Who Is Racing Rebel?

My name is Sergei Grishin, and I love grassroots motorsports and engineering. Originally a computer and electronics hobbyist in high school, turned gearhead after obtaining my drivers permit. This is my motorsports story.

Maxima - The 4-Dr Sports Car

Coming from a low-income upbringing, I quickly wanted to make myself useful around the house and started learning how to work on my mom's 1999 Nissan Maxima, which was bought straight from the auction house. I was gifted a Haynes repair manual by a family friend shortly after we got the car, and I read the entire thing. That manual showed me that you don't need to go through schooling or work at a shop to get a lot done on a car. Once I found the forum maxima.org the flood gates were open and it inspired me to build an amazing car one day. Still being in college and relying on the Maxima to be my daily driver, I didn't do much besides bolt-on mods and the popular 00VI mod when it came to performance. I did work a lot on the electronics of the car though. I made my own circuit for automatic on/off headlights. I retrofitted HID projectors into the headlights. I made my own "angel eyes" and "demon eyes" for the car. I tested several revisions of my LED fog lights on the car, which eventually turned in to my lighting business Nitrous Lighting.

2.5RS - Rally Beginnings

I've only seen European rallies on Youtube until I was recommended to come out and checkout STPR in Pennsylvania. Up until then, I had no idea that stage rally even existed. Leading up to that event, I was in contact with some privateer teams that I sponsored with Nitrous Lighting lights. I was inspired by what I saw. Up until this point, I was never quite sure what type of motorsport I wanted to get into. I thought it would be something like time attack or just having fun in a prerunner truck. When I attended STPR 2015 for the first time and saw how accessible stage rally in America can be, I decided to strive towards that. A few months later, I bought myself a 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS. I really dove into the deep-end with this one since it required a lot of work just to be street-worthy. It was worth it though, since it taught me a lot of valuable skills and required me to buy a lot of tools that would later prove very handy for maintaining a rally car. By the time I sold the car, I took just about every component off of the car, including rebuilding the engine and welding new body panels on! I rallied that car for a few seasons. Being fairly young and having something to prove, I pushed the car and myself a little too hard. I started to get tired of big ticket repairs waiting for me after every event, and I ended up selling the car with the intention of getting a SxS since they were now permitted to run at stage rally events around that time.

Rally Hiatus - Machining - COVID

After selling my Subaru, I moved to Arizona with plans on buying a Yamaha YXZ1000R to run on stage rally events. SxS culture in Arizona is pretty big, so I figured it would be amazing to have so many places nearby where I can ride and get support from local off-roading shops. Instead, my wife and I bought a house. I wasn't going to be building rally cars in townhouse garages anymore! I also started focusing more on Nitrous Lighting and moved all of the metal parts manufacturing in-house. I upgraded the lights in every way after extensive prototyping on my new Haas VF2 CNC mill. The circuits and optics were also improved over the previous versions. This was all during COVID, so I didn't have a chance to socialize and get connected with motorsports scene in the area. After COVID started winding down, my first child was born.

Rally Reawakening

In 2024, I attended my local stage rally for the first time - Prescott Rally. I didn't make any plans ahead of time. I wasn't co-driving, crewing, or even volunteering. I just showed up hoping to spectate. Unfortunately, there was no spectating at the rally. It was the most low-key stage rally event that I've ever attended since coming back from the east coast. That wasn't a bad thing though because I was able to connect with the local teams at service. It was nice talking rally with people again. It was interesting hearing about the troubles teams were having at the event, and what they've done in order to prepare for the event. I was able to catch up and hear about how stage rally in the US has changed over the duration of my hiatus. It turns out that rallying SxSs never really took off and gained full ARA support. I spoke for a while with a competitor that was emphasizing how important volunteering was for the event. This sounds obvious, but the conversation showed me that stage rally in the US falls on the responsibility of a few people in the community. If we lose one of those contributors, it can be detrimental to an event, which in turn, is harmful to the sport. That really stuck out to me and made me feel like I needed give back to the sport in some way. When I lived on the east coast, I either co-drove or drove, and occasionally spectated. I regret not making an effort to contribute to the sport back then. I already had plenty of rally experience, so I told myself: "I will attend as many events as I can at whatever capacity I am capable." I studied and became a ham radio operator shortly after, so that I can volunteer for more demanding positions. My first volunteer position was service comms for Ridge Rally in 2024.

Fiesta - Second Time Around

Of course when I came back from Prescott, I wasn't only excited to start hanging out more with gearheads and volunteering. That's right, I just had to start building a new car! With my love for engineering, sports, and working with my hands, I could not escape it. This is what I am meant to be doing. It will be different this time though. It will be more fun. I am going to focus on preserving the car, making sure it's set up properly, and make sure that it's safe. I have a wife and kids that I need to return to and spend time with. I don't need to work late on the car to make all of the regional events. I want to build on a proven platform that will let me spend more time enjoying the sport affordably. I chose the Ford Fiesta ST. With the Subaru, I tried to get it on stage as fast as possible. With this build, I want it to be built properly before it even goes on stage. Until then, it will primary be an SCCA Rallycross car. I learned a lot while building the Subaru, but now it's going to be better with the Fiesta. I already started making Fiesta specific parts on the CNC mill, which I would like to share with everyone at the Racing Rebel Store. The plan is to run in the L2WD class, which is mostly stock.

The rest is to be continued...