Engine Tuning and Auto Racing

For most of us that follow the import racing market or are in the industry, we are heavily inspired by the trends that flow out of Japan. One such trend is the race against the clock, also known as Time Attack. Manufactures and tuning shops compete for the record (in their respective classes) to be known as the fastest and most knowledgeable in the art of auto racing. In Japan most Time Attack events are held at Tsukuba circuit (www.jasc.or.jp). The current record holder at Tsukuba is the HKS Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VIII with a lap time of 0.55:00. Here in the USA there is no such event till now. Thanks to the boys and gals of Super Street magazine and Sport Compact Car magazine our dreams are now reality.

April 6th is the date. Buttonwillow raceway (www.buttonwillowraceway.com) is the track. The event is SS/SCC TA. The classes of competition are limited and un-limited. Each class has 3 categories, front wheel drive, rear wheel drive and all-wheel drive. Limited class cars have to be registered street cars where as un-limited are race cars with full roll cages and all the safety equipment. The race course is set to be run on layout 13 clock-wise. Most of the street cars that go out on track days run about 2.20:00 on course layout 13, today these lap times won’t get you any trophies. Here is a quick run down of the tuners / manufactures that came out. Signal auto, Hasport, Science of Speed, Raceline Development, Sparco, Axis wheels, Skunk 2, Spoon Sports, Nitrous Express and more. Since this kind of event has never been done in the states, we had no idea how fast was fast and you can’t put fast cars with slower cars on the track at the same time. So to fix the problem of people running into each other, there was a 1hr. tuning and qualifying session from 9:00am to 10:00am. From there you were put into your class according to lap times, so different class cars were running together. There are 3 run groups, A, B and C. from the morning test session, cars that ran 2.04:00 and faster were in the A group, 2.04:01 to 2.09:00 were in B group and 2.09:01 and slower were in C group. As the day went on some cars got bumped to faster groups. Well this is as much as I can tell you about the event. Since it was sponsored by Primedia, they covered the event and have all rights to tell the story. Please be on the look out for coverage of the event in stores and news stands around June 2004 in Super Street and Sport Compact Car magazine.