Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast

We took the Pike's Peak car to High Plains Raceway for a shakedown. The day didn't exactly go to plan, but we did learn some really important things.  One of the main ones being that a lot of the small things that you can do to make the car better, can make the car a lot faster. Scotty is in the process of rebuilding his engine after having a catastrophic engine failure.  At this point,...

The Competition Director for the American Rally Association (ARA) Preston Osborn joins us to discuss his new role with the ARA, rally safety, and the future of rally in America. We discuss how he got started with rally, winning championships, and how that prepared him for his switch from competitor to director. We also talk about the future and direction of Subaru with the upcoming WRX and STI. Th...

We sat down with Ryan from DSX Motorsports, Tasso from OTC Racing, and Scotty from the shop to catch up on the events of the past few weeks. Tasso and Dussex both drove at Gridlife Alpine Horizon, Dussex in Time Attack, and Tasso in the Rally Sprints. The Rally Sprints were a new addition this year, and they were run by Rally Ready Driving School as a bracket elimination. This format created...

Cole is a driver that we have followed for several years now, first because of all that he did with the Lyfe Motorsports GTR Time Attack car. He has competed in that car in many Time Attack events, including the World Time Attack event in Sydney Australia, and he still holds many track records here in the US. He has even brought that car to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and we have race...

Few people have run as many different types of cars in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb as Rhys Millen. He has run front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and all-wheel cars in the Pikes Peak Hill climb from when the race was fully dirt, up to the present day where the entire road is now paved. Not only that but he has also run both internal combustion engine cars as well as fully electric cars in the race...

Scotty, Ryan from DSX Motorsports, and Tasso from OTC Racing are all coming off of a big weekend of racing. Tasso ran the Continental Divide Hill Climb, his first event in over a year. He walks us through his mental preparation after such a long break, how he got up to speed again, and how he did. Scotty and Ryan ran with the NASA group at Pueblo Motorsports Park and they both had a really product...

We got the crew from Professional Awesome to join us to talk about Records, Time Attack, and a lot more. We have been a fan of the Professional Awesome Podcast and the parts that they have started to make for a while now, and they have definitely inspired some details of our builds on a couple of cars, Scotty's 2011 STI in particular. They have a fantastic Podcast as well (which you should check o...

We sit down with our driver Scott Crouch, Ryan Dussex from DSX Motorsports, and Scotty from our shop. We go over our experiences running the 2021 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.  This was the 99th running of the race, and our 10th consecutive year competing. We made a few positive changes to our race car, a 2014 WRX, and we saw signs in testing that we were headed into race week on the r...

Ryan from DSX Motorsports was able to help crew for our Pikes Peak race car over a weekend of testing as we were getting ready to run in the 2021 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. For this episode we start out talking about our experiences testing on the mountain. Ryan made an observation that nearly every part that is on our Pikes Peak race car is also available for sale on our website. We dis...

When you are getting ready to go to the track for a track day or even a race, does your car have to be perfect before you put it on the trailer?  This has been a topic of discussion here lately and it has broken down into two groups: Those that think, "Yes, the car has to be perfect and running 100% before going to an event," and "No, just get it as close as possible and figure it out once yo...

We all love to go to the track or to an event to drive our cars. It is one of the most fun things we can think of doing. But sometimes everything else about going to a track or an event can be stressful. Sometimes so stressful that it can take some of the fun out of the day altogether. We have talked about this a bit around the shop, and we all sort of discovered that this has been something that...

Mid-week bonus episode!  Right as we were wrapping up recording episode #28 of the podcast, Tasso had a question that he wanted to throw out. He had just acquired a Miata shell that he intended to turn into a race car, but he wasn't sure what to do with it. It also turned out that Blake and Kelsey had also just got a Miata that they intended to turn into a race car as well. Thanks for listeni...

The inspiration for this conversation was to talk to Dave and Bucky about their first run in One Lap of America in a Subaru STI S209 and to talk about Lasek Rallysport which they just launched as a part of the Rally Ready Driving School. One Lap of America is a truly unique event that places a unique set of demands on both the car and drivers and Bucky is putting together a number of videos docume...

For episode 30 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsport Podcast, we have Scott Crouch, Andy Kingsley, Dave Kern, Stephan Verdier, and Victor Kuhns joining Tasso and Jon to talk about the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. As we are getting ready for the 2021 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, we had the idea to reach out to a few fellow competitors that we have run this race with over the years to have a discu...

For episode #29 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsport Podcast, we have the usual crew on hand with Ryan from DSX Motorsports, and Tasso from OTC Racing. We had not caught up with them for a few episodes, and Scotty had also taken his car to the track for the first time since he finished all of his winter projects, so that is the first part of our discussion for this episode. Nigel is on as well be...

For episode #28 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast, we have Victor, Blake, and Kelsey from the DM Rally Team as our guests with Tasso from OTC Racing. A few weeks ago, the SCCA Clifton Hillclimb was held in Clifton Arizona, and Victor was there running his JDM GC STI rally car, and Blake and Kelsey were running their N/A Subaru GC Rally car as well. We had not been to this event, so th...

Through 2020, Jeanette (Red Queen Racing) had started to work at Pikes Peak International Raceway, and one of the things that she organized there were some Women's driving clinics and track days in addition to the other events that were put on.  There was a great response from these, and we wanted to bring Jeanette on to talk about what she was doing at PPIR, and about these events. In talkin...

For Episode #26 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast, we sit down with Olly Clark from Roger Clark Motorsports to talk about all things Roger Clark. We start off by getting a sense of where Olly and his brother Matt got started with racing and Subaru's, and how that turned into what Roger Clark Motorsports is today. We also get some great insight about where the first Gobstopper race car...

For Episode 25 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast, we start off talking with Ryan from DSX Motorsports and Jeanette from Red Queen Racing about driving in the Global Time Attack event at The Ridge in Washington State. From there we open up a topic that has come up around the shop here a few times. Do you have to be humble as a driver to improve and get faster? Getting faster and being...

For Episode 24 of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast, I had the chance to sit down with Dave from Rallispec and pick his brain about pretty much every aspect of the Subaru drivetrain. Dave founded Rallispec over 20 years ago, and he has a wealth of experience building pretty much every type of Subaru from modified street cars, Rally Cars, and track cars. He has more experience with just about any kin...

The RPM Act has been stuck in Congress for a few years now, but with recent developments, it is more important now than ever. The main reason for this is that there is now a court case in Arizona Between Gear Box Z and the EPA that could set the precedent that you cannot convert a production vehicle into a vehicle built for race use. The RPM Act would make it permanently clear that you are allowed...

For episode 22 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsports Podcast, we catch up with Ryan from DSX Motorsports to talk about his experience running Super Lap Battler at Circuit of the Americas a couple of weeks ago. This was the first event that Ryan ran his new Super Taikyu STI, so there was a lot to discuss. From there, we move into a discussion about what to do in terms of going through your car aft...

For Episode 21 of the Flatirons Syndicate Podcast, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Clint from Turn-in Concepts and Micah from 3MI Racing. The inspiration for this came a few weeks when I called Clint to see if he might have a stock length rod in stock. His response was that he couldn't remember the last time that Turn in Concepts had built an engine with a stock-length rod. If yo...

If you have been building your car for a while, and especially if you are starting to think about competing with your car, there is going to be a point where you will most likely have to add a roll cage and some other safety equipment to your car that will make it a full-blown race car.  But before you go past this point of no return, is it better to build your own race car, or is it better t...

For episode #19 of the Flatirons Syndicate Motorsport Podcast, we first catch up with Ryan from DSX Motorsports, and we talk about the new race car that he has picked up. Tasso from OTC Racing is on the podcast as well, and we all discuss what 2021 might have in store. For this Podcast, we are trying something a little different once again, and we recorded this full episode on Zoom. So with a litt...