engineering

Vermont SportsCar

Vermont SportsCar is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Vermont SportsCar rather than just read about it. In short: Vermont SportsCar (VSC) is a race car manufacturer that designs, engineers, and builds rally, rallycross and other specialty vehicles for teams and private clients. Since 2006 Vermont SportsCar has been the technical partner to Subaru of America and manages the automaker's racing division Subaru Motorsports USA.

Key takeaways

Vermont SportsCar belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Vermont SportsCar to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Vermont SportsCar from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Vermont SportsCar (VSC) is a race car manufacturer that designs, engineers, and builds rally, rallycross and other specialty vehicles for teams and private clients. Since 2006 Vermont SportsCar has been the technical partner to Subaru of America and manages the automaker's racing division Subaru Motorsports USA. Founded by Lance Smith in 1988, VSC operates in Milton, Vermont, with more than 70 full-time employees. VSC manages motorsports programs primarily within the American Rally Association Championship, Nitro Rallycross series, and the Mount Washington Hill Climb. Additionally VSC designs, builds and campaigns the Gymkhana Subaru vehicles driven by Travis Pastrana. VSC manufactures and sells aftermarket performance parts for Subaru vehicles under the name VSC Performance. VSC also offers prototyping and engineering services for private race teams and builds custom race and road cars. In early 2022 VSC launched a multi-car effort in the 2022–23 Nitro Rallycross Championship’s all-electric Group E class.

History VSC was founded in 1988 by Lance Smith. A native of Williston, Vermont, Smith started as a mechanic preparing race cars for car builder and racer Tivvy Shenton and then in the 1980s for rally driver John Buffum. In 1988, he modified a Volkswagen Golf for a private team in the SCCA ProRally series and spent the next several years competing as a co-driver for several seasons in other cars he built, including a Toyota Celica, Mitsubishi Eclipse, and Mitsubishi Galant VR4. In 1992, Smith won the co-driver's championship in the North American Rally Cup and the Subaru "Pride and Professionalism" award for the best-prepped car. Smith reduced the amount of his co-driving in 1997 to focus on building a Mitsubishi Evolution V for Buffum and growing his business. In 2001 VSC supported Prodrive and Subaru of America with the launch of Subaru Rally Team USA competing in the SCCA ProRally Championship in the USA. In 2003, VSC helped manage the Mitsubishi factory rally effort in the USA and competed in the SCCA ProRally Championship utilizing Mitsubishi EVO VIII rally cars.

Motorsport achievements

Subaru Motorsports USA

Rally America / American Rally Association

In 2006, VSC partnered again with Subaru of America to relaunch Subaru Rally Team USA and serve as the technical partner for Subaru of America's motorsports efforts. That program, rebranded in 2019 as Subaru Motorsports USA, continues today and is currently the world's largest Subaru motorsports program. In its debut 2006 season, VSC won the Rally America National Championship with driver Travis Pastrana. Additionally in 2006 VSC fielded Subaru WRX STI rally cars in the first rally car competition held by the ESPN X Games, where Pastrana beat former WRC Champion Colin McRae for the gold medal. Pastrana won the Rally America National Championship for the next three years driving alongside Subaru teammate Ken Block, who himself won 10 rallies, two X Games medals and three podiums for Subaru in Rally America. BMX rider and racer Dave Mirra replaced Block for the 2010 season. In 2011, David Higgins replaced Pastrana and went on to clinch six consecutive championships through 2016. Pastrana returned to the team in 2014 and won the 2017 Rally America and 2021 American Rally Association championships while Higgins secured another two championships in 2018 and 2019.

Global Rallycross / Americas Rallycross Championship VSC managed the Subaru Puma Rallycross Team for the 2012-2014 seasons. Drivers included David Higgins, Dave Mirra, Sverre Isachsen, Bucky Lasek, Patrik Sandell, and Chris Atkinson. After the Global Rallycross series dissolved in the U.S., Subaru entered the Americas Rallycross Championship in 2018 where Subaru driver Patrik Sandell earned third place in the driver's championship. Scott Speed joined the Subaru team in 2019 and led the ARX Driver's Championship until a back injury sustained at the Nitro Rallycross event in Utah forced him to miss the remainder of the ARX season. The team went on to win the ARX Team's Championship in 2019, despite Speed's absence from the final two rounds (due to his injury) earning 4 wins from 6 ARX rounds.

Nitro Rallycross After a 2020 hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, VSC and Subaru Motorsports USA entered a new rallycross series spearheaded by Subaru driver Travis Pastrana and Nitro Circus. The inaugural 2021 Nitro Rallycross Championship was won by Pastrana after a close fought season with teammate Scott Speed, who finished in second in the standings after the duo was tied on points after the final round, with Pastrana winning the series based on tie-break rules; Subaru Motorsports USA won the NRX Team Championship as well.

Mount Washington Hill Climb VSC built several record-winning cars for the Mount Washington Hill Climb, a 7.6-mile sprint to the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. David Higgins had set the record twice with a VSC-prepped Subaru: in 2014 at 6:09.09 and in 2011 at 6:11.54. . VSC entered Travis Pastrana at the wheel of the Airslayer STI, the car utilized in the Gymkhana 2020 video with Pastrana, at the 2021 Mt. Washington Hillclimb. He set a new record of 5:28.67 and broke his 5:44.72 record from 2017. In 2026, Scott Speed set a new overall record in the Mount Washington Hillclimb in the VSC-prepped Subaru WRX Project Midnight with a time of 5:11.982.

Championship wins

Rally America / American Rally Association

X Games Rally / Nitro Rallycross

Film Appearances In 2015, VSC provided their VT15R Subaru WRX STI rally car body kit to Universal Studios for the film The Fate of the Furious, the eighth release in the Fast & Furious series. The movie featured the body kit on the Subaru WRX STI driven by the character Little Nobody, played by Scott Eastwood, and was featured in an ice racing scene. The movie car was later released as a Hot Wheels scale model.

In 2020, VSC built the Airslayer STI (internally referenced as the VT20G) for Hoonigan’s eleventh installment of the Gymkhana video series, “Gymkhana 2020,” featuring Travis Pastrana behind the wheel. Pastrana subsequently drove the Airslayer STI at the 2021 Mount Washington Hill Climb where he beat his previous record and won the event overall.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Vermont SportsCar

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Vermont SportsCar claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Vermont SportsCar before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Vermont SportsCar ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Vermont SportsCar

In research: Vermont SportsCar appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Vermont SportsCar in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Vermont SportsCar is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American racecar constructors, Automotive engineering, Motorsport in Vermont, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Vermont SportsCar outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Vermont SportsCar in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Vermont SportsCar means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Vermont SportsCar out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vermont SportsCar in simple terms?

Why does Vermont SportsCar matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Vermont SportsCar?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Vermont SportsCar.