‘Crazy Leo’ Urlichich chooses to race in Production class in 2017

Urlichich ran in the Open category of the Canadian Rally Championship for a few seasons, winning rallies, and contended for the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy in the FIA World Rally Championship a few years ago.

He has also been keeping himself fresh in the off-season with Race Lab, his performance driving, advanced on-road skills and rally school program.

“I am going to compete in the Production 4-wheel drive class this season, but WRC is still the long-term objective,” Leo told Motorsport.com. “I’ll do the four Eastern events, and then I’ll see if I have some budget left to do the three Western events. I’ll do as much as possible to win the Production championship. I know that some people will be disappointed not to see me at the very top but I will still drive as hard as I can though every corner.”

Urlichich confirmed that he has a new co-driver in Alex Kihurani.

He also revealed the identity of his new rally car. “I will be driving a brand new Subaru Impreza currently being built by Can-Jam Motorsport,” he said. “It’s being built from ground up, so it’s a proper Production car. We started from a 2007 chassis because we believe that generation of Impreza is better than new one for what we are doing. In Production class you’re not allowed to change suspension-mounting points, anything like that, so to have a better chassis will make a pretty big difference. We preferred to build a brand new car from an older chassis. You see, I don’t care about the look the car but just its performance.”

He added: “I won’t be in a position to challenge for the overall win, unless very, very special conditions. The car is heavy, massively less powerful, and it will also be fitted with a stock gearbox with a longer gear ratio. It will be much slower than the Open class cars. Hopefully, I can score some pretty decent results overall.”

The Toronto-resident explained he’s learned a lot by competing in Europe and running Race Lab. “Running in the World Rally Championship was big learning experience,” he said. “I’m sure it will make be a huge bonus once I shake the rust off and get going in the first rally of the season [the Perce-Neige]. Like I said, my goal is to return in WRC, and that’s why I’m racing in the production class this year. I saw in WRC that even the little R2 Fiesta could go extremely fast into the corners. I think you don’t have to invest tons of money into crazy powerful cars to actually go very fast. You can improve as a driver, improve your pace notes, etc. by driving a slower car. It’s the same with Race Lab because we push people to become better drivers, not to invest in expensive parts to make their cars go faster.”