#rally

“You are going to stand in the middle of a forest, in the dead of winter, for hours on end, to catch a glimpse of 30 cars driving by?”

Yup. This is winter rally racing and to those not involved in the automotive culture, spectating at such events sounds downright insane.

Is it possible for gear heads to do something good with their obsession of all things automotive?

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be in a real Formula 1 race car? DXL SuperCar Driving Programs offers that and more.

Welcome back to AutoGuide’s exploits at the  Mazda Adventure Rally. We rejoin team Eunos Cosmo (Sami and Mike) as they hunt for big screen landmarks, highway signs and a trip to an historically hallowed ground. Do they still have a chance at first place? We’ll know soon.

Despite the dizzying altitude, wild roads, gusty winds and the sheer worry of not knowing what you’re doing all the time, the thing that wears on me the most this morning is realizing that despite our best efforts we’re just in third place.

Testing is underway after earlier spy photos of the new Subaru WRX emerged this morning showing the car driving to the Nurburgring.

Over a year ago, Excite Rallye Raid Team announced that it would be competing in the Dakar Rally with a race-prepped Range Rover Evoque. The British rally team has unveiled the first photos of its Dakar Rally competitor.

Toyota’s new TMG performance division is debuting the production model,  Yaris R1A racer, at the ninth round of the WRC.

Crowdsourcing ideas from your fans seems to be the ‘in’ thing to do right now: first Stillen offered its fans an opportunity to design its Scion FR-S body kit, and now Motegi Racing is asking its fans to make its Ford Fiesta look amazing.

25 years ago, when the 4,301 meter hill climb was pure gravel, Rohrl threw his Audi around 156 cliff-side corners, four-wheel drifting his way to the summit to set a record breaking time of 10 minutes, 47.85 seconds.

Since then, Rohrl has been dethroned by the likes of Nobuhiro “Monster” Tajima and the Unlimited class Suzuki SX4 Hill Climb Special, climbing the modern Pikes Peak in 9 minutes 51.278 seconds. However, the hill climb course itself is now completely paved with tarmac and while that provides better grip for the cars to climb faster, this dampens the sheer danger and spectacle of its gravel past.

This year, Walter Rohrl and his record-setting Audi Sport quattro S1 will return to Pikes Peak for an exhibition drive. Although Rohrl will not be competing on the main event, race fans will certainly be excited to see their childhood heroes back together again.

Check out footage of Walter Rohrl’s 1987 Climb in his Audi Sport quattro S1 after the jump:

Another video of the highly anticipated Toyota GT 86 has emerged, showing off the process behind turning the rear-wheel drive sports coupe into a competitive rally car.

The 49 second clip doesn’t detail too much about the rally car, simply teasing us about the looks. However, the Toyota 86 looks like a superb specimen for rally racing.  The video mainly gives us a perspective into the focused engineers prepping their new rally car. Hopefully more clips will follow this one that will further explain how the Toyota 86 rally car came to be.

The vehicle will be entered in the Tour de Kyushu Rally Race. Check out the full video below.

Lotus Racing has formally announced its motorsports program for the 2012 season, where we’ll see the highly anticipated Exige R-GT make its race debut in the FIA European Rally Championship. In addition, the British automaker will enter this year’s European Le Mans Series in an Evora GTE and will also be supporting drivers in the CIK-FIA Under-18 Kart World Championship.

Rallycross is clearly catching on in America, as the Team O’Neil Rally School will now be offering a trio of two-day Rallycross classes in 2012. Located in northern New Hampshire, the rally school consists of a 6.5-mile forest road course, separate skid pad & braking zone, obstacle avoidance area and a slalom course.

Dacia has taken quite a different approach in revealing its latest minivan, Lodgy. Rather than traveling the usual auto show circuit and looking pretty on rotating pedestals, a unique, race-prepped Dacia Lodgy has been made to compete in France’s ice rally series, the Trophée Andros, months before any information on the production model is available.

Ford presented a concept model showing what a future Fiesta ST might look like when it joins the Focus ST in the company’s high-performance small car offerings.

Targa Newfoundland, the ultimate North American tarmac rally, is organized every September for seven days and travels across 2,200 kilometers, or 1,200 miles, of amazing central Newfoundland road.