If You Want To Know What It Takes To Get Off Your Butt And Win A Rally, Watch Gravel Co

I've been playing a whole lot of the WRC game on XBox lately, and I've been kicking the computer's butt in the process. I have a tiny amount of stage rally experience, and a whole lot of SCCA-style rallycross experience, but could I take the skills I've learned from a video game and apply them to going fast in real life? Ryan from the Gravel Co. channel on YouTube recently did just that. He'd been a long-time fan of the sport of rally and decided to get into the game, documenting his journey along the way from couch to the mountain stages of Canada. 

I don't want to give the whole game away, but in the first season of the show, he and his co-driver managed to not only win their regional-level all-wheel drive class in Canadian Rally Championship, but they managed to win almost every round they competed in. 

Now is a great time to subscribe, because things are about to pivot for the upcoming season. This duo, with some help from a professional-level rally preparation shop, is done just trying to win a class trophy. Their top-level class times were sometimes seeing them finish near the overall podium with a worn and tired flat four. They decided instead to put the hammer down with a flat six out of a much more modern Subaru. Maybe it'll work out for them, or maybe it won't. You should be along for the ride, though, that much is for sure. 

That's why we're taking it upon ourselves to highlight some of our favorite underrated builders in a new series we're calling Wrenchers You Should Know. Not only do some of these people deserve way more views than they're getting, but they're typically the Do It Yourselfer type, rather than the big corporate-sponsored four-figure-horsepower slop that's dominating your feeds. In each installment we'll introduce you to a cool new builder, talk about some of their work, and give you a few reasons why you should be watching their progress. Here we go, Gravel Co!

Ryan managed to pick up a previously prepared rally Subaru Impreza with a EJ22T engine, for not a whole lot of money. This is a pretty solid start to a rally racing career. While most rally racers recommend starting with a two-wheel drive machine to keep the speeds down and be reasonably safer for newbies, Ryan decided to go whole-hog with a turbocharged all-wheel drive Subaru from the 1990s that sat largely unused for ten years. You know what, there's something to be said for jumping into the deep end of the pool with both feet. 

There's nothing quite like the sound of an uncorked turbocharged Subaru flat four, and from the first time he test drove the car before buying it, it was obvious to see that it was coming home with him. After a little haggling, he purchased the machine and stuck it on a trailer. It needed some work to get stage ready, but it was a running, driving race car. Maybe it has a bent unibody, maybe it looks like it got drug out of a barn, and maybe it's closer to being crushed than winning any events, but a journey has to start somewhere. 

Okay, maybe it wasn't that great of a buy. After taking it to the rally shop VEX Performance, Ryan got a full understanding of what was good and bad about the car, and what needed to be done in order to get it legal for the CRC starting grid. The engine, as it happens, is a mismatch of different WRX engine components, but while it's rough around the edges, it's a good base to start with. They decided to polish out some of the imperfections and get it rally ready. What's the worst that could happen?

The car had definitely been crashed at some point and repaired in a somewhat janky kind of way. When the radiator core support got crushed in, the previous team to prepare this car decided to just rivet things where they were. That included drilling new holes in the skid plate to get the bolts through. Ryan did the right thing and straightened out the front of the car with a tree and some ratchet straps, the good old-fashioned way. 

As with any good race car, the preparation process takes so much time. Even though this car was already mostly ready to race when he bought it, Ryan spent a whole lot of time making it look nice, and ironing out a few of the issues with the car. You're going to want to take some time and go through all of Ryan's preparation videos, especially if you want to take something like this on yourself. Even after the car was prepared and ready to race, Ryan has been spending time running the car in test events and hauling it out to DirtFish for some lessons with pros. Even if the car is good, the loose nut behind the wheel can mess it all up in a hurry. 

After running the full 2025 season, including a handful of Canadian rounds and a run in an American Rally Association event, the car decided it was pretty well tired of doing this. Or, rather, the engine did. There were plenty of opportunities for speed, more than a few bumps and bruises, and the car performed better than they expected it to. Even with a turbo, by the end of the season the car was running 0-60 times around 14 seconds. Even in the dirt, that's pretty bad.

One of the main things this crew learned during the 2025 season was that their old Subaru was way down on power, but they still managed to keep the car toward the front of the grid. If they want to fight for overall wins in 2026, they're definitely going to have to increase the power. That old turbocharged engine with its intake restrictor was probably barely putting 100 horsepower to the wheels. So why not toss the turbo in favor of a couple extra cylinders? 

If you are passionate enough and dedicated enough, and you have an extra $11,000 to spend on a beat up rally car, maybe you too could join the ranks of regional stage rally competition like these guys. As long as you have some good friends, a bit of gumption, and a whole lot of desire, you might go fast on dirt, win a couple trophies, and put an old Tribeca engine in your thirty-year-old Impreza. 

If you have suggestions for some lesser known builders on social media, please feel free to drop them in the comments section as well. I'm always on the lookout for folks out there doing cool stuff. It doesn't have to be just cars, either. While I'm well apprised of the car and motorcycles building scenes, I'd love to get deep into the nitty gritty of some more niche topics. Do you follow some cool folks building snowmobiles, jet skis, or DIY fighter jets or something? I want to know about it.

And yes, you're welcome to do some self promotion in the comments as well. Let everyone know where they can follow your build and what you're up to. If it's unique or good, we'll feature it on the blogs.