Can a New Ford Focus RS Tear Around on Gravel?

Ryan and Alex head to Team O'Neil's skidpad to test "drift mode" on the rocks.
www.thedrive.com

For years in the U.S., the Subaru-Mitsubishi rivalry galvanized rally fans. These days the major rivalry pits the Subaru Impreza WRX STI against the Ford Focus RS in a battle for top budget hoon-machine. But while the long-running STI is a known quantity, the RS — despite a year of hype — is still ripe for discovery. And so…

On this week’s episode of /MY LIFE AS A RALLYIST, Ryan meets up with his friend Alex Jagger with a plan is to try out Alex’s stock Ford Focus RS on gravel. Sounds safe enough, right? After all, the RS is bred from the rally-charged Ford Performance team, which has been building batshit, motorsports-based Focus models for Europe since almost forever.

After some RS hooning on the rough skid pad, with obvious results, Ryan bails out and jumps into a 300-hp, home-built, front-wheel-drive rally car, mainly to have a silly good time on the Team O’Neil stages.

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Mike Spinelli

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A sucker for Ford-era Jaguar XJs and glitchy, early-90s BMW V12s, Mike was the founding editor of car culture site Jalopnik, and a former editor-in-chief of 0-60. He's also a co-host of the TV show /DRIVE on NBC Sports, which can be seen from time to time on NBCSN, usually after midnight.