This past weekend was host to the Formula X/Redline Time Attack as part of the Formula Atlantic and Star Mazda race on the Thunderbolt circuit at NJ Motorsport’s Park. Even with hot and muggy weather soaking competitors in sweat, it didn’t prevent everyone from giving it their all to win a piece of the $7500 in cash that was up for grabs.
New for this year was the Hankook WRX vs. EVO Time Attack held at Button Willow Raceway. This event was an invite only Time Attack run the day before Super Lap pitting WRXs against EVOs with a new twist, a 5 lap time attack battle backwards. The Element Tuning Time Attack STI made its debut as an “Unlimited” car this year running a new driver, me (LOL), and I’ve never driven this track before so I was expecting lots of surprises.
The weekend started out with lots of last minute changes unfortunately. With SEMA so close there wasn’t enough time to get our new suspension prior to heading to CA but Jon at JIC Suspension graciously worked on Sunday to get us the custom suspension we so desperately needed. All I can say is that Jon really knows his stuff and we analyzed our currently setup, discussed its shortcomings, and came up with revised settings.
With new dampers and springs rates I was skeptical but how can you question a team with so many “Ulimited” class Time Attack Wins? I went with it and we also installed a set of JIC rear trailing arms and lateral links to provide stiffness, response, and to allow for more adjustability in the future.
The Grass Roots Motorports Ultimate Track Car Challenge (UTTC) is at VIR (Full Course) this year. I’ve been invited and will be running the Varsity Shop category. I’ll be posting updates from the track on Friday so please check back if you would like to know how practice and the actual competition is going.
So far an overall win isn’t looking too good but I hope to uphold the Subaru honor. Here are mostly likely the fastest cars running at this event.
Michael Skeen: Muscle Milk Trans AM series Corvette (Grand AM and Trans AM series driver)
Pocono Raceway was host to the final round of “Super Lap Battle” qualifying. With hurricane Hannah hammering the east coast with high winds and massive rain storms, Saturday was just a day to skip for us . With the weather looking great for Sunday we headed north to Pocono Raceway in the town of Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
Sunday’s weather was beautiful with a nice breeze and cool weather. Having never run on a NASCAR oval I honestly didn’t know what to expect. What I was greeted with was an ultra high speed freak fest. LOL! I’ll be the first to admit it took a few laps to allow my brain to run flat out on the oval shifting into 6th gear mid turn. With ample downforce, great JIC suspension and Hankook tires the car stayed well planted at high speed. The lower speed corners were a whole different ball game and taming the Element Tuning power house STi proved difficult.
On the third session I ran comfortably but the car started pushing on the oval at the apex just before the straight at around 140 mph so I pulled in. What we found was the outside front tire loosing air at it only had 23 psi hot. Without much competition in the “Unlimited” class we knew we had the win with this time of 55.6 seconds.
While this was all fine and dandy I wanted to be the fastest at the track! Um, it was all about bragging rights I set my sights on these race cars which were the fastest at the track so on went a new front tire/wheel.
Back from GT Live at VIR and still recuperating from a weekend of problems but overall very happy we finished 2nd place in AWD Unlimited and 2nd overall. Having struggled the weekend before at another Redline Time Attack I was hoping this weekend would go smoother since we’ve spent some time at VIR. Finally we’ve been able to solve our overheating issues and it was as simple as cutting the backside out of the hood scoop. Ugly but effective! This just allowed the air to flow into the radiator and out the backside of the hood scoop.
Phew…what a weekend! As sponsoring Phil and his Element Tuning Time Attack Race Car, we had our work cut out for us in preparation for the event. We all knew that there was going to be stiff competition, so we did our best to make sure the car was as prepared as possible.
Aside from getting the front bumper fixed, we added a SYMS rear bumper, Seibon doors, Seibon side skirts, and painted the roof black. Seibon doors also came in just in time, as well as the APR GTC-300 wing and APR front splitter.
With the last-minute work still going on Phil’s car, the rest of us pretty much packed up the entire showroom into a U-Haul truck, along with some flooring and tents thanks to Dan from Prodrive America. We closed down the shop very early on Friday to make sure we could concentrate on getting everything packed up. After about 7 hours straight of work on all fronts, we were finally all packed up and ready to go. Our caravan left the shop here in Kent, WA around 7 pm, grabbed some dinner down the road, then headed off.
The group got separated along the way, with Phil (driving the Time Attack car, no trailers here) leading the first pack and Jonathan and myself switching off leading the second group. We stopped just south of Olympia in hopes that the group would reconvene, but Phil’s group decided to head on straight down to Portland. At this point, Subiesport photographer Nick Parker realized that his camera bag was missing, and after about an hour and a half of phone calls, it turns out a good samaritan had returned his camera bag to the local police station, completely intact. With Nick’s fears alleviated, we continued on down south.
Engine Blocks
Engine Management
Engine Components
Exhaust Systems
Turbochargers