Final Post Here...

Not that anyone is really coming here other than bots and such at this point but...if you are a human...and you do come here...and have any interest in what I am doing now or thoughts I have, etc....I have transitioned over to my own site now.

It will be more photo heavy but still contain a blog but one that will be 50% less snarky...

That's all...carry on and if you wish to visit....the link is here:  www.danspalinger.com

CRG-I Do Borrow Nissan Altima and Sarah Cattaneo Finish 5th in Season Debut

A real solid result against some top competition at the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge at Daytona yesterday.  The car itself has a long history in sportscar racing and is originally the Skullcandy Altima that raced all over the country for the past few years.

The CRG-I Do Borrow effort switched from a Honda Civic last year to this Altima and have been doing quite well.  Ahead of Cattaneo's 5th place finish were three Porsche Caymans and the winning JCW Mini.  In fact, the Altima turned the fastest lap of the race at 103.6 mph but didn't have the consistency to put it on the podium this time.  Looking forward to more solid finishes out of this effort in '17 at the rest of the IMSA schedule.

If anyone can provide a link to this team's webpage or even Facebook page it would be appreciated as I can't find anything but the individual driver's personal pages...

BMW Endurance Challenge at Daytona '17 results...

Reminder...Raana Horan Still Kicks Ass in His Nissan Titan in New Zealand

Its been a while since I checked in on Raana...but he is still on the other side of the planet and still running strong.  This past '16 season Raana finished first in his class for the year and accumulated the third most points of any racer in the ORANZ (Off Road Association of New Zealand) series.  The Nissan Titan he runs is more of a tube frame vehicle and not a Titan as you can buy off the lot and the engine is a supercharged VK56.  Raana has been racing and winning in New Zealand with this truck for the better part of a decade now, showing that the engine can be a long term powerhouse winner.  If you want to follow along with Raana and his team Big Black Motorsport you can see them here: Big Black Motorsport FB page...

and you can check out the ORANZ homepage here:  ORANZ Homepage...

Yours Truly on the Nissan Nation Podcast!

Yup...interviewed about the NISMO Stuff Racing Frontier, its history, its present and its future.  Great working with Daniel Grooters (who has his own Nissan racing effort underway) and David Boyd to do this.  Keep up the good work boys!

Scroll down here to play episode 37 of their podcast where my long segment is.

Episode 37 of Nissan Nation Podcast!!

National Motocross Returns to Southwick!

I hadn't realized this until now (about three months behind the news) but its great news for offroad racing of any kind here in the Northeast.

After two years away, a change in promoters, a reacquiring of town permits and a rebuilding of its AMA relationship, the sand of Southwick, MA will see a national level motocross event in '16.  Last held in '13 with the 450 class won by Ryan Dungey and the 250 class won by Broc Tickle, the Southwick event is likely the largest pure offroad event in New England and its not likely that anything is even a close second.

Scheduled for Saturday 7/9/16 tickets are already on sale and available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/red-bull-southwick-national-motocross-2016-tickets-19320759913

I can tell you from having attended the event before, if you are going to attend, be prepared for a hot day and TONS of people with little room if you are holding a "general admission" ticket.  This was about as or more crowded an event as any concert I've been to with long lines for bathrooms and food/drink.  The action is great and you can be right on top of the track, the grounds are beautiful with the greenest of grass and pine trees and the most wonderfully tan sand/dirt track manicured as if it were Augusta National...but its not an event for those looking for cushy conditions on the cheap...If you have the ability to buy a VIP ticket that includes an all day pit pass, private bathroom and viewing areas, they are highly recommended.

Regardless, it will be great to has such a prestigeous and nationally known offroad event return to New England.  Website here: http://thewick338.com

NORRA Announces Dates, Payment Plan, New Classes and More...

NORRA (National Off-Road Racing Association) has sent out invitations to prior racers and announced a number of changes to vehicle classes amongst other changes.  Some of the racer beneficial changes include a payment plan starting this month so you can stretch the cost out over a long period of time.  One of the class changes includes the elimination of a "rally" class and now includes three Rally-Raid classes (I would imagine "Rally-Raid Production" would cover most stage rally vehicles) and divides vehicles into a number of categories based on age and eliminates an "overall" winner (though adds an "overall" winner for each age category).

I don't know (OK, I'm pretty sure I won't) if I will return to this race in '16 but it was such a great/horrible/wonderful experience for me as a racer I can't help but recommend it to any rally/offroad racer out there.  Nowhere else in North America will you have a chance to race some 1000 miles in a single rally event.  Kudos to NORRA to continuing to make changes that benefit racers and not remaining static.

NORRA 2016 Announcement

Emil Khneisser and his Nissan Patrol Take Third in Baja Italia

Not bad for a debut effort.  Not bad for a 47 year old driver.  Not bad for a full time corporate exec.  Not bad of this first time in Europe.  It was well done over all and a podium finish despite a flat and a small off is a great result.

Baja Italia was round five if the FIA's Cross Country World Cup and saw 12 entrants in Khneisser's T2 class (production vehicles, not the top of the line custom T1 entrants).  Two of the top three finishers were in Nissan Patrols which are Infiniti QX80 here in the States.  The Patrol has become the deficit go to race vehicle for the rich middle eastern customers looking to go compete with the big boys without going to a full T1.

Story on Khneisser's performance here:  http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/business/qatar-business/347593/kneisser-and-patrol-shine-in-european-baja-debut


And an early video on the introduction of the T2 Patrol below:

Women of Off-Road Racing...

I saw the original article a while ago and now they have come out with Part 2.  While I love women in bikinis (who doesn't?) it was cool to see this article with all of these hard core women in off-road.

I have actually met two of these women personally--Judy Smith and Nicole Pitell-Vaughn and both are extremely impressive in their own rights and accomplishments.

Both articles are worth reading for realizing the depth and breadth of female competitors in off-road sports/racing.  I just with they had included perhaps a female stage rally racer in here as well--perhaps Nathalie Richard?




Women of Competitive Off-Road Racing Part 1...

Women of Competitive Off-Road Racing Part 2...

Global RallyCross and Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series 11/15-11/16 TV Ratings

These are from the weekend of 11/15 and 11/16.  The LOORRS broadcast had the more favorable slot in that it was shown on Saturday, up against significantly weaker college football broadcasts vs. the 11/16 GRC show which faced off against nationally televised NFL football.  The GRC broadcast was a showdown between Joni Wiman and Ken Block for the 2015 driver's title with Wiman coming out on top by finishing second to Block and garnering enough points to retain first place for the year (though his lack of a single win on the year will likely drive a change in the way GRC scores points for each event in '15)

Neither show fared that well, though the LOORRS show was no worse than its typical ratings.  GRC's 0.3 rating ties for its worst of the year and shortest of its brief existence.  This will wrap up GRC's programing for the year I would imagine and so I'll recap their ratings for their events below, prior to the weekend's full ratings.  Their high for the year was a 0.5, equating to 578,000 households and some 636,000 actual viewers and the low was a 0.3, equating to 350,000 and 382,000 viewers.  Overall this puts Global RallyCross a bit behind the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series shows as we will recap in the future.  Of note is the recent F1 ratings on NBC for the Brazil event which grabbed a 0.5 rating and two weeks prior a 0.7 rating for the USGP in Texas.  NBC paid $3 Million to acquire the rights to F1 in the US (prior to any production, talent, coverage costs), so to have LOORRS and GRC somewhat equaling those ratings with what is essentially a paid advertisement, costing the networks nothing, both can be viewed as being successful on their own terms.  Though when you compare the measly $3 million paid for F1 to the $2.4 billion Fox paid for NASCAR (not completely an apples to apples comparison but you get the idea) you understand how far behind in the Q ratings sports like F1, RallyCross or short course are from NAPCAR.

Global RallyCross 2015 Ratings:

5/24--0.4
6/22--0.3
7/20--0.5
7/26--0.3
8/03--0.3
9/20--0.5
9/21--0.3

NFL: Eagles-Packers (84%)	11/16	Fox	4:25-7:30pm	17.1
"Sunday Night Football": Patriots-Colts	11/16	NBC	8:30-11:15pm	13.6
NFL: (singleheader)	11/16	CBS	1:00-4:05pm	11.7
NFL: (regional)	11/16	Fox	1:00-4:15pm	10.1
College Football: Mississippi State-Alabama	11/15	CBS	3:30-7:15pm	6.6
College Football: Florida State-Miami	11/15	ABC	8:00-11:45pm	6.1
"Football Night in America"	11/16	NBC	7:30-8:15pm	5.4
College Football: Ohio State-Minnesota	11/15	ABC	12:00-3:30pm	4.3
"Fox NFL Sunday"	11/16	Fox	12:00-1:00pm	3.5
"The NFL Today"	11/16	CBS	12:00-1:00pm	2.8
College Football: Nebraska-Minnesota	11/15	ABC	3:30-7:15pm	2.3
College Football: Northwestern-Notre Dame	11/15	NBC	3:30-8:00pm	2.0
"Courage in Sports"	11/16	CBS	5:00-6:00pm	1.5
"College Football Today"	11/15	CBS	3:00-3:30pm	1.0
College Football: Texas-Oklahoma State	11/15	Fox	7:30-11:00pm	1.0
College Football: Washington-Arizona	11/15	Fox	3:30-7:15pm	0.9
ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating: Russia	11/16	NBC	4:00-6:00pm	0.9
"Fox College Saturday"	11/15	Fox	3:00-3:30pm	0.5
Ironman World Championship	11/15	NBC	1:30-3:00pm	0.5
"Notre Dame Football Pre-Game"	11/15	NBC	3:00-3:30pm	0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing	11/15	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.4
"College Football's Open Season: Vanderbilt"	11/15	CBS	2:00-2:30pm	0.4
"College Football's Open Season: Arkansas"	11/15	CBS	2:30-3:00pm	0.4
"World of X Games: ASP Surfing"	11/16	ABC	5:00-6:00pm	0.4
"The Grantland Basketball Hour"	11/16	ABC	4:00-5:00pm	0.3
Global Rallycross: Las Vegas	11/16	NBC	1:30-3:00pm	0.3
Spartan Race: Vermont	11/16	NBC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3

Article on UTVs Participating in Rally Racing...

Just wanted to post this on my own site in the rare case that someone comes to this page on their own or comes here due to a search.  I also wanted to try and make sure as much of the Rally community saw it as possible and given how much guff I get in the Rally community, I figure some might run across it here as well.  I did manage to get another article published.  This time it is over on ATV.com.

I interviewed Idaho resident Carl Marcum to talk about his use of a Polaris RZR as a stage rally vehicle and talk about the brief history and acceptance of UTVs in stage rally racing in North America in general.  The page has gotten 77 likes on Facebook, 3 tweets on Twitter and 6 thumbs up on Google+ so at least its gotten its message out there a little bit!  Thanks to Carl for the interview and thanks to ATV.com for publishing it!

The Evolution of UTVs in Rally Racing... 

9/20-9/21 LOORRS and GRC Weekend TV Ratings

Lots of good offroad motorsports events on Network TV this past weekend. NBC had two "live" GRC broadcasts from Los Angles where the results were Scott Speed (VW), Wiman (Ford), Block (Ford) on Day I and Rhys Millen (Hyundai), Block (Ford) and Wiman (Ford) on Day II. CBS meanwhile had a LOORRS broadcast of the Pro 2 and Pro 4 races from the Wild West Motorsports Park in Sparks, NV.

The Saturday broadcasts had an easier time of it only having to compete against a smattering of fairly uninteresting college games while the Sunday GRC show had to face off against the NFL. True to form the Saturday LOORRS and GRC shows pulled significantly higher ratings at a 0.5 for each (578,000 households and about 636,000 people viewing)than the Sunday GRC event that only generated a 0.3 rating (347,000 households and about 381,000 people viewing). Of note is that the weekend's NASCAR event from NH on Sunday saw a 2.2 rating (3.1 million viewers) and the Tudor United Sports Car Championship event at Circuit of the America's drew a 0.9 rating (1.1 million viewers), both running against the NFL.

From a historical perspective the 0.5 ratings for LOORRS and GRC on Saturday represent recent highs for both series and solid improvements from recent shows. The result is not however outside the "norm" for either series and can be considered a good but not spectacular result and at least the Sunday GRC broadcast beat out the European cycling event and canned golf preview show!!

TELECAST DATE NET TIME (ET) RATING
NFL: Broncos-Seahawks (89%) 9/21 CBS 4:25-7:30pm 16.9
"Sunday Night Football": Steelers-Panthers 9/21 NBC 8:30-11:30pm 12.3
NFL: (singleheader) 9/21 Fox 1:00-4:05pm 12.2
NFL: (regional) 9/21 CBS 1:00-4:25pm 11.1
College Football: Florida-Alabama 9/20 CBS 3:30-7:00pm 5.1
College Football: Clemson-Florida State 9/20 ABC 8:00-11:30pm 4.9
"Football Night in America" 9/21 NBC 7:30-8:15pm 3.3
"Fox NFL Sunday" 9/21 Fox 12:00-1:00pm 3.2
"The NFL Today" 9/21 CBS 12:00-1:00pm 2.9
College Football: Oklahoma-West Virginia 9/20 Fox 7:30-11:30pm 1.9
College Football: (regional) 9/20 ABC 3:30-7:00pm 1.7
MLB: (regional) 9/20 Fox 1:00-4:45pm 1.5
"College Football Today" 9/20 CBS 3:00-3:30pm 1.2
Tudor United SportsCar Championship:
Lone Star Le Mans (COTA) 9/21 Fox 5:00-6:00pm 0.9
PBR: Cooper Tires Desert Showdown 9/20 CBS 2:00-3:00pm 0.7
EPL: West Ham-Liverpool 9/20 NBC 12:30-2:30pm 0.7
Boxing: Fight Night 9/20 NBC 3:00-5:00pm 0.6
"World of X Games: Best of Austin" 9/20 ABC 2:00-3:30pm 0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series 9/20 CBS 1:00-2:00pm 0.5
"Premier League Goal Zone" 9/20 NBC 2:30-3:00pm 0.5
Global Rallycross 9/20 NBC 5:00-6:00pm 0.5
STIHL Timbersports Series 9/21 ABC 5:00-7:00pm 0.5
Diamond League Track & Field 9/21 NBC 2:00-3:00pm 0.4
"World of X Games: Big Wave Hellmen Preview" 9/21 ABC 4:00-5:00pm 0.3
Women's Rugby World Cup 9/21 NBC 3:00-4:00pm 0.3
Global Rallycross 9/21 NBC 5:00-6:00pm 0.3
"Road to the Ryder Cup" 9/21 NBC 1:30-2:00pm 0.2
Cycling: Vuelta a España 9/21 NBC 4:00-5:00pm 0.2
.

LOORRS Ratings From 9/13

Back on the weekend of 9/13 and 9/14 we saw a single offroad racing related broadcasts on Network TV.  On Saturday 9/13, CBS broadcast from 1:30-2:30 PM the LOORRS Pro2 and Pro4 racing at Glen Helen.  Positioned as a lead in for the days’ College Football broadcasts on CBS the program produced a 0.4 rating, with about 462,000 households tuned in and about 508,000 people viewing from home.  In comparison to other broadcasts this weekend this was the same rating as ABC’s “World of XGames: Real Ski Backcountry” show the following day from 5-6PM and was about half the audience of the weekend’s regional Fox MLB game.  The weekend’s #1 sports broadcast was the Chiefs-Broncos game on CBS that saw a 14.6 rating, about 17 million households turning the game on and at least 19 million viewers.

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
NFL: Chiefs-Broncos (56%)	9/14	CBS	4:15-7:30pm	14.6
"Sunday Night Football": Bears-49ers	9/14	NBC	8:30-11:45pm	14.0
NFL: (singleheader)	9/14	Fox	1:00-4:05pm	12.3
NFL: (regional)	9/14	CBS	1:00-4:15pm	9.9
College Football: Georgia-South Carolina*	9/13	CBS	5:00-8:45pm	4.2
"Football Night in America"	9/14	NBC	7:30-8:15pm	4.1
"Fox NFL Sunday"	9/14	Fox	12:00-1:00pm	3.2
"The NFL Today"	9/14	CBS	12:00-1:00pm	2.7
College Football: Tennessee-Oklahoma	9/13	ABC	8:00-11:45pm	2.2
College Football: UCLA-Texas	9/13	Fox	8:15-11:30pm	2.1
College Football: Purdue-Notre Dame	9/13	NBC	7:30-11:15pm	2.1
College Football: (regional)	9/13	ABC	12:00-3:00pm	1.9
College Football: Arkansas-Texas Tech	9/13	ABC	3:00-6:30pm	1.9
"College Football Today" (extended)	9/13	CBS	3:45-5:00pm	1.9
PGA Tour: The Tour Championship: Third Round	9/13	NBC	2:30-6:15pm	1.8
PGA Tour: The Tour Championship: Final Round	9/14	NBC	1:30-6:00pm	1.7
"College Football Today"	9/13	CBS	3:00-3:45pm	1.1
College Football: Illinois-Washington	9/13	Fox	4:15-7:30pm	1.0
MLB: (regional)	9/13	Fox	1:00-4:15pm	0.9
EPL: Liverpool-Aston Villa	9/13	NBC	12:30-2:30pm	0.8
LPGA: Evian Masters: Final Round	9/14	NBC	12:00-1:30pm	0.6
"Inside College Football"	9/13	CBS	2:30-3:00pm	0.5
Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series	9/13	CBS	1:30-2:30pm	0.4
"World of X Games: Real Ski Backcountry"	9/14	ABC	5:00-6:00pm	0.4

Throwback Thursday with Roger Mears...

This is the short course Pathfinder built by SPD products for Roger Mears and Sherman Balch racing and who were heavily involved in a number of Nissan racing projects over the years.  Not sure why they went with an SUV for this vehicle as a short course race would seem to suit a pickup much better...but what do I know!?!?!
SPD Prodcuts...

8000+ Miles to Glory...

That's how far we'll be driving over the next two weeks on our way to and from Cabo San Lucas in Baja, Mexico, starting from here in NH. 

Some 3000 miles of this will be done over the next few days as we transport the NISMO Stuff Racing Nissan Frontier sponsored by Body Armor Outlet and Gamer Soda to San Diego/Ensenada, Mexico where the race is to begin.  Then we will race some 1000 miles due South along the Baja Penninsula for the following four days and then return home.  The team and I will attempt to update this page and our personal FB and Twitter and Instagram accounts as we go along.  To find each of us on Facebook you can look for: Dan Spalinger, Elliott Sherwood and Paul Hartl and you can look me up on Twitter by the link on this page or under "NISMO Stuff" and on Instagram under "spalind"

For those of you who wish to see where we are exactly on our route, you can use this link to see where we are based upon my last Glympse update which tracks my  
phone: http://glympse.com/09F6-JQ2G
Once the race begins this coming Sunday 5/11 you will be able to track the race vehicle at this website which tracks us by a satellite transponder.  The event on the site is the NORRA Mexican 1000 and the links to tracking will not be "live" until about the beginning of the race so check back then for the "live" links:  http://www.racetheworld.net/ircstore/

Right now there are over 162 entries in the event with a number of full Dakar-spec vehicles and world class competitors included so we have no pretensions about winning anything, this is purely for the enjoyment of the adventure.  We hope you follow along and throw back a few tequilas and Tecates in common spirit while we are away.

Thanks to my wonderful wife Wendy who has supported me through this silly idea, my kids who I keep fresh in my mind every day and all those who have assisted and supported me over the years while I play little boy games with big boy toys.

The full NORRA Mexican 1000 website is linked below and contains info on the exact schedule, maps of the course, competitor listings and more.  When I find out where the daily scoring and results updates will be posted I will post that link directly here as well.

Vaya con dias!!

NORRA Mexican 1000 webpage...

Aussies At the Parker 425

A number of Aussies came over for Best in the Desert's Parker 425 this past weekend.  What makes Parker and the Aussies so interesting for me?  Well, its the inclusion of a number of Nissan powered buggies.  In Australia, due to rules allowing for turbo motors, Nissan motivated vehicles are a dime a dozen.

In the states however where turbos have been excluded from most desert racing classes the humble VW engine has been standard for smaller buggies and carbureted Chevy and Ford engines have been dominant for years.  In this year's Parker 425 however, BITD has loosened their rules a tad and are now beginning to allow turbos (and multiple turbos) in their top level classes.  One such class is the Unlimited buggy class, called "Class 1" or "1500 class" vehicles in BITD.

So there were three Aussie class 1500 buggies and actually one Aussie Trick Truck as well.  All three buggies were Nissan powered by a VQ35 engine.

The #1528 of Matt Hanson was a twin turbo Jimco that had been shipped over from Australia.

The #1507 Alumicraft of Garry Simpson had originally had a Honda powerplant but was swapped for the Nissan once it reached Australian stores.  Its VQ35 is naturally aspirated and is mated to a six speed Fortin sequential transmission.

The #1573 is  a brand new Raceco that Matthew Martin took delivery of just a few days before Parker and is also naturally aspirated.

The #47 Jimco trick truck was also just completed and delivered to its Aussie customer Steve Sanderson and is motivated by a Kroyer racing engines Chevrolet.

The results for the Aussies were excellent.  Two of the three buggies finished the race as well as the Trick Truck.  The only DNF was not caused by a mechanical failure or driver error but was due to a ruptured fuel cell from an impact by one Mr. BJ Baldwin and his Trick Truck.  Results were as follows:

#1528--finished 23rd overall and 5th in class out of 95 official finishers and 24 finishers in class
#1507--finished 21st overall and 3rd in class
#47--finished 27th overall and 17th in class

The drivers of these vehicles were blown away by the roughness of the course calling their premier event--the Finke Desert Race in Australia--a highway compared to the terrain in Arizona they encountered.  The most impressive finish of these drivers was the #1507 of Garry Simpson who was running his little 3.5L NA V6 engine against the 7 Liter V8s of the rest of the Class 1500 field.  Overall the Aussies showed that even in limited seat time on unseen terrain behind unproven vehicles, they can compete at the pointy end of North American desert racing.

New Writing Work!

Some of you might know that as a side (VERY side) job I used to be a "Senior Editor" at Nissan Sport Magazine.  That was until about a year ago when the magazine went belly up for lack of subscribers/advertisers (a chicken and egg thing).  Being a "Senior Editor" in title meant being a content creator of sorts crafting various articles and doing various writeups.  It was NOT an editorial position in the sense that work came to me and I cut it up, correct it, and fit it into the various issues that Nissan Sport was producing--far more a "writer" there than an editor.

Since the magazine closed up shop, this Blog has been pretty much my only writing outlet of interest and only one producing any side income (yes, this blog does generate income for me...VERY minimal...but I'll take what I can get).  But now, in part because of this blog and its content, I have been asked to contribute on a semi-regular basis to one of the most visited offroad racing websites in the world and certainly one of the most influential.

My first article for Race-Dezert.com was posted today, directly linked here:Dakar Stage 4 Recap...

I am tremendously excited by this opportunity as the site is read by thousands of people daily and is widely consumed by the big names within the sport itself--both the racers and the media surrounding it.  Hopefully not only do I get to work on topics that truly interest me but that my work is satisfactory to the Race Dezert owners and I get a few articles a month to work on.  A couple articles a month would pay for a nice tow vehicle for the race truck after all!!  So I'll be posting here when I do craft a new article posted on Race-Dezert just to make sure you all don't miss it!

Nissan Grabs a Podium Spot!

Finally!

It took till the last event of the South African offroad racing season (last weekend) to happen but Nissan finally grabbed a rung on the Donaldson Cross Country Championship ladder.  Even better is that it was a Nissan wearing the livery of the event's primary sponsor Atlas Copco (a Swedish industrial equipment company).

Gary Bertholdt and Siegfried Rousseau took their Nissan Navara to a third place finish in a time of five hours and twenty minutes--some 3 minutes adrift of the winner Willem Vos and his BMW X3.  In reaching out to Gary and asking him how the Navara performed this was his response "The Navara was fantastic. It is an amazing vehicle. It's very competitive with the works Fords and Toyotas and that was why we were able to get fourth in the championship ahead of one of the works Fords".  And this is in fact true.  The team of Bertholdt and Rousseau finished fourth on the year in the South African--Donaldson Cross Country Championship.  Not bad given that most of these top teams are headed to Dakar in about a month.

There were six Nissan's entered in the event and six of them finished with three in the top ten out of 30 entries.


South Africa Off-Road Racing...

Rallye Saguenay 2013, SS1, Spalinger/Dennis

This is the first external, long form video of a stage that I have captured for the team.  We have had prior video capture capabilities but I have not gotten my hands on the files or recorded them on a device I personally owned.

The video was captured on a ReplyXD 720 via a roof mounted position.  The video is available to watch in HD if you wish but is shown here in low defininition. The external microphone makes a mess of any audio in the video as you hear only the wind and such for the most part.

SS1 was a tight and rough (for the rally cars at least) stage.  We were slow due to driver caution and lack of confidence.  The truck itself performed well with no issues of any kind.  Dust was really bad if you closed with the rear of anyone which you can see we did not do here...

Rallye Sanair Video...

Unfortunately its not from us but it is from a fellow competitor, in a Civic no less!!

The NISMO Stuff Racing Frontier appears twice in the video, once at the beginning and once at the end.  And we are only getting passed in the beginning portion. You can also see that we turn on our directional to nicely point out where we would like the Civic to pass.

Also of note is that the Civic gets stuck during an off on the track and is rescued by the sweep--So there WAS some dirt/mud at play during this event!

Front Bumper Done, Shipping Soon...

The BTF front bumper for the NISMO Stuff racing Frontier is finally complete.  The picture here is without its skid plate which will be bolted on before shipping.  The additional center hoop will see two HIDs hang down from it while underneath them, mounted to the main tube will sit an LED bar.  I will need to spray the tube with an anti-rust coating and then a black topcoat of some type for additional protection.  The bare steel might work in the desert but not here in the humid, wet, salty, Northeast.

If anyone has a recommendation for the best (read cheapest) way to ship this bumper I would love to hear it as I haven't had anything this large shipped in many a year and BTF usually works on local projects and doesn't have a great deal of experience in shipping items this large.

Once "home" I'll update here with more pictures of it and its install as well as the lights and wiring duties.