Although this was the fourth annual Subie Showdown, 2026 marked the first time famed Canadian race shop Can-Jam Motorsports set up a booth, and that alone says something about how far the event has come.
Can-Jam does far more than build some of the country’s nastiest race cars or campaign machinery in the Canadian Rally Championship. Since 2003, they’ve also been the force behind CSCS, Canada’s biggest sport compact racing series. Their tentacles reach into almost every corner of Canadian car culture, which was demonstrated perfectly on Saturday morning: while part of the shop was setting up in Orangeville, another crew was heading toward Bancroft for the Big Bear Rally, while still others were off to Cayuga for a drifting event. Apparently sleep is optional when you work at Can-Jam.
Duane and Kevin have also been enormously supportive of Daniel Demaras’ racing adventures over the years, and Can-Jam keeps the Demaras fleet functioning at any given moment. These are our guys. So when they asked Daniel and me to help cover the booth for the final couple of hours of Subie Showdown, there was no question we’d do it.
I had dropped off the Synthwave SVX the night before so the car could be on display from the moment the doors opened, which meant we were free to arrive whenever we felt like it and enjoy the show first. Car shows are a little like movies anyway. You can technically stay all day, but after two or three hours your brain has absorbed about as much visual information as it’s going to process.
And there was plenty to process. Modern 3D printing and fabrication have apparently freed body-kit designers from whatever remaining sense of restraint they once possessed. Gone are the days when an overfender and some side skirts counted as radical. Now there are WRXs with enormous wide-body arches, twisted skirts, aero flick-ups and carbon-fibre appendages that look like they’re from a Formula 1 wind tunnel —rejected for being too aggressive.
Daniel and I wandered the aisles admiring, judging and occasionally trying to understand what we were looking at until about 4:00 pm, when Duane and Kevin headed out and left Daniel, me and Davin, the longtime CSCS announcer and professional voice of reason, holding down the fort.
By then the building was approaching the temperature of the surface of the sun, so the three of us spent most of our remaining time directly in front of Can-Jam’s industrial fans. Shortly after 5:00 pm, organizer Marcello Nalli began the awards ceremony with raffle prizes donated by various shops, including Japan Direct. I had purchased 20 raffle tickets because I was determined to win something.
Competition in the classic Subaru category was tougher this year, and I had already mentally prepared myself for the possibility that the SVX might leave empty-handed. Fine. If the judges wouldn’t give me hardware, perhaps random chance would give me merchandise.
Daniel struck first, winning a $200 coupon from Japan Direct, which was genuinely useful considering that approximately half the replacement parts on his Bugeye WRX seem to have migrated there from Japan Direct’s shelves. Then one of my numbers was called. I sprang from my seat and marched toward the stage with all the dignity of a game-show contestant who had just heard, “COME ON DOWN!”
I accepted my prize pack, held it proudly for the cameras and returned to our seats absolutely delighted with myself. Across the room, Davin was shaking his head. Naturally, I assumed he was simply embarrassed by my enthusiastic performance. That was his problem. I had won loot.
Davin tried to tell me something, but with the PA system booming I couldn’t understand him, so I took a selfie of Daniel, me and our glorious bag of plunder and immediately sent it to Duane. His response arrived quickly: I was holding a CSCS prize pack. CSCS. The racing series operated by the people whose booth I was currently working at. Duane pointed out that if there were ever people who didn’t need free CSCS tickets and merchandise, it was probably us.
Davin tapped me on the shoulder and said, essentially, “Dude. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You can’t win the prizes.” Somewhere nearby, Daniel muttered that he didn’t have the 2026 CSCS hat yet and that it was, admittedly, a very nice hat. For several dangerous seconds, I considered harvesting the best items before returning the bag.
Logic eventually prevailed. The prize went back into the raffle, another winner was selected, and I had a laugh at my own expense.
Fortunately, there was still legitimate hardware to be won. Both cars Can-Jam brought to the show earned trophies: the 2002 Bugeye took Best Impreza, while the famous Drift Taxi from CSCS won Best Track Car. Davin accepted the awards while I took pictures, and then my own name was called for Best Classic, Pre-1999. The Synthwave SVX finished second this year, and I couldn’t have been happier. Against a stronger field, the weird old Subaru had been recognized again.
Later, back at the booth, we lined up all three trophies beneath the CSCS banner and took pictures. After my brief career as an ineligible raffle winner, it felt good to finally be holding something I was actually allowed to keep.
Eventually it was time to go home. Daniel volunteered to drive the award-winning SVX while I climbed into my GMC Sierra, otherwise known as the living room on wheels. He left about 15 minutes ahead of me while I said goodbye to the remaining crew and prepared for what I imagined might be a suitably dramatic, gravel-flinging departure from the fairgrounds. I looked toward the right side of the dashboard where the traction-control button lives and noticed something sitting on the floor. Two rectangular pieces of metal. Blue letters. Ontario logos. The SVX’s actual licence plates. Daniel was already heading toward Highway 407, a road famously equipped with cameras designed for the specific purpose of reading licence plates, while the SVX was wearing decorative show plates that were about as legally useful as a cardboard driver’s licence.
I called him immediately and explained the situation. Daniel initially floated the wonderfully optimistic theory that he could simply continue home and, if stopped, proudly show the officer the shiny new trophy as evidence that the car had been somewhere important. We briefly considered how persuasive “But officer, it won second place!” might sound while watching an SVX disappear on the back of a tow truck. Instead, he pulled into a Tim Hortons and waited while I raced over with the real plates.
And that was Subie Showdown Vol 4: three trophies for the Can-Jam booth, a $200 parts coupon, one raffle prize I technically won but definitely wasn’t allowed to keep, and one award-winning SVX temporarily stranded at Tim Hortons because its owner had forgotten the minor legal detail of attaching licence plates.
All things considered, it was a pretty successful day. Next year, though, I may spend less time worrying about raffle tickets and a little more time making sure the car is actually street legal.
Great job!
Hope you enjoyed reading about the foolishness that day!