Gumball STi Racing

Godzilla and the team at Gumball Sti Racing is getting noticed and having our photo's published both in the press and on major motorsports websites

The team has been busy over the past 18 months rippin' up a number of US Global Rallycross, Rally America, and Canadian Rally Championship rally events.













The Canadian Rally Championship website (http://www.carsrally.ca/ ) is the latest site to feature our team's rallycar in action. The image (shown above) is front and center on the national rally home page. This website is used by Canadian National Rally racers, organizers, volunteers, and enthusiats.




The latest printed edition of Grassroots Motorsports racing (June 2011) also featured a shot of Godzilla plunging through a watercrossing at speed.

Team owner / driver Richard Burton continues to focus the teams efforts on qualifying for X-Games and establishing a title sponsor to develop a comprehensive marketing / racing program for the 2012 Rallycross season.

Major changes have been made to Godzilla and the newest gen 3 rallycross car is about to be unleashed at the upcoming June 17/18 US Global Rallycross at the Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado.

Thr upvoming Colorado stop on the US Global Rallycross series is being held at Pike's Peak International Raceway. This former NASCAR site will be transformed into a rallycross course combining dirt, tarmac, the Nascar oval, and the huge 70' gap jump... it promises to be an exciting event. ...

Full coverage of the June 17-18 event will be broadcast on ESPN June 25, at 9 p.m. ET, with live streaming and video highlights available online at ESPN3.com

So show your support, come out to watch, and cheer us on......

And remember.....Pin it to Win it!!!!

Gumball Sti Racing: - Sno*Drift Update (Feb 2011)

Sno*Drift is the first scheduled national Rally America event held late January in northern Michigan. With a new co-driver and lot's of snow and ice our team set out to tackle and conquer some of the season's most challenging rally stages....here's our story.














Pictured here: Godzilla raced 22 miles of rally stages/transits at speeds in excess of 65mph!!!!


Months of planning, preparation, and testing paid off as we laid down some blazing stage times....our rally car, named "Godzilla", is wicked fast and on ss1 (special stage 1) a nervous new co-driver accidentally called a turn early and we went off on the very first stage, at speed, turning under some marker tape and proceeding down a small access road....the time lost cost us a third place stage finish as we had to slow down, turn around, and head back to get on stage. Even with this scenic tour...we still managed a 5th place stage time out of 50 competitors and I laughed about it through the entire event. "Left 4+ under tape"....haha

I slowed down a touch on the next few stages allowing us to work together as a team, build trust, and get faster and faster......Soon we arrived at SS5 which was the hardest stage of the entire event...this grueling single track stage is simply called "The Ranch" and contained miles of skinny rock cuts, ravines, and accute turns literally around trees ...

We felt good and were now running in top form.....that positive feeling quickly disappeared early in "the ranch" stage when our lights went out entirely and would flash on for a moment only to go out again for what seemed an eternity. (Like a scene from Pitch Black)

With complete darkness broken by very brief moments of light...forced me to take a mental picture of the tight twisty sections, rocks, and so so many trees.....remaining relatively calm I somehow managed to stay flat on the go pedal in the darkness... while missing most hard objects... near the end of the stage we unfortunately came upon two slower cars which cost us precious time as we attempted to find a place to pass by ...

We finish The Ranch with a stage time within 30seconds of third place....

Our speeds continued to improve into the second day until a shattered suspension on ss15 left us on the side of the road with 13 miles of stage left. With some quick thinking, mechanical prowess, and POR (Press On Regardless) spirit...we removed all components and turned our rally car into a rear wheel drive snowmobile.






(If my calculations are correct.. car will run on red flap!!)









(Suspension...suspension!?! We don't need suspension!!!)

On the skidplate...we completed 22 miles, 2 stages, and 2 transits with speeds in excess of 65 mph to get back to the service area. As we were coming in...there was lot's of radio discussion as the RA officials had never seen anything like it.

Here's a video of us pulling Godzilla into service... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9p1eswBg_s&feature=player_embedded

Our amazing crew from Performance Motorsports Services then jumped into action. After a brief thirty-eight minutes and a loud well deserved standing ovation our car was ready!!!

The car felt great and Godzilla had an entirely new front-end. We proceeded to the second to last stage....en route our brakes failed (pedal was completely on the floor) and we ran the last two stages of the event with NO brakes....even managed to pass a few cars on those last stages.....we pulled in to finish area glad to have completed all stages of our first Rally America event....unfortunately we were then DNF'd after finishing (bummer)....

We definitely made a first impression, and the top teams are now watching... Godzilla is screaming fast and if she continues to perform we should be able to secure some solid national Canadian/US finishing positions. Our sights are set on trying to compete, earn top finish positions, and qualify for this year's X-Games competition.

Our team is a professional top-tier national entry with proven experience.....we continue to push forward and go for it!!!

The national events we compete in are major with lot's of opportunities for brand exposure and marketing.

The next national event is less than 3 weeks out.....prep prep prep....can't wait!!!!

Stay tuned and remember... "Pin it to Win it!!!"

Richard Burton
North American Rally Athlete
http://www.gumballsti.com/

So here's our long rally car jump story short ...

















We jumped "Godzilla" 139 feet through Red Bull arch breaking previous rally car jump distance record of 122 feet by 17 feet. This was done at the Baie des Chaleurs Canadian national rally ... pin it to win it!!!

Video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eadojKZmL1c

We definitely achieved our goal of becoming one of the rally's fan favourites and crushing the Red Bull jump. There was quite a buzz and even our second 3 off jump was noticed.

Fans have been supportive of our team and have continued pouring in photo's and videos raving about our jump height and distance....as a new startup team in the sport of gravel rally racing we were happy to have put on a spectacular jump for the fans and Red Bull.

We were pinned at redline and topped out for speed 300 m before the jump and launched the most aggressive line through the Red Bull arch. Really we couldn't have gone an inch farther and I'm glad we landed it. Godzilla flew farther than the previous years distance record, and of course our team was really really happy the rally fans loved it!!!!

On the very last stage, we flatted a tire and ran 20km on the rim with NO brakes for last 10 km and still managed to hit the Red Bull jump, get good airtime, and only lose 3 minutes.

On this final stage we didn't break any records aside from furthest distance on 3 wheels, having zero brakes, and launching another crowd cheering spectacular jump!!!

The last stage tire failure and time loss moved us just a little back of achieving a solid top 10 finish in one of the toughest rally's in North America.

Baie des Chaleurs (BDC) was an amazing Canadian rally!!!

Team mechanics have been preparing Godzilla for our first Rally America event and I'm getting in some tarmac cross-training in our Blue Gumball Sti tarmac racecar to be fresh.

Come on out to support our team and the North American Rally Series.

Richard Burton
North American Rally Athlete
http://www.gumballsti.com/

And remember..... Pin it to Win it!!!!

On a cold October day, our team and a small film crew set out to attempt a sucessful rally car jump over a massive 70 foot X-Games spec gap jump in the team's newest rally car, "Godzilla"!!!!!

The build was sketchy, the run-in was too short, and the landing was way too narrow...with the odds stacked against us we pushed forward to take it on!!

Our teams newest car the "Gumball X" is done!! This rally beast has been built as a full blown, open class, rally spec. racing machine, and has now sunk it's teeth into it's first gravel event.

For myself and co-driver Dean, we are very happy to have successfully finished our first ever gravel rally event.

As an international tarmac stage racing team, going gravel was a big step in broadening our teams experience, increasing the number events we compete in, and expanding our sponsors overall brand exposure.

The GCFR (Galway-Cavendish Forest Rally) event was a two pass recce format and the perfect debut learning event for us.

On the first practice pass we wrote our own notes and driving instructions, starting from scratch with a blank piece of paper and documenting what we saw on each stage using a series of short codes and building what is called a set of PACE notes. A second pass with a max speed limited to 60kph is then run which allows teams to refine their notes for each stage and try to describe the many many turns, features, and exposures (ie rocks/trees/swamps!!)

The rally main event was then started and we raced the stages using our handmade PACE notes. We decided to start out driving at a reasonable speed using the event to learn as much as possible. In the early stages we made a few rookie mistakes, then working together we were able to go faster and faster, in dusty conditions, and consistenly we were setting respectible top 10 stage times.

FourStar Motorsports prepped our car and our fantastic support crew chief (Ivano) who kept us in check, went through our car, and had some great advice that helped us stay out of the red mist and get through the event.

Many thanks go out to all our team supporters and sponsors who have helped us to get here, it was the first time we had ever had the car on gravel and we worked well together and finished ....great team result... overall good fun!!

Gumball STI Racing will be competing in select National level rally events...

Stay tuned.....

Gumball STI Racing has just launched our team's new online social networking sites.

Now you can follow us, stay in touch, and access even more online content, along with racing features, photos, and news that's made available, just for our fans. We will try to keep you up to date on what's happening with our exciting rally team as season unfolds.

So now all you racing enthusiasts can come online and check us out. We welcome new visitors, friends, and our many generous supporters that help make our racing dreams possible.....and please don't forget to click "Become a fan" if you would like to join our Facebook Fan page. Below is our list of our online team sites...check them out:

Gumball STI Website: Visit our main home page

http://www.gumballsti.com/

Our official Blog: Find and read our major stories and events

http://gumballsti.blogspot.com/

Facebook Fan Page: Visit us today and click "Become a Fan"

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gumball-STI-Racing/58322571470

Follow me on Twitter: Get race tweets during our scheduled events with twitter feeds built right into our team website and facebook fan pages.

http://twitter.com/gumballsti

Email Fan Blog Feed: Subscribe and receive Gumball STI fan blog emails

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=GumballStiRacing&loc=en_US

So now there are more ways to keep in touch.....pick your preference and follow us today.

And remember to always keep the shiny side up!!!

Gumball STI Racing.

Well the Gumball "Rally X", our teams newest gravel beast is finally back in Canada and undergoing pre-race prep for a fast approaching shakedown event.

Cleaning up and securing engine wiring (ie mess), installing race seats, and oh yeah fixing a severe downpipe exhaust gasket leak... we really don't want another engine fire... the Gumball STI fire during Gander stage was enough!!!

Other than some unplanned setbacks, the Rally X is ready to spit out any gravel or tarmac that Canadian Rally can dish out.

It has been outfitted with;

• 2.0 litre WRX (tuned) engine
• '05 STI drivetrain
• Rocket diff controller
• Cusco 1.5 front LSD
• Launch control (<--feature RULES!)
• Anti-lag and boost control
• DMS 50 rally suspension