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The aerodynamic upgrade is likely to be the final tweak to Subaru's WRX STI this ARA season
Subaru Motorsports USA has once again stepped up its aerodynamic game for the latest round of the American Rally Association presented by DirtFish National championship, extending the front splitter of its cars to the edge of the rulebook’s allowance.
The change for Ojibwe Forests Rally has been put in place to help balance out the car and add more downforce to the front tires after the massive wing upgrade at the New England Forest Rally.
Subaru Motorsports USA’s motorsport director Dan Anctil filled DirtFish in on what will likely be the final big update to the platform before its retirement at the end of the season.
“[At New England] I talked a lot about the balance that we were trying to find with the added aero, and what’s going on is we still had some room to, literally, grow at the front end and find a little more front end down force,” he said at the technical inspection on Thursday.
“It’s something we’ve never had to do before, but given the current state of the championship and the competition we’re up against, we need to push everywhere.
“We had a little bit of room to grow that front splitter out and down, so we took advantage of that. Just perfectly within the rules and it was just all about testing it from after that.
“The only testing we’ve done with [the changes] was here yesterday on our road that we used last year. It was actually really nice to kind of apples to apples, see the difference between the setup previously and with this new splitter.”
While testing didn’t reveal major time gains for the Subaru drivers, it was a noticeable enough difference that they will be starting with the new front end on Friday, and hope to see some improvement in stage times going into the final three rounds of the championship.
As the current chassis nears its swansong, the improvements are solely for use in this year’s championship, as the aerodynamic rule package for next year will require the teams to pull back their bodywork modifications significantly.
Despite the threat of Ken Block and Barry McKenna’s World Rally Cars over the past two years, Subaru has stayed strong in the 2022 championship going into Ojibwe as Brandon Semenuk leads with four points over team-mate Travis Pastrana, while Hoonigan’s Ken Block sits nine and five points behind each of them respectively in third.
Ojibwe Forests Rally is also promising rally for Subaru, with Travis Pastrana having the most wins of any driver in history on the Northern Minnesota stages.
Tags: American Rally Association, ARA, ARA 2022, Brandon Semenuk, Dan Anctil, Subaru Motorsports USA, Travis Pastrana
Publish Date August 18, 2022 DirtFish https://www-dirtfish.imgix.net/2022/08/PXL_20220818_184324225.jpg?fit=scale&fm=pjpg&h=587&ixlib=php-1.2.1&q=70&w=780&wpsize=entry-main August 18, 2022
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Copyright © 2022 DirtFish, LLC. All rights reserved.
Subaru Impreza STI Sedan & Hatchback Features
Roll Cage: Every rally car requires a welded-in safety cage. The roll cages in our cars are built in-house from scratch.
Racing Seats: Driver and co-driver need to be firmly mounted to the structure of the vehicle. The use of hinged-back seats in rally vehicles is prohibited in rally and most forms of racing.
Racing Harnesses: Safety first. A minimum of a 5-point harness is required by all American rally sanctioning bodies. The 5 points consist of 2 shoulder harness, 2 lap belts and a single anti-submarine belt (not shown).
Handbrake: Most rally cars use a hydraulic handbrake. The purpose of the handbrake maneuver is to turn a car around a very tight corner by locking up the rear wheels aiding in the rotation of the car around the corner.
Engine: Our Subaru STi’s use a 2.5 liter 4-cylinder Turbo-charged Boxer engine.
Drive train: The Subaru STi is equipped with an advanced all-wheel-drive system with an active center differential.
Gravel Rally Tires: Being a rally school, we spend most of our time on gravel roads. To maximize the learning experience, we outfit all of our cars with the latest gravel rally tires for maximum traction.
Method Rally Wheels: It is very important to have a durably strong, yet lightweight rally wheel that can hold up to constant abuse, rocks, rough roads and punctures. At DirtFish, we use and trust Method Race Wheels.
Suspension: Rally is rarely on a perfectly smooth roads, because of that rally cars require suspension that can take the abuse. We choose to use Reiger rally suspension on our cars.
Brakes: Rally cars commonly use a 15″ rally wheel. In order for the wheels to fit on our Subaru STi’s, we had to convert them to a Group N brake setup.
Underbody Protection: Driving at high speeds over variable surfaces can easily damage parts. With the constant spray of gravel that gets thrown at them, skid plates and urethane underbody protection help with the longevity of the underbody of the cars.
Roll Cage: Every rally car requires a welded-in safety cage. The roll cages in our cars are built in-house from scratch.
Racing Seats: Driver and co-driver need to be firmly mounted to the structure of the vehicle. The use of hinged-back seats in rally vehicles is prohibited in rally and most forms of racing.
Racing Harnesses: Safety first. A minimum of a 5-point harness is required by all American rally sanctioning bodies. The 5 points consist of 2 shoulder harness, 2 lap belts and a single anti-submarine belt (not shown).
Handbrake: Most rally cars use a hydraulic handbrake. The purpose of the handbrake maneuver is to turn a car around a very tight corner by locking up the rear wheels to aid the rotation of the car around the corner.
Engine: The Subary BRZ is powered by a 2.0 liter naturally aspirated Boxer engine.
Drive train: The Subaru BRZ is rear-wheel-drive and equipped with a limited slip differential.
Gravel Rally Tires: Being a rally school, we spend most of our time on gravel roads. To maximize the learning experience, we outfit all of our cars with the latest gravel rally tires for maximum traction.
Method Rally Wheels: It is very important to have a durably strong, yet lightweight rally wheel that can hold up to constant abuse, rocks, rough roads and punctures. At DirtFish, we use and trust Method Race Wheels.
Suspension: Rally is rarely on a perfectly smooth roads, because of that rally cars require suspension that can take the abuse. We choose to use Reiger rally suspension on our cars.
Brakes: Rally cars commonly use a 15″ rally wheel. Luckily with the Subaru BRZ’s, the stock brake system is more than adequate for our programs.
Underbody Protection: Driving at high speeds over variable surfaces can easily damage parts. With the constant spray of gravel that gets thrown at them, skid plates and urethane underbody protection help with the longevity of the underbody of the cars.
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