Yaris Wins another Rally

[mojoyaris]

Just wanted to share this with the Yaris folks in Canada.
This will be our second win this year in Stage rallying with the Yaris NCP91 body. Our first win in P2wd class was at the Pacific Forest Rally in October up in Merrit BC.

Our most recent win. Same car, but my friend drove it this time and won overall 2wd and P2wd against some heavy competition from the US and Canada. Some very fast VW's with nearly twice the horse power and even the Porsche rally car couldn't keep up at the Big White Winter Rally last weekend.

The car is a stock Yaris and was driven by a 73 year old man named Taisto Heinonen.

If you don't know him. google search him.

Navigated by Leanne Junnila who was a codriver for the Subaru Canada rally team and current codriver for Verena Mei - google her and you'll probably have a smile on your face ;)

We plan to rally some more next year, so keep posted and cheer on the Yaris.
The little car that can!

This image below is from the gearbox magazine recently published. Of Myself and my co-driver Kevin.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/e43e743081b7e3508006ddd00c78417e/tumblr_mxj2gdcoWZ1rucafio1_1280.jpg

This pic below is from last weekends rally with Taisto and Leanne.
The car is much faster in the snow than on gravel roads where the big faster more powerful cars can pull away from the little Yaris. Although it was able to keep up with some pretty powerful Honda's and Volvo's.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/bfad8f5f399e99a529e02ec770721d1f/tumblr_mxok2fSjFd1rucafio4_1280.jpg

And another scenic shot up near Big White @ Gem lake.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/05c1e209ec86f8dfaa2601665f923547/tumblr_mxok2fSjFd1rucafio1_1280.jpg

Hope to see you soon at a rally somewhere in Canada and maybe he US.

[CTScott]

Great pictures!

What do you run for tires for snow stages?

[yougojay]

:coolpics:
Really nice photos - Reminds me of growing up out West of Chicago during the winter - lots of snow most years, especially the Winter of 1978-1979 :eek: Great Wallpaper, too - Thanks!

[mojoyaris]

@CTScott Sorry for not replying. I don't seem to get the notifications on messages anymore. I'll have to redo my settings again.
For the snow rallies if we compete in National's we can't use studded tires and we're using Yokohama IG20's 175/65/14's which the compound is very similar to the Rallyspec AO34 rally snow tires. Even the tread pattern is similar, except the rally spec has larger grooves between the clusters of blocks. For the regional rally that our team did at Big White Winter rally we ran with the Nokian Studded tires that we got from Kal-Tire and Nokian. We wanted to keep the Finnish theme with our Finnish driver and navigator and tires! After talking with our service crew guy (who also rallies in the US) at that rally, he had to change the back tires to the front tires. Why? After a few stages, the font studs change direction. By putting them on the rear, those stud that are now facing forwards are better for braking and in the icy conditions that were there, it really helped.
For 2014, we'll be back to running full time on Yokohama tires.

[mojoyaris]

Thanks Yougojay. We're excited about the 2014 season. I've been making the rounds to local dealerships in the BC area and spreading the word about our program and hope that everything comes together. I'll try to keep up with the Yaris World Forum. It's been awhile since I used to be on here often.
We'll have to try to get some excitement back into the Toyota brand on products that everyone can use. It's nice to know that there's the LTF1 and other cool cars by Toyota, but most of us will never get to own one or even drive one.

We hope to compete in the Cascadia Championship series as well which will bring us down to the US to compete. If you see us or the TRS team. Please come by and cheer us on. The Yaris is the little car with the least horse power out there. Even those old Saab 96's you see on the circuit have more horse power.


:coolpics:
Really nice photos - Reminds me of growing up out West of Chicago during the winter - lots of snow most years, especially the Winter of 1978-1979 :eek: Great Wallpaper, too - Thanks!

[7:34pm]

Hey Leanne Junnila was Pat's old navigator. Good job!

[Snyprwlf47]

It's awesome to see a Yaris winning its class!

Where do you get your skidplates?

[Scubaru Steve]

great choice on the tires, My wife an di we run the nokain 7 studded.

[mojoyaris]

Hey Leanne Junnila was Pat's old navigator. Good job!

Thanks! She's really cool. If we can get all our buckets in a row this year, we'll be coming to the US to compete as well.

[mojoyaris]

It's awesome to see a Yaris winning its class!

Where do you get your skidplates?
we had ours custom fabricated since the first one and the underarmour ripped right off by day two of one of the rallies.

The new skid plates cover the front and the back (fuel cell) and are attached to extra sub frames, so if we land hard, it'll take a beating.

Shift Automotive did the last set for the Yaris.
They are also part of our team that did the FRS challenge last year and Pikes Peak.
Our latest team video that covers the Pikes Peak run from last year. Please share!
http://youtu.be/eEmeqUjzxJA

[mojoyaris]

great choice on the tires, My wife an di we run the nokain 7 studded.

Yes the Nokians are a great tire! They were just an event sponsor for that rally but it was moreso Kal Tire that helped the team for Big White. Our regular sponsor is Yokohama Tire Canada.

The Yaris and the Echo are really nimble in the snow.