The Short wheelbase Evo 9 from Norris Designs disapeared into the workshop last year, a series of mechanical woes and trouble putting the power down led to a rethink by Norris Designs for their Time Attack entry.

Now in the newest shade of Kawasaki green and sporting Voltex Aero at the front its nearly ready, the car is a shortened evo 9 with a section removed from the center and a reprofiled roof creating a very different shape to the car.

I’m never a fan of silver mesh, but the canards show Simon means business in the downforce department

The car now sports CZT Hyper zero wheels as per the Zen performance Subaru

Spotted this at Oulton, rusty as hell and pretty beat but i’d love to be the owner, and the owner is sitting on a gold mine, MK2 Escorts are fetching stupid money these days.

Spied again on the Eiffel Rally i’d seen this car previously at the Chatsworth Rally show earlier this year the sound of the 4T-GTE is fantastic. Part of the slowly sideways group of group B car owners, this Celica does what it was built for rather than being a museum piece. The Celica was never suited to European rallying but found fame on the African continent its relative simplicity and rugged construction making it ideal for the touch conditions.

The car above is currently in a Safari specification, for anyone who’s interested there’s a build diary of a similar machine from MAT here:

http://www.mat.fi/n_index.php?nav=gallery_view&gallery=project1984toyotacelicaturbo.xml&g=13

The two photos are courtesy of www.rallyphoto.be

Phillip Morrow has been axed from the Mitsubishi rally team after just three rounds of the British championship.
The 24-year-old from Lisburn, a member of Britain’s elite young driver squad, has been left devastated by the decision to drop him just weeks before his home round of the series.
He was informed of the decision in a phone call on Wednesday telling him that the Mitsubishi team would not be supplying him with a car for the Ulster International on August 22/23 or for subsequent rounds of the championship.
Morrow won his place in the team alongside British champion Guy Wilks following his runaway success in the 2007 Mitsubishi Evo Challenge.Source : Belfast Telegraph

This isn’t something i’d usually comment on but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of any rally enthusiast and brings the Evo Challenge into disrepute, the first Evo Challenge driver has already resigned his championship place in disgust. The prize for next year has also been substantially reduced to simply a semi financed drive on Rally GB.

I’ve always been 50/50 with Mitsubishi’s handling of things like this, there quick to drop drivers, programmes and support when the numbers dont add up for the marketing department. I fully expect for Mitsubishi to just drop their program all together at the end of the year.

Had a great day at Oulton Park for the British Touring Car championship 28 degree’s on Sunday, good times i’ll write a little report soon so just one photo for now, not where you’d want to be with two cars side by side.

Atkinson’s impressed me this year previously he was just another rich boy with backing in a paid seat, but in 2008 he’s come of age and more often than not overturned Petter “its the car not me” Solberg.

I hate the mid season break in the WRC, bring on Finland, I think the new WRC looks hard yet I hate the group N and road cars go figure.

Sorry for the lack of content im off to the British Touring Car championship tommorow though

Pics courtesy of Rallyphoto.be

Impreza’s and Evo’s are increasingly being used in robberies and by criminals often stolen to order in car jackings, the ideal escape vehicle. Naturally the police have to be one step ahead and both the Evo and Impreza have been used by police forces since the GC8 and Evo 6.

You’d have no luck running from these examples from Essex polices ANPR intercept team  , these cars are driven to their full potential in the pursuit of UK criminals.

Gymkhana is one of those tuner sports that captures my interest both as an Evo enthusiast and a motorsport enthusiast, i’m a big fan of Monster Sport products and for those who may not be aware Monster are both a Suzuki and Evo tuner.

Gymkhana or autocross takes place on closed circuits usually short in lengh often based at much larger circuits and involves piloting a vehicle around a set course of cones.

Courses are typically 1-2km paved circuits, the championship rules are strict to maintain the sport at an enthusiast and gentleman driver level most of the top drivers have full time jobs the All Japan Gymkhana Championship being the top of the ladder.

Its a grass routes sport without the politics some of the major championships have, and hugely popular due to its comparatively easy entry and close specification machinery. One of the most successful drivers is Tetsuya Yamano taking 12 titles.

The key to winning in this formula is handling and maneuverability one particular car that stands out is Kazuteru Kawawaki Monster Sport Evo.

Monster sport appear to be a big player in this category with a number of drivers sporting their products

The Evo from generation 5-9 seems to be the choice platform Kawawaki’s 9 on Enkei rims looks super aggressive, the cars visually look very similar to their Super Taikayu counterparts.

Autobacs RX8

It’d be unusual to see this kind of machinery in our national championships, the Japanese just take their competition and motorsport to another level the shear wealth of formula is amazing, hopefully i’ll show you a little more over the coming weeks.

There’s something about the atmosphere on Japanese rally events, the JRC still seems to be thriving split into three classes RN, RJ and RF events cater for anything from a Daihatsu Boon to Evo x. Adopting primarily a group N format much like our own national championship events are both gravel and tarmac.

The recent rally Hokkaido was won by Noriko harmony Hiroshi Kitamura/Takeshita in an Impreza, with Katsuta in the new Impreza Sti still leading the championship, the new Evo x group N is scheduled to make its competition debut at rally Finland so expect to see the Evo fight back late season.

Group N STI, not keen on these in gravel spec but Subaru stole a march on Mitsubishi by getting the new STI homologated earlier in the season, although the Evo X reportedly has issues with power.

Daihatsu Boon X4 of Keiko Masato Sekine/Igarashi in the JN2 class, the Boon is 4 wheel drive 100cc turbo engine producing 133hp with a kerb weight of 960kg

Trusty Evo 8 still looking fresh on the stages

Mitsubishi Colt 1500cc looks a little high to be a rally car

In another news, hilarious babelfish j-translation of the day goes to

Run sir evo, run followed by

Thanks to dropJay as well for blogging my site hope you enjoy reading, cheers for the support

The 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo WRC was hyped as the replacement for the venerable evo 6 which had taken Tommi Makinen to the drivers championship on no less than 4 seperate occasions. By 2000 the group A Lancer was beggining to lag behind the newer WRC class cars from Subaru, Peogeot and a resurgant Ford, the time had come to build a car to the WRC class regulations.

The Evo 7 WRC was produced and developed by rugby based Ralliart who’d prepped and maintained nearly every evo generation to date, the FIA allowed Mitsubishi to run an interim 6.5 (homologated based on the Tommi Makinen addition) to bridge the gap between the 6 and the 7.

Still using the 4G63 engine in much the same specification as the 6.5 but now with the chassis taking full advantage of the new rules suspension travel was increased by 45mm curing the bottoming out the older evo’s often suffered in group A trim the larger wheelbase also offering improvements in high speed stability at the expense of low speed turn in.

The car debuted on 2001 San Remo rally the car hampered by transmission troubles Tommi eventually ended the rally after collecting a cliff face, the previous Evo’s had been built to suit champion Tommi Makinen but the flying fin struggled to get to grips with the 7. He was on course to take another title that year but the car no longer brought him the success he’d enjoyed previously, prompting a move to Subaru for 2002.

Mitsubishi’s financhial problems and seemingly a lack of development and investment by the company resulted in the withdrawl of the Evo 7 WRC at the end of the 2002 season.