A Japanese family entered a JAF-sanctioned average rally in a Suzuki Swift Sport and finished sixth in class. Their setup, per a feature in AUTO MESSE WEB: the father navigating, the eldest son driving, and a rally-computer app the father wrote himself running on a tablet on the dashboard.
The event was Round 3 of the Kanto series, the Mitsukuni Rally. Average rallying is not a speed contest: crews are given a target average speed for each section and scored on how precisely they hold it. The feature puts entry fees at roughly ¥20,000 to ¥30,000 and notes that cars can be run with their seats filled — both factors that make the format approachable at the entry stage, and that allowed this family to take part together. Three Swift Sports were entered in total, including a second-generation ZC32S alongside this third-generation ZC33S.
Rallying through treatment
Shortly before Round 2 of the 2026 season, the father developed a knee condition that required ongoing treatment. He took the navigator's seat rather than stepping away.
He told AUTO MESSE WEB that getting out of the house and staying active is what keeps him going — activity outside, he says, is the encouragement that sustains daily life, so he is going through his treatment by way of rallying. On the goal for the day, he is equally direct: getting back safely is what matters most.
How the Rally-Com app works
The tablet on the dash runs Rally-Com, which the father developed after working through what he found awkward or unresolved about existing rally computers.
Per the feature, it pulls together the car's own distance traveled — the equivalent of a trip meter reading the section distance — with GPS position data via a smartphone. The crew enters the target average speed, the app calculates the reference time for the car's current position, and it displays the running error: how many seconds ahead of or behind schedule the crew is. In a discipline scored on exactly that figure, a live readout of it is one of the crew's key pieces of information.
Sixth in class in the ZC33S Swift Sport
The feature has the crew contesting the lead of Class C until a late reversal dropped them to sixth. The car ran the ZC33S's 1.4-liter direct-injection turbo engine and six-speed manual, with an SWK WR wing, ten-spoke Advan RCIII wheels and 195/45R17 tires among the visible modifications.
The Swift Sport is known internationally as an affordable, lightweight hot hatch. Its accessibility showed at this event, where three of them were entered across two generations — with, in this case, a family sharing one car and an app built to answer a need the off-the-shelf options did not.