Bullrun 2012 is just over a month away, and the rally organizers are starting to release information about the teams that will be participating in the rally. The first big name to be announced is the DTA Posse! Don’t trust anyone!
Johan ‘Yo’ Esbensen, founder of Rogue Status/DTA, and Jasper Watts, DTA’s Brand Manager, have been rallying for years, and are notorious in the road rally scene. They have done numerous Gumball 3000 rallies and last year did their first Bullrun rally. They will be returning will Bullrun once again to bring back the crazy DTA spirit!
Last year, the crew brought their regular rally vehicle, their supercharged Scion xb with a 2jz engine swap. Yo and Jasper were joined by fellow DTA members, Aaron Guardado and Kaytee Coomb in an Audi RS4.
“We had too much fun last year we didn’t want to miss out on this one,” said Jasper Watts of the DTA Posse. “The fact that it starts and finishes in our hometown makes it even more tempting.”
The posse was very well known last year for being a big part of the Bullrun party atmosphere and proved their worth on the road. That Scion is tough as nails! At the beginning of almost every leg, Yo lit up the rear tires of the Scion and filled the air with smoke. These guys put on smoke shows everywhere they went. It’s a good thing they had spare tires – otherwise the Scion might not have made it!
For the first half of the rally, the Posse wanted to roll in style. Last year, in the heat of the desert, Yo and Jasper came out of the hotel wearing bath robes and decided to turn their supercharged scion into a ‘Sciona.’ With no A/C and rolling through the desert that day, they decided to make the most of it and rode in the world’s only 2jz powered Sauna.
Jasper said that was one of the more memorable moments on the rally: “I guess then when we turned the car into a Sauna was pretty funny, we had no AC in what is essentially a full spec drift racing car, so we got wood chips, water and closed the windows, it got over 100 degrees, we even manage to cook an egg on the transmission case inside the car!”
Jasper said that he has never seen such a competative atmosphere in a road rally before. He and Yo weren’t expecting some of the drivers like Claus Ettensberger and Seth Rose to be so determined to chase down the Bullrun Navigator Award.
Near the end of the rally, Yo and Jasper put the petal to the metal and tried to aim for top 10 finishes. Unfortunatly for them, their Scion xb drift car was built to race-specifications, meaning they had a very tiny gas tank, making their fuel range possibly the worst on the rally.
Even so, they did manage a few top 10 finishes and even placed first on the final stint from the Palm Beach International Raceway to Miami.
This year, the guys are looking forward to meeting up with old friends and making new ones. “It will be great to catch up with the crew from last year and re-ignite some old rivalries!! We have taken part in many rallies but none have the competitive edge like Bullrun which is what makes it so fun” Jasper said.
Jasper and Yo will once again be returing in a Scion – but this time it’ll be a preproduction FR-S! If the crew can’t prepare the car in time, the DTA boys have a backup Jeep SRT-8 rally-ready! They also plan on having Aaron Guardado return, driving the DTA support vehicle, a BMW X6 M.
The Bullrun rally beings in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 23rd and ends one week later in Los Angeles on June 29th. The rally will travel in a West-Coast Loop around the Western United States.
