At the age of 17, Stephan Verdier began his motorsports career go-kart racing in his birth country of France, where he successfully finished Eighth in the nation. After moving to the U.S. in 1993, Verdier entered a Bridgestone driver search that staged him against 1,200 competing applicants, which he won outright and was awarded a contract to campaign a full season in the Canadian Formula F2000 series. His love of road racing spurred an interest in rally, and by 1992 he was piloting an '02 Subaru WRX in the PGT class of the SCCA Western State Rally Championships, leading his team to becoming the first to ever claim an overall event win, on their way to taking home the championship. Verdier's passion morphed once again in 2006, when he entered Formula Drift ranks, competing in both sanctioned rally and drifting competitions from behind the wheels of different cars. But in the summer of 2010 another challenge arose: compete in rally and drift, only this time, from behind the wheel of the same car.
In 2010, after making a Top 16 appearance in Round 3 at Formula D, New Jersey, Verdier received a surprise call by X Games promoters with an offer to compete in the Super Rally of X Games 16. "I was really excited to hear the news," states Verdier, "but only had one car at my disposal at the time-meaning I only had two weeks to transform my '06 Subaru STI from drift- to rally-spec."
GTI Chassis Work
Almost the moment the Subie came back from competing in Round 4 of Formula D in Seattle, Verdier was behind the wheel of his pickup, trailoring it to Gialamas Technical Innovations (GTI) in San Clemente, CA. GTI has been a full-time supporter of Verdier in the Formula D series (building Dai's time-attack 350Z that split the Feb '10 cover of 2NR with our very own 370Z), and was called upon to prepare the chassis for X Games. "Protecting the car from abuse was our first priority," stated Gialamas, "to allow Stephan to lean on his competitors if need be without damaging the body. We modified the front and rear bumpers and designed a skidplate to protect the engine, transmission, fuel cell, and differential.
GTI also changed the original big-brake setup used for drifting to a smaller set that would fit the 15-inch Enkei gravel wheels (sponsored by Subaru of Ontario) and rally-spec Cooper tires needed for rally. Another concern was the aluminum radiator plumbing GTI had built for Stephan in 2009, when the radiator was moved into the trunk to improve cooling and weight balance for drifting. The setup was susceptible to both gravel and hard landings, so GTI ended up switching to more pliable braided stainless lines and -20 AN fittings.
Tein Rally-Spec Suspension
A critical aspect in modifying the STI from drift to rally was the suspension. Verdier competes on a set of Stance drift-spec coilovers for drifting, but called upon Tein USA to supply him with a set of Group-N WRC-spec coilovers for X Games Rally. The Gr.N coilovers feature three-way damping force adjustment, temperature-compensating and micro-speed valving, and a 16-level adjustable Hydraulic Bump Stopper (HBS) system-with 4.0kg/mm front and 3.0kg/mm rear springs-to deal with the rigors of drifting, and to provide more forward bite while still being able to land the big jumps smoothly. A normal coilover would have to be sprung stiffer and possess a higher ride height to do all this, which would seriously hurt performance. "One of the benefits of working with Tein is that they have a wealth of knowledge and setup information from their extensive involvement in rally," claimed Verdier.