Subaru

Today I'll continue running down the list of events I attended in 2011. Hopefully you enjoyed the look back at the first twelve, there will be thirteen more today to cover all 25 from 2011. I enjoyed all of the events I attended this year but I am always up to check out new ones so if there is a local event that you think I should attend feel free to let me know via the comments or an email.

What a year 2011 was event wise in Ontario. It seemed like there was something going on at least every other weekend, if not every weekend, often with two events occurring at the same time. While I did my best to make it to most of the major local events (as well as some of the underexposed ones) it was pretty much impossible for me to attend them all, luckily a few people helped me out with great Guest Coverage again this year. This post will be a chronological run through of the first twelve events I attended in 2011.

There has been a steady increase in the amount of previous, under construction, and current readers rides that have arrived via email over the past six months. As most of the past readers rides posts have focused on cars from the fan page I decided to dedicate this one strictly to cars that have shown up in the [email protected] inbox. This is by no means all of them, and I plan to do a few more of these before the winter is over.

Is it a coincidence that the Subarus I am posting today are essentially the complete opposite of the one I posted yesterday? Kind of. Last night after watching the Leafs game I didn't feel much like finishing up some of the more obscure Theme Tuesday ideas I have in the works (ps3 was calling) so I decided to liberate some of the Subarus I've had saved for a while. I seem to always have an overabundance of Subarus on my hard drive anyway.

Last Monday Chris Pereira (of the Canadian Sport Compact Series) invited me to locally renowned Subaru tuning shop Can Jam Motorsports to meet 2011 Rally of The Tall Pines winner “Crazy” Leo Urlichich. After a quick stop off at home for a bite to eat and my camera gear I headed back out to Richmond Hill to meet up with Chris who introduced me to Leo. Following a handshake and brief small talk Leo decided I had hung around long enough to meet Beast.

From what I have seen Subaru owners that want to run low and wide might have the most uphill battle amongst their peers. A lot of the 'traditional' Subaru owners seem to think that Subarus (specifically STIs) should always be ready for rally conditions that could suddenly pop up in the middle of the highway. The reality is you don't need 4x4 ground clearance to enjoy all wheel drive, but people hate reality.

I've seen and (and normally posted) quite a few crazy builds so I am getting pretty a custom to bizarre combinations of car and motor but this particular one caught me wayyyy off guard. Fabrication aside the owner/builder deserves a round of applause for just getting through the amount of hate that comes along with telling people you are going to dress a 97 Mustang Cobra in 94 Acura clothes.

After successfully running Tuners Against Street Racing for a few years Matthew M (previous feature s2k owner) decided to switch gears a bit and start a new show series called 'Squeaky Clean' aimed towards those with more subtle modifications done to their cars. The first Squeeky Clean show took place two weeks ago at JRP and even though mother nature didn't seem to fond about the idea of Matt having a show that day about 35 or so cars ended up coming out to participate in the event.

With winter just around the corner Chop Shop decided to send the 2011 season off properly with a charity BBQ (proceeds to the Canadian Cancer Society and the Food bank) called Oktoberfest. The somewhat unseasonably nice weather lead to a great turn out and because this wasn't a show the atmosphere was super laid back which made it a great way to kill a couple of hours on a fall day.

I've been told several times that H20i is an event I need to attend at least once. This year Mike and Jay from Stance Factory offered me a spot where they were staying for weekend and had it not been for some good friends of mine getting married I would have been there enjoying the festivities. However friends/family > cars so like Wekfest and Waterfest I've pulled together some photos that stood out to me in the hour or so I spent last night looking through coverage on various forums.