboy” Kenny Bartram. No stranger to the X Games, Bartram nonetheless is a rally rookie – albeit a promising one – and brought significantly less experience to the event than his teenage rival, who is a rally instructor by trade. The experience was to pay off. Sarasin dispatched Bartram handily. “He’s new into the rally scene,” Sarasin said later. “But he was having some killer runs in practice, so we definitely felt threatened … I was actually behind, I had to catch up, but we just went out and did a clean run and it paid off.” SUBIESPORT MAGAZINE 53

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Subiesport Magazine - November 2008

Subiesport Magazine - November 2008 Contents Editor Letters Readers’ Rides New Products Subaru News 2009 WRX Test Drive Back on Easy Street Brothers in Boost Treasure Island ESPN X Games 14 Subiefest 3 Subie Extravaganza WWJCD WRC Rally Finland WRC Rally Deutschland Rally America: Ojibwe Forest Rally America: Colorado Where to buy Subiesport Orange Invasion - Europe 2007 STI Intake Test Dreadnought Widebody Install p2 Ad Directory Spotted!

Subiesport Magazine - November 2008

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