Latest News / Event Recaps

Sunday, January 12th, 25 racers headed to the new Freitag field for the first event of the season. Cold temperatures and a heavy wind for our first ever event at this new venue made it quite a chilly day. The wide-open rolling hills of this 140!!! acre field are going to make for some great events!

The top time and first in Stock FWD for this inaugural event goes to Issac H, who piloted his Honda Prelude to victory by a mere 0.965 seconds over 2024 class Champion Charles P.  This close battle came down to cones hits with Charles’s three costing him the win.  Charles also took 2^nd overall, helping show that FWD may have its advantages in winter racing conditions.

Stock RWD saw Brian T piloting his Camaro on course, and as more ice started to form, he was putting on a show.  Even with the show, he was able to beat Jeff W by less than a second.  Jeff was having shifter issues “because his wife Candy broke it.”  We’re not sure we believe you on this Jeff!  Memories of Camry bumpers flying off and other incidents are still fresh in our minds. 😉

3rd fastest overall was Greg L, piloting the ever popular, unkillable RuSTI (04 Legacy) to a 4 second win in Stock AWD over Dave M in his clean STI.  Greg was fast out of the gate, with his first two runs of the day giving him this lead.  He was able to maintain it for the rest of the day despite having Dave hot on his heels.  Of special note in Stock AWD was the ’02 BMW 325xi, whose owner was trying to give it a Viking’s funeral with FOUR drivers pounding on it all day.  Amazingly, the car took this abuse without complaint.  Perhaps you guys need to actually give the car some love and keep in around after this impressive performance!

6th fastest overall and first in Prepared FWD went to Devin P, despite some clutch issues with his RSX.  He was really tearing it up, putting down times faster than most of the AWD cars, even with having to hold the shifter into second gear.

Modified RWD was a class of one with Todd F drifting his Jeep Wrangler around the course.  We hope you join us again Todd!

5th fastest overall went to 2024 MAWD Champion Aaron B, who also captured first in Mod AWD.  Aaron would likely have ended up first overall, but he made a costly tire change at the break, in hopes of finding more speed.  Instead, these tires had less grip and caused him major control issues. 2nd in class went to Christopher G, who was handling his GMC Yukon like a vehicle 1/4 its size. Chris raced with us once before a few years back and shocked everyone with how quick he can get his Yukon around a course.  As an aside, large, top-heavy SUV/trucks like this cannot be raced with us in stock form.  Chris has greatly increased the track width of his Yukon, allowing it to meet our track width to height requirements.

In the SXS class, Cory S was throwing his Maverick around and having fun.  We imagine it was awfully cold in that machine, so we hope you had a great time, Cory!

Full results for the event can be seen here.  I want to thank everyone that came out and raced with us, helped with teardown, and breaking into my truck! Perhaps it’s time to add a lockout kit to the items in the rallycross trailer! 😀

I can’t wait to see everyone back at the Freitag’s on February 2nd!!!  Be sure to get registered at www.msreg.com/IAFebRallyX as soon as possible.

~Jay

It was an absolutely beautiful and delightfully cool summer day for our rallycross yesterday in Oskaloosa at the Southern Iowa Speedway.   All our drivers got to enjoy 11 runs on the roughly 110 second long course.  Grip levels were quite high, thanks to some rain on Friday putting some moisture in the ground.  The competition was intense, with some surprising winners.

Stock FWD had five drivers competing for the win, including the father & son duo of Charles and Devin P, a semi-regular attendee Aaron D, and a couple newbies.  After the first two runs, it looks like it was going to be a three-way knife fight between Charles, Devin, & Aaron, with less than a second separating all three.  Things changed drastically on the third run, with Aaron really finding his groove in his 2ZZ equipped Matrix XRS.  He began opening up the gap by at least two seconds every run, eventually taking 1^st in class by 38 seconds as well as capturing 2^nd overall.  Charles and Devin fought each other hard for second place, trading who was fastest several times.  With one run remaining, Charles was in the lead by roughly five seconds.  Charles took his final run first, getting out of sorts and running his slowest time of the afternoon as well as picking up a cone.  Devin’s second place spot appeared to be in the bag, until he also pushed too hard for his final run, picking up three cones to net a nearly identical run time to his dad.  Thanks to Devin’s mistake, Charles took 6^th overall in addition to 2^nd in class.  Our two newbies showed drastic improvement over the course of the day, with both dropping over ten seconds between their first and last runs.

Stock RWD was a class of one with Luke W putting on a master class of how to be a smooth yet fast driver in his Miata.  Luke captured an impressive 3^rd overall in his Miata, besting cars with more than double the horsepower.

Stock AWD was our largest class of the day with 9 entries.  The usual SA culprits were in attendance, along with a couple less frequent attendees and one newbie.  The morning runs saw some fast times and very good competition with five drivers all in contention for first place.  Jay K was leading the pack despite some intermittent issues with his car.  When the drivers returned to competition in the afternoon, they had to deal with a freshly watered track.  The slick conditions led to much slower times at first.  Run times began dropping fast as the track began drying fast and there was some shakeup in the standings due to the variable conditions.  Disaster struck for Jay in the afternoon when the engine of his Outback Sport seized just after crossing the finish line while his co-driver Kim S was behind the wheel.  In the meantime, Hugh H had dialed in his racing line and began opening up a huge lead over the rest of the field.  He finished the day taking 1^st in class by over 26 seconds and fourth overall.  2^nd place went to Greg L, 3^rd to David L, and 4^th to Dave M.  Random trivia for the day: we had four David’s competing, three of them in SA.

Prepared FWD was a class of two with yours truly sharing my car with Cliff J.  Sadly, on the very first run on the day, the car stopped putting power to the wheels.  Fingers are crossed that it was a failure of the recently installed modular clutch and not a grenaded transmission.

Prepared RWD saw the return of Steve M in his Porchse 944.  Unfortunately, the car began struggling with a fueling and overheating problem after just a few runs.  Steve’s best efforts could not remedy the situation and he had to retire for the day before completing his runs.

Prepared AWD was a class of one with Ethan T in his lifted Outback sedan.  As a fellow owner of one of these cars, I really enjoyed seeing it compete.  Ethan dropped his run times all day, despite battling significant body roll from his Outback. 

Modified AWD was the class to watch at this event with very stiff competition between Mark M from Kansas City Region and Iowa Region’s Aaron B.  Mark had the horsepower advantage in his ’05 STI whereas Aaron’s gutted ’95 Impreza wagon had the edge in nimbleness.  After the five morning runs, Aaron had the lead by nearly 6 seconds, thanks to a rare missed gate by Mark.  As afternoon runs resumed, Aaron’s car wouldn’t start and a quick repair had to implemented.  In the meantime, Mark took his first run of the afternoon in the slick, post-water truck conditions, netting a painfully slow time.  The rapidly drying track gave Aaron much more grip on his late run and he opened up the gap to 19 seconds.  This gap was further opened on the second run to 26 seconds, again from the rapidly changing grip level of the course.  By the third run, both drivers had similar conditions and the battle for the fastest individual run of the day began.  Mark dropped a 100.261 on run four to briefly hold fastest lap of the day but then Aaron answered with a screaming 98.248 on run five to take and hold it for the rest of the day.  Aaron ended competition taking 1^st in class by just shy of 31 seconds and captured 1^st overall by nearly 3 seconds.  Mark captured 5^th overall for the day in addition to 2^nd in MA.  Side note, having taken a couple fun runs in Mark’s car in the afternoon, I can confidently say he was held back by the tires on his car.  The car understeered even through the slaloms and I can hardly fathom how Mark produced the lap times he put down.

Our next rallycross will be in Oskaloosa again on August 18^th.  Make your plans to join us now as you will not want to miss out on the fun!

Only 13 racers took to the field on this beautiful past Sunday at CFMP, but the competition was still quite intense.  With the lower attendance, every racer got to make more runs as well as finish racing earlier in the day, so it was a win-win situation for everyone.

First up was Stock AWD, with Jay K (’06 Outback Sport) and Hugh H (’96 SVX) laying down extremely close times.  At the break, Jay was in the lead by over six seconds, thanks to a little cone trouble from Hugh.  The afternoon course favored horsepower a bit more, so Hugh started clawing into Jay’s lead.  It looked like this one was going to come down to the last run, but then Jay lost control right at the finish, plowing down six cones.  This allowed Hugh to take the win by 11.89 seconds, a lead of almost exactly the 12 seconds of penalty that Jay picked up.  Hugh also captured third overall with sharp driving.  Special mention goes out to Krista W, who tried out racing for the very first time!  She was obviously having a blast while dropping significant time between her first and last runs on each course.  We hope you’ll join us again Krista!

Running at the same time was Modified RWD, a class of one, with our most interesting entry from David G.  His apparent 1968 F250 was actually a Crown Vic with the truck body grafted onto it!  David had a lot of fun drifting the corners, putting down times that allowed him to take 9^th overall as well as first in class.

Not to be shown up by the SA cars, Modified AWD contenders Ben H (’06 STI) and Aaron B (’95 Impreza Wagon) both threw dirt high in the air striving for first.  Ben shot himself in the foot on his very first run, missing a gate and taking a 10 second penalty.  He didn’t let this discourage him and he began to immediately eat into Aaron’s lead.  Ben had closed the gap to a minimal amount, but then began to tag cones as he pushed for the fastest possible runs.  These cones added up to a win for Aaron by a bit over 13 seconds, despite nearly all of Ben’s raw times being drastically faster.  Aaron also took first overall for the day with his quick and consistent runs.

Stock FWD was the familiar father-son battle between Charles P (’06 Civic) and Devin P (’02 RSX).  The Acura’s horsepower advantage allowed Devin to jump off to an early lead, but then his car began having troubles.  Charles wouldn’t allow Devin to retire for the day, and talked him into sharing Charles’ car. Devin ended up schooling his dad in his own car, taking the win by over 25 seconds.  You’ll get him next time Charles!

Prepared AWD was a class of one, with Kim K pushing herself to get faster throughout the day in her ’06 Outback Sport.  Kim got in a bit of cone trouble as the racing went on, but her raw times were definitely dropping all day long.  Sadly, her Sport decided it was done for the day with one run remaining, so she was forced to take a DNF for her final run.

Prepared FWD was yours truly and Cliff J, both sharing my ’04 SRT4.  While swapping on race tires in the morning, it appeared that one of the front struts might have sprung a leak. By the end of the morning heat, this leak has grown to a fully blown strut.  We elected to retire in the afternoon, as the car became almost undriveable with no damping on the rough ground.  Cliff did manage to continue his quest towards recapturing the Cone Killer award for 2024, picking up seven cones in only four runs.  We’ll just blame the strut, Cliff.  😉

Modified FWD saw the return of Shane B and Bryan K in their ’91 CRX.  Finishing the day was a battle for these two, as the car experienced numerous issues, including a tire that was aggressively leaking air through the bead.  Shane gave Bryan a solid lesson on how to drive their shared car, taking the win by 53 seconds.  Shane also captured fifth overall!

Rallycross will be taking a hiatus through the month of May due to venue scheduling conflicts, so our next event will be June 30^th at the speedway in Oskaloosa.  This is our fastest and smoothest venue, so you will not want to miss racing there!

Sunday, March 10th 17 racers spent their Sunday at Cedar Falls Raceway for the second Rallycross of 2024.

Despite the early start thanks to DST, it was a good day for racing, but a not so great day for mechanical mishaps.

Overall fastest time of the day and 1st place in Stock AWD goes to your author, after a hard fought battle with Hugh H. in his red 96 SVX ( No, not that one, the other one!), The final difference was only 4.2 seconds. Rallycross regular David L brought out his somewhat reluctant wife Kelsey to try rallycross for the first time. Kelsey set aside her worries and showed a ton of improvement throughout the day, dropping 5 seconds off her morning run times and 7 on her afternoon runs. Great Job Kelsey!!!!

2nd fastest overall and 1st in Prepared FWD all by himself, David C. wheeled his SRT4 through 9 cone penalties, yet was only 4 seconds behind me!!!

First in Prepared AWD and 8th fastest time of the day went to Kim K in her Outback Sport. Kim jumped out to an early lead, and didn’t look back. Ryan L had a few minor mechanical problems in the morning, but started to find a groove in the afternoon. His times showed a lot of improvement through the day. Great Job Ryan!

9th overall, and 1st in Stock FWD was Andrew A, piloting his wife’s 08 Passat. Hopefully he’s not sleeping on the couch for the rest of the week after beating her times. Taking 2nd was Andy L in his fun to watch, parts shedding 16 Prius. By the end of the day, I don’t think the car had any under cladding or heat shields left!

This brings us to our final class Modified AWD, which was the class of issues unfortunately. Our 10th fastest of the day and first in class was Aaron B. in his high compression 95 Impreza. Aaron was looking good, but a broken ball joint on his second run forced him to three DNF penalties in the morning. A quick off-heat repair got him back in action, and able to finish the afternoon course. In second was Brian L, who was also having issues. These issues resulted in him and his son Ian not finishing all of their runs.

Hard luck mention goes out to Eric L., who’s MA WRX decided to tell some knock knock jokes. I think we’re still all waiting to hear the punchline.

A big thanks to everyone who came out to race, and stuck around to help pick up. I hope everyone had fun, and we’ll see you back at Cedar Falls April 14th!  Another thanks goes out to Scott Vavroch for shooting a bunch of photos of us tearing up the courses!  His photos are featured in this post.

-Jay

One usually expects our February rallycross events to be knee in snow and bitterly cold, but thanks to this unusual winter, we had a balmy 40 degree day.  This weather was a welcome break from January, where dangerous wind chills forced us to cancel the race.  The fine day allowed us to draw a crowd of 26 racers, despite it being Superbowl Sunday.  There was a diverse mix of cars, with a 35 year age gap between the newest car to the oldest.  We also had a good mix of veteran racers and new attendees.  As always, rallycross is a blast, no matter what car you’re bringing out or what your skill level is.

Five drivers took the field in Stock FWD, one being a surprise entry of a Toyota Prius!  From the first run of the day, Charles and Devin P resumed their constant father son battle for first place.  Devin took advantage or the extra HP of his RSX to open up roughly a second gap over his father on the morning course.  However, the tables turned quickly on the afternoon course, with Charles taking the lead by the second run.  It looked like there was chance that Devin was going to reclaim the lead, but he got out of sorts on his final run and tagged 5 cones at the finish line, cementing Charles in first place in class and 7^th overall.  Andy L’s Prius was a crowd favorite as he blew all of our minds with how quick it was!  He had no hesitation in wheeling the car for all it was worth, only missing out on third place due to missed gate on his final run.

Subarus filled the Stock AWD class as usual and surprisingly, they all finished the day without breaking!  Things started off very close between Jay K and Hugh H, with only fractions of a second separating them.  Jay slowly opened up the gap on the second course, but a whopping four cones on his last run put his win in jeopardy.  All eyes were on Hugh but despite putting down the fastest run of the class, he couldn’t make up the difference.  In addition to taking first in class, Jay also captured 3^rd overall.

Prepared FWD was a class of four drivers in two cars, pairing Dodge against Mitsubishi.  David C roared off to a large early lead and never looked back, taking first in class and sixth overall in his Neon SRT4.  There was more of a battle for second, between Cliff J (Neon SRT4) and Tristan S (Lancer).  Freshly disappointed with the news of not winning Cone Killer for the fifth straight year, Cliff got to work mowing down cones, hitting 7 cones just on the morning course.  All these penalties allowed Tristan to keep things close, but sadly the Lancer had to retire from the race prior to the afternoon course.  Cliff ended up with second, despite a healthy 15 cones for the day.

Prepared AWD was a class of one, allowing newcomer Anthony C to focus on improving his times without competition pressure.  He dropped significant time between his first and last runs on each course as he got the hang of rallycross.  He could be a driver to be reckoned with at future events.

Newcomer Vincent H put his bright pink Accord through its paces as the sole entry in Modified FWD.  For his first time rallycrossing, Vincent put down respectable times while also getting faster each time on course.  We hope we’ll see him back at future events!

We took a trip back to the ‘80’s in Modified RWD, with our competitors piloting an ’85 Porsche 944 and an ’81 Ford Mustang.  Things were looking good for Keegan S in his American muscle, opening up a 13 second gap over Steve M (Porsche) on the morning course.  Steve attacked the afternoon course with a vengeance, looking to redeem the Porsche’s reputation.  A gap of only 3 seconds kept Keegan in the lead with one run remaining for each driver.  Sadly, something failed in the read end of the Mustang, forcing Keegan to forfeit his last run and handing the win to Steve.

The Subarus (including one rebranded as a Saab) were out in force in Modified AWD.  The battle to watch was between Eric L and Aaron B.  Aaron was rocking a freshly built high compression engine, which allowed him to put significant pressure on Eric.  Aaron had a few struggles as he relearned the car with so much more power on tap, allowing Eric to take the first in class and first overall by a few seconds.  The remaining drivers were father son duos squaring off against each other.  Experience prevailed over youth for the day, with both fathers taking the wins over their sons.

We also had two drivers racing in our Constructors class, home to custom built vehicles or caged race cars from other racing series.  Clayton S and Alex P battled it out in Clayton’s ’02 Ford Ranger.  Things looked like they might be close after two runs, but then Clayton hit his stride, opening a large gap up over his friend to take the win.

Thank you again to everyone who raced with us and then helped us clean up afterwards!  I honestly think it was one of the fastest clean ups we’ve had in a while.  We’ll be racing again at CFMP on March 10^th, so head to the event page now to get signed up!