Hey everyone, just thought I'd share my weekend with you. It is motorsports related so it has some relevance. 8)

Less than 2 weeks ago friend and pro rally driver Ramana Lagemann decided he wanted to qualify for the X-Games. There were only 2 spots left and the Maine Forest rally was the final opportunity to make the field of 12 X-Games competitors. The car is a 1994 Escort Cosworth ex-Group A car with a 7 speed dog box, Mountune built 2.0L motor, and an insane Pectel Motorsport ECU. The car breathes through a 34mm restrctor and makes nearly 400 ft/lbs through that small opening! After prepping the car, the 10 year old ECU gave us loads of problems due to corrosion on the bottom of the board. This cut testing short before the rally but we managed to get the car sorted by 5:00 AM the morning of the rally start. Long story short, Ramana drove the wheels off the thing to a 2nd place finish, later to be bumped to 1st after it was discovered the 1st place vehicle had been late for a time control at a Parc Expose, relegating him to 5th after the 24 second penalty was handed out. We ended up beating all of the Factory Subaru cars (with Travis Pastrana and Ken Block behind the wheels) as well as everyone else, many of whom had very modern cars with active center differentials and sequential gearboxes. I could go on and on, so I will stop there but keep an eye out for us at the X-Games in a few weeks!

The entire team did an awesome job too! Thumbs up to the rest of the DentSport crew (Bill, Q, Al, plus WeeGee and Tim).






My first taste of the champaigne on the podium....god was it sweet!

Look for the DentSport Garage Team Cosworth Escort piloted by Ramana Lagemann and Mike Fennell on Saturday, August 5th at 3:00 PM on ABC.

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/rally/29468/

http://www.dentsport.com/

 

great job! i love the car!

 

good job.

any more photos of the car (underside/underhood)?

 

CF door cards and heel plates




Beefest turbo ever, MARM247 shaft and exhaust wheel loves the bangin' antilag.




Straight out of the Ford Motorsport GpA prep manual




The skid plates are unreal on this thing.


The coolest car we have ever had at the shop....

 

Incredible

I am foaming at the mouth for the X-games rally

 

Congrats!

 

Congrats matt and the crew at DSG!!

 

Bah,,, i ALWAYS miss the rallys here in maine.....Some day im finally gonna make it to one.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Downey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">great job! i love the car!</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

Vermont huh? Where abouts? I've always wanted to go to a rally...looks like I missed the Maine rally again. oh well Always next year.


Travis

 

The car is owned by Weegee Smith out of Burlington. Definately try to go out to a rally! Volunteering on the course gets you into some areas not normally accessable to the fans. Otherwise, a good map and compass can get you into some of the best places to watch from.

 

Lol i knew u where up to no good matty. Awsome job guys Keep up the good work

 

Nice. They operate out of a shop up there or is it a private owner? I'm only 2hrs from there (south east VT) but I lived in burlington for a summer a few years ago. You know if there are any rallys in VT or close comming up?


Thanks,
travis

 

goodluck to you guys....and hopefully I can catch it on abc


o btw MKTUNING

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nfn15037 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Definately try to go out to a rally! .</TD></TR></TABLE>
Congratulations on a job well done and thank you for bringing the news to us. We don't get much rally information here.

VIR and Summit Point both have rally courses, now, but neither is used enough.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by George Knighton &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

VIR and Summit Point both have rally courses, now, but neither is used enough.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I had no idea!

Update on the TV coverage:

August 5th 5:30 PM EST on ABC check it out!

We also had the car repainted for the sponsors. The new color looks awesome. The car left on Thursday for LA, they should arrive today some time. Myself and another engineer fly out tomorrow at 6:15 AM. If anyone is going to be attending the X-Games come find us in the paddock.



Thanks to Right Guard Xtreme (Gillette) and Stinger for the help!

 

Would it be too much to ask for incar footage from xgames when it's over

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by essex &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Would it be too much to ask for incar footage from xgames when it's over </TD></TR></TABLE>

x2!

 

If I can swing it, I am going to put my personal camera in the car. I don't think Ramana will mind, it's just a matter of having the time to do it. Hopefully I can get it set up during testing on Monday in Mojave. I wonder of my camera will stand up to rally abuse? It does fine on track/auto-x. Otherwise, we will probably get a copy of the footage from the network just to have.....some unidentified person may even post it on one of those anonymous video dump sites

 

I'd love to see personal footage from your cam...if you can do it that would be rockin Good luck anyways

 

Nice! Carl Merill's old car? Indeed, it's a bad *** machine originally owned by a bad *** man that lived life to the fullest and died hav'n a good time.
Good luck at the games, kick sube ***.
We tried to qualify for the games 2WD at STPR, but did'nt make it past the shake down stage.....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rallybird &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Nice! Carl Merill's old car? Indeed, it's a bad *** machine originally owned by a bad *** man that lived life to the fullest and died hav'n a good time.
Good luck at the games, kick sube ***.
We tried to qualify for the games 2WD at STPR, but did'nt make it past the shake down stage.....</TD></TR></TABLE>

Wow, thats insane that it's Carl Merills old car!
He was from my hometown in Maine.

 

That thing is awesome! Congrats on the victory!

On a related note, we just had Colin McRae's STI at our shop a couple weeks ago. VT sportscar brought it along with a tuner from japan to make a tune to use on that and another energy drink sponsored car. I practicly interview those guys when they visit

The work that goes into these cars is really inspiring. It doesnt surprise me DSG is involved in building competitive rally cars. Keep up the good work guys!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Penfold &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Merills old car!
</TD></TR></TABLE>


WoW!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bailhatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">That thing is awesome! Congrats on the victory!

On a related note, we just had Colin McRae's STI at our shop a couple weeks ago. VT sportscar brought it along with a tuner from japan to make a tune to use on that and another energy drink sponsored car. I practicly interview those guys when they visit

The work that goes into these cars is really inspiring. It doesnt surprise me DSG is involved in building competitive rally cars. Keep up the good work guys!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I flew into Long Beach this morning, and am posting this from Best Western north of LA on the 5 Freeway. Tomorrow AM up earlly to get out to Mojave and do testing.

That guy from MoTeC Japan allegedly designed the 4G63 motor! From what he has said, the motors are tuned to the ragged edge, they only expect 200-300 miles from them. Very cool that they were actually at your shop!!

Yes this is indeed Carl's old car. Weegee owns the car now and rents it out. Ramana really likes the car and it is very fast and comfortable in it. Hopefully he gets a good result! I can't wait to meet Colin and Nicki! This is like a rally wet dream to be involved with this stuff