Who's rally car was this?

[321go]

Was killing time looking at a new site to me. http://www.conceptcarz.com/events/photo ... hichPage=1
They have lots of racing and other car pics to look at. Appears they are STPR regulars as they have a gallery from just about every year. In looking at those, found a pic of this NG 900 rally car. Anybody know it's story?

[Rallyho]

I know some of it...
Car was built by/for Sam Bryan and Rob Waldon (spelling is wrong I'm sure.) Two WA state saab pervs who ran/run a Saab garage.

They had a c900 and were legitimately quick. They almost certainly drained their collective bank accounts and likely received some relatively small sponsorship dollars from Saab/GM corporate to run a season or two. Car had a fairly high-spec turbo motor and an XTRAC gearbox running the front wheels. They had some teething problems, as you can imagine.

I know that Rob kept the car for a while, then sold it (to one of the Tennis boys?) and then I think I heard it caught fire.

Feel free to correct/call bullshit/tell me to shut the hell up on any of the above.

El Blanco

[SteveP]

T.A.D. MOTORSPORTS

LAKE ZURICH, ILLINOIS

Founded in February, 1993, by rally car builder and technician Murray Thomas, T.A.D. Motorsports in located in Lake Zurich, Illinois, just outside Chicago.

During 1993 and 1994, T.A.D. prepared and ran an Open class Mitsubishi Eclipse for SCCA/Michelin PRO Rally series driver Henry Joy. In only his second year of PRO Rally competition, Joy matured into a top five driver in 1993, winning several stages outright, finishing all ten rallies entered, and narrowly missing a third-place overall finish in the point standings.

In '94, those top five finishes became top three finishes (second at Wild West and third at Lake Superior). Thomas and Joy have gone on to two PRO Rally wins in the last two years.

Thomas, who has worked around the sport of rally for 17 years - including crew chief in the World Championship/FIA series - spent the late 1980's and early 1990's as crew chief for Rod Millen Motorsports. He helped Millen and his Mazdas to two SCCA Overall championships, three Group A titles, and top finishes in the FIA Asia Pacific Series, including a first place finish in the Himalaya Rally which gave Millen and co-driver Tony Sircombe the 1989 Asia Pacific series championship.

Besides preparing and maintaining Joy's new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution II PRO Rally car, T.A.D. also works on other customer cars - most recently the Mazda 323GTR of Peter Moodie, Sam Bryan's new '96 Saab 900 Group 5 racer, and Paul Choiniere's Pike's Peak Hyundai Elantra - as well as street modifications and rally- related parts and components.

The shop also has full fabrication capability, and can construct rally vehicles from the ground up. Thomas and crew showed its capability in October, 1997 after Joy and Fennell destroyed the EvoII in Prescott, as they built a new rally car from a spare roller in just nine days.

In 1998, T.A.D. has been preparing the Ford Sierra Cosworth of Garen and Doc Shrader, and the Rim-of-the-World-winning Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV of David Summerbell/Michael Fennell.

TAD Website: www.tadmotorsports.com


They built 2 cars and maintained them for the central and eastern events. Rob still runs Scan West in Wash. I think Sam worked for Boeing and last I knew was transfered to England.
TAD also built the Taladega and Pikes Peak SAABS years back.

[Mezzanine]

Two previous posters were correct, Sam and Rob. Rob still owns Scanwest, but I recall the car was sold to one of the Schrenks that were working for him. Don't know what's become of it. I got a ride in it once. It was terrifying. :)

[Jon1]

Is this the same car? From the 2004 SOC in Crystal Mountain WA.

[Scandia]

Yep, Same car. My brother (Doug) still own's it.


...........Dave

[Jon1]

1996? I thought 96 was the first year of T5 on NG900s. I don't see any T5 on that car.

[DeLorean]

all the NG900's had trionic if they were turbo, that's probably not bosch motronic either, as the distributor has no wires coming out of it, probably some sort of stand alone system, as at the time tunability of trionic was not something that existed yet

[Crazyswede]

The NG's never gained much popularity in the rally world. I have seen a few being run in Europe/Scandinavia but nothing compared to the numbers of 900's and 99's etc. After driving my 98 900 for the last 5 years I can say that its a lot less car than its predecessors. It seems like you could build a decent machine but the cage would become a very critical piece because the shells are just not that rigid. The whole engine cradle setup could get interesting as well. The stock suspension design doesnt look like it could take a lot of pounding and I think you would go through rear suspension beams like crazy.

The transmissions probably hold up well though

[gmreider]

I notice the 9000 style exhaust manifold and the turbo location. Also notice the 2.3 valve cover used.
mix and match parts used.

[Crazyswede]

This car build up was long before anyone was going in an tuning the T5. It probably made sense at the time to run an aftermarket system for EFI/ignition.

[321go]

Yep, Same car. My brother (Doug) still own's it.


...........Dave

I forgot I posted this.
Nice to see the car is still out there. What kind of use does it get?