Over the winter I'd gotten a set of Nokian Hakkapellita's mounted on my stock rims, but I knew they weren't going to work for this "auto-x" thing I'd heard about, and I didn't want to swap my tires back & forth on the same rims so I was on the lookout for new wheels.
I kept getting "sniped' when I tried to buy some 04 STI BBS, over & over.
Finally, on NASIOC, a set of 17x8 (I'd heard something about that being the size I wanted) Rota Torques came up for sale, and with "summer" tires on them too!
(In retrospect, those Bridgestone RE-040 were *crap*, but my driving was even more crap... So they helped teach me a lot about finding, but not exceeding the limit of the tires.)
So come the spring of 07 I signed myself up for the auto-x school (and got myself in the dog house by *not* signing Any up for it...
). Thankfully, someone (Tabibito) dropped out, so she could come.
I was hooked!
(photo found on 780tuners)
(photo by carguyjon on mrheavyfoot.com)
(By the second event I'd figured out that picking shoe-polish off the window trim was a PITA so I made my first set of magnets.
)
But I wasn't eligible for "stock", this blew! So what if I'd modded my car first.
The "Stage 1" was reversible, but the rear strut bar was something I didn't want to mess with... There were some other "new guys" in similar cars too! Rei in an 06 WRX, who got bumped to ESS because of his short shifter & Andrew who was in DM because his Celica GT4 was "JDM-yo!". So there were guys in comparable cars to gauge myself against. (Stage 1 2.0L WRX vs. 2.5L WRX vs. JDM 2.0L Turbo AWD Celica)
I was having a great time, but some mods were probably in my future... The car rolled too much so I got a front swaybar that a wagon owner (tmah!) had ordered, but didn't want to do the hassle of fitting to his car. I also picked up a catted (which I wanted to be environmental, and because even race cars run them) Turboback exhaust from sleeper!
I bought these from Rally Subaru, long after they stopped selling aftermarket parts they apparently still had a box of 'em in the back room:
The pile of parts was growing:
But I live in a condo, so I couldn't exactly "pop down out to the garage" to install them.
I got them installed by Subracing (technically by STiPWR, who was working there at the time) they installed my TBE just fine (even if they did re-use all the gaskets.
).
However, they did me a favour when they installed the bushings for my FSB backwards, y'know what it was?
Lying in my in-laws driveway I pulled off the undertray, the subframe, and re-installed the swaybar with the bushings in the correct orientation, and that "leveled up" my confidence when it came to working on my car!
Heck, I helped a bunch of people install their FSB.
Get out there & wrench, post a "call for help" and people will show up and teach you, then you can teach the next person.
I got to install my endlinks too, and to anyone who says the rear endlinks don't make a difference, that's not true. I enjoyed the upgrade even on a stock RSB.
I also did some more small mods like debadging & painting the towhook.
That setup was what I rocked at the first ASC trackday too!
Lining up to go on track:
(Tommy_Tequila marshaling, Theostubs talking, Jitenshakun instructing, Airboy waiting behind me, Stephen Tory behind Airboy)
Zoom!
Coming off the track:
As part of the Subieclub "world meet" we had a BBQ at LightSpeed (my last name (which is, y'know, the same as the e-mail I was communicating with them with) was mis-spelt in Subiesport.
)
But the best part of that meet, wasn't even anything that happened at it.
It was the fact that the swag for it arrived *after* the meet. So we had some magazines and stuff to give away. So I got to meet in person and chat 1-on-1 with Chavez, mars636 (now *there*'s a good guy to chat with), and some others I can't recall.
Other than a wheel swap, that was also my "winter" (and winter auto-x) setup at the time: