[svxhunter]

Well, I'm afraid I didn't represent you guys very well.

The SVreX did really well in the first event- the Autocross. We really had it extremely well sorted out. It seemed there was no limit to how fast we could throw it into corners. It was a total blast to drive!! There were, however, some extremely strong competitors in this field, and some hired gun national champion drivers. We chose to not use the pro drivers.

Second event- the Concourse judging. We did better than last year, partly due to the new paint job and detailing. But the competition has really raised the bar, and we lost a few points in the standings. Still, our ghost graphics and the hood props gave us a great look.

The drags caused us a lot of trouble. First we suffered from traction problems, of all things. The one problem I've never had with an SVX! It started with a slippery track, then we realized our Azenis probably had enough wear to be a little hard, so we switched to the Cooper Cobras we had along. Next we found that a piece of metal had fallen into the FWD fuse slot, slightly shorting the connection and delivering most of our power to only the front wheels (inconsistantly- whenever it felt like giving us trouble). Once we got our traction issues sorted out, we started getting some great jumps- many sub 2 second 60' times with a couple as low as 1.7 seconds. Unfortunately, the tranny we cobbbed together out of 2 cores finally started giving us some woes. Our great jumps were followed by nice firm shifts from 1st to 2nd, but when we got to about 65 mph the tach would just soar, as the tranny searched for 3rd. Occasionally we could find it by letting off a little, but it was extremely inconsistant and it was really late in the day. So, our great starts were followed by disappointing finishes as we simply couldn't find the gears. We never got out of the 15's. One pass was a 1.9 60' with a 15.0 second 1/4 mile at 86 mph. What the heck is that??? I never gave the car the full nitrous juice we were prepared for. I saw no point in risking the motor, if we couldn't get any top speed.

We were still the highest placing Subaru, but it's a little unfair as we were the only one. We finished 25th out of 63 cars this year.

Anyway, the car has given me nothing but joy for over a year of hard driving. She'll be retired from GRM and drag racing now, and be put to use a a dedicated autocrosser. I may still be able to make some adjustments and find her 3rd and 4th gears again, but we have definitely pushed the limits of what we will be able to do with this car at the GRM Challenge, and it is time to move on. The competition is so intense that we will not be able to accomplish anything else with this car.

Now I can put some effort into finishing my Claret 5-speed !! And get to work on my next monster garage creation!! (probably still a Subie- maybe still SVX based!!)

Thanks for all the support you have all offered. There is no question that the SVreX's success was a group effort, and that it never would have been what it was, nor probably existed at all, if not for the SVX World Network. You guys are the best.

Hope you feel the love!!