North County Rally Team

It wouldnt be the night before the annual Valley of Flowers car show if i werent rushing to apply a livery in preparation for the Valley of Flowers Car Show. Come see me at the Valley of Flowers Car Show tomorrow, where I will be participating in the Valley of Flowers Car Show tomorrow

Valley of Flowers Car Show

Tomorrow

PS, will almost certainly be parked in the same spot I always park in, across from Endless Comics, Games & Cards - Florissant . Its also Free Comic Book Day tomorrow, so knock out two birds with the same stone.

2026 100 Acre Wood Day 2 and post race

Day 2 faced us with a few new challenges. Stage 6 was transited for us, 7 and 8 were both demanding but we pushed through at the cost of a skidplate and our exhaust hanging hardware. We had to adjust our pace for the preservation of the car, most especially on second pass of Southern Loop, and the attempted repairs on our exhaust just didnt really last very long, and so most of our midpipe and back was ground and beaten down by the transit asphalt and the gravel stages. Beyond that the car was feeling pretty solid and we were pretty often hitting 90+mph.

End of day, we came in 4th place regional NA4WD, 11th place regional overall. We had some minor technical difficulties throughout the weekend that I can own and take responsibility for rather easily, since all my prep budget was spent installing a new to us engine.

When we were confident in the roads, the notes, the communication, and the car, everything felt pretty good. The old engine is moving on to another project and our new engine has nearly 60% more horsepower and so we were also acclimating to that. As a driver, I’d had maybe 5 miles on the car personally when we unloaded it and sent it to parc expose on Friday.

I have a tendency to be mindlessly verbose and havent got a lot of time to write today, but theres a lot of thanks in order, and so, chronologically:

Thanks to Ryan Rethy of Unamused Motorsport for selling us his old engine and all the parts needed to get it up and running at as close to the same power levels as he had it at, and then tolerating me and my autochondria questions, constantly fearing that something terrible was amiss and trying to wire this engine up in the least convenient way possible.

Thanks to Lee Ann Goodman for hopping in the co-drivers seat for this race. I think we could have done even better if I had spent more time preparing coms prior to the race, but nevertheless, was glad to get you to a finish.

Thanks to William Ho, who lent me a Tactrix cable to debug and begin to tune this engine on my own. This engine install was coming down to the wire and being able to pull some variety of information off the ECU to learn why it wasnt running was real important

Thanks to Misha, Adam, Ben, and the team at EcoTECH Import Auto Service/DynoPro for support during this process as well. For my entire time in that car up until now, we ran the factory EJ18 ECU, despite having an EJ25 in it during the entire time we have raced it. This old ECU was not tunable at all and so the idea of dyno tuning or even just building a base map was so foreign to me that it was the part of the process I had to offload, and I am glad Id because several things were caught that I was either too novice to pull off or too scatter brained to realize I had goofed up.

Thanks to seasoned codriver and long time contributor to this team, Jim Shawn Harter, for coming out and helping prep the car for the race. There are few that know the goingson and history of this car as you or I

Thanks to Kyle Williams for offering up a place to stay and organizing a set of crew for the handful of teams under his roof to share, the crew really came forward and put in effort every single minute of service to get us going again.

Thanks to Tyler Ragsdale, his crew, and Jet Auto and Tire in Salem, Missouri for use of shop space, supplies, tools and parts when needed to get back on the road before each day of racing. To the guys especially on Saturday that helped get the exhaust header and skid plate bolted back up, helped remount my tires, and then talked about sludge and groove metal, Ive forgotten otherwise did not learn your names, and for that I apologize, but thank you nonetheless

Thanks to the spectators and volunteers that have found and continue to give us back all the parts we seem to eject on stage, not just for making my life a little easier in not having ti find replacements, but also for keeping my incidentally jettisoned parts from littering up the forest roads. The rule has always been to leave it cleaner than we find it.

Thanks to all the family, friends, and familiar faces that come out to see and support us in the car each weekend. Some of yall I only see but once a year but most of you I remember just the same

And lastly, thanks to the organizers and volunteers for putting on yet another solid event; we dont get to do this without all of your help. The Rally in the 100 Acre Wood has come a long way in just my short time of doing it and its the best its ever been in that time frame.

I think thats about all I can think of right now and Im sure I am forgetting some but overall, thanks for making this race happen.

Til next time,
-Ty

PS We can have a chat about the new livery another day, but thanks were more in order than mimicking cigarette marketing decisions from the 80s and 90s

Day 1 down of 2026 Rally in the 100 Acre Wood . Had some great pace on stage 1 for a stage that
1) we didnt even recce
2) was the first stage miles on the new to us engine
3) was the first stage as a team with codriver Lee Ann Goodman in the seat.

Stages 2 and 3 were cancelled due to unsanctioned buffoonery

Stage 4 was a repeat of stage 1 but we staryed to notice an issue with the car where past 6K it would throw a check engine light so we backed off a bit til we knew more

Stage 5 was the only night stage and we bled time badly. No lights, massive exhaust leak making the engine sound hurt, and the check engine light kept coming on at 6K so we were dialing it way back. Got passed twice which also meant we spent significant time driving in dust wakes.

Lotta fixes on the car overnight. Going out again for more stages today.

If you cant find real sponsors, find some fake ones.

First in class (to show up)

Come see the car at Valley of Flowers Car Show in the usual spot, across from Endless Comics, Games & Cards - Florissant. Also, as is often the case during this show, its Free Comic Book Day, so be sure and stop by the comic shop while youre out here.

Hey everyone,

The in car footage from all 12 completed stages is now uploaded and in a playlist on YouTube if you wanna see what its like on the inside of the car:

2025 Rally in the 100 Acre Wood Guided by co-driver Zane Jackson, I take started my 16th rally with the 2025 Rally in the 100 Acre Wood. Some suspension changes were supposed to help us go ...

Hey folks, Ty here.

Gonna keep it as brief as I can, though brevity isnt my strong suit. Will do a more thorough write up or a video later in the week, but heres how 100 Acre Wood went for us.

Went into the race weekend with my 4th codriver in as many years, enlisting the help of everyones favorite finish control survey conductor and daisy dukes model Zane Jackson. Did some suspension "upgrades" to the car and otherwise pretty much left it alone. We knew a week in advance that tornado-pocalypse could plague the rally, but we had to press on.

We opted to try a practice/test session this year, but combined with adjusting seats and harnesses, we only got one pass in, but it was enough to tell us we had a significant problem with the car.

TLDR any hard impacts or bumps on the front end of the car resulted in it temporarily losing spark and or fuel, but it wouls start back up with a clutch kick oe some gas. Took like 2 seconds each time it happened, and despite sacrificing all of Wednesday evening and then most of Thursday, we didnt diagnose or fix it. Apologies to the residents in Salem near the drainage grate that we just kept hitting at 4000 rpm because it was the only place in town that would reproduce the problem

Friday was bright warm, sunny, and most importantly windy. We didnt recce these stages but went with our Jembas. The first stage was rough and we were feeling out how our issue would be on stage. After that we started commiting more and more, and in a lot of areas, more than I ever have as a driver. Didnt exceed top speed record on Pigeon Roost but gained speed in corners throughout.

The same set of 4 stages was schedules to run again after service but wss cut short. Not from the impending severe weather like we might have presumed but instead from a forest fire. Spectators and volunteers were evacuated and we finished the last two stages of the day

Saturday was gonna be as rough as stage 1 in places and for longer. Two passes of he infamous southern loop awaited us. In order to preserve our car and keep it running, we took a "stop and look both ways" approach to the water crossings, washouts, and dips. However, on our one pass of Scotia and Crooked, they each felt like real solid runs.

Speaking of Crooked, we evidently jettisoned the entire exhaust, rear of of the collector on the header. I guess the car did seem louder. Luckily heavy sweep, ran by our friends Hot Hatch Racing on that stage, were able to hrab, identift, and later return it to us. We can rebuild it, but probably wont.

And so we finished the race withour exhaust. Or, well, there was exhaust, just not wherw we wanted it. Our last stage was plagued by a miscalculation on sunlight left in the day, not bringing our lights, comm glitches, and a stall on an unseen left 2 or 3. The car ALMOST didnt restart but we convinced it, and kept on trucking.

Through pure attrition, we snuck our way up from 5th to 4th, but were 6 minutes out from 3rd place. Still a lot tobbe proud of with the performance this weekend and it really shone a light on how this car and this team can and will improve

Great job from Zane on the notes, keeping us powering through unseen corners, giving me confidence to stay in the revs, fielding the interviews when they came through, and making sure we made it to the end.

Big thanks to all the volunteers, the local areas, and the rally community for puttig on yet another excellent Rally in the 100 Acre Wood . We wanna be back on the road for Missouri Ozark Rally , but some of the changes now on the to do list might take a bit more time and effort that keep us out of the running. But rest assured, NoCo Rally Team is about to start taking strides.

314.

Rally in the 100 Acre Wood
Subaru of America, Inc.

On the way to Joliet for SubieFest. Who else is going?

The car is once again at the Valley of Flowers car show. 5th time entering, mostly in a row (pandemic notwithstanding). It seems to drive fine after the lawn dart jump, and it looks half decent as well. Come up to St Francois St., come see the car, sit in it, and learn about the sport of rally racing!

PS Did yall know the first Saturday of May is Free Comic Book Day? Across from where the car is parked is Florissants very own Endless Comics. Unsure when theyll be open, but Ive been to several FCBDs over the years, and theyre always worth going to

Another late night at the ShredHouse driveway as the rally car gets sorta put back together in hopes of making it to the Valley of Flowers Car Show tomorrow. Gonna try to be parked in the same spot aa always, across from Endless Comics near the VFW hall.