Matthew Johnson
Can it really be done?
The pressure is on for Carolina RS
APEX, NC (September 1 8 , 2004)
Matthew Johnson
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No matter how you look at it, that is plenty of time for the average Joe to perform the normal chores of their daily life. You could do the daily chores for your entire neighborhood in month and still have time to catch up on your Speed Channel. But what if the normal chores of your daily life included taking the bare metal shell of a Subaru WRX, that was just scrap metal in March, and fabricating it into a competition SCCA Rally car. Four weeks then becomes a VERY short period of time. All of a sudden a neighborhoods worth of chores doesn't sound so bad.
But we're not talking about the usual everyday chores of most people, and Matthew Johnson is far from your average Joe. He has just four weeks left to finish sculpting, molding, bolting and fabricating his WRX into a national class Rally car if he intends on meeting his goal of competing for top class honors at the Lake Superior ProRally in October.
It's taken six months to get this far... to organize the effort, to piece together wrecked cars, to scavenge parts, to recruit team members and to bring them all together as Carolina RS. That was the easy part.
Now the challenge becomes squeezing the remaining 4 months of work into four short weeks of long days. You can follow their progress at http://www.carolinars.com as they begin final the preparation of the body work for paint and begin reassembly of the entire car from the ground up. Their efforts are being recorded and presented to the world through weekly images of the build and insightful commentary provided by Johnson . Show your support for the team by leaving a message on the Guestbook and just stop by to see what others have had to say.
"When I stop and think about it I almost can't believe we're in the home stretch already," Johnson recently commented. "We've been planning it all out and have all of the parts on order. As long as the car comes out of paint by Friday we should be in the clear and make the event. Originally I planned to build a Group N car but the increased complexity, time and cost all made it an easy choice to finish the car to Production GT standards. Currently all signs look good and everything is moving forward quickly, however I can't help feeling that we're one big oversight away from chaos. The plan is to build the car using basic WRX parts, I doubt anything besides the suspension and exhaust will be changed from a bog standard WRX for Lake Superior."
Can this team really accomplish the impossible and turn their bare metal shell into a rally car in just four weeks? I wouldn't bet against them.