COBB goes to the Modified Tuner Shootout

[Justin]

Skunk2 EVO


Turbo Lab NSX


Joe from Turbo Lab is one of our local friends. So it was good to see him out there. He recruited another friend of ours, Adam Munoa, to assist him in the pits. We actually helped each other out through the weekend. Spare a jack here, some jack stands there, borrow a fuel funnel....its all good between friends! Joe put on the best show during the drag racing portion. I"m sure stories and video of his adventures will be circulating soon if they are not already!

Anyway, our first day was coming to a close. We received some points for the dyno competition, though not as much as we hoped. There is still along way to go before this event is over! As we were getting ready to leave, there were a couple cool cars hanging around. It seems that GT-R's are not all to uncommon to see around town here.

[Justin]

The next morning was the Autocross competition. Our hotel was only about 10 minutes away so we woke up early and headed to the track. We set up shop and Eric began putting the OEM front lip on the car. We removed it because it was easier to get in and out of our trailer. We kept coming up with reasons why we needed a sweet Toter Home trailer while driving out to Phoenix....blah blah this truck is to cramped for 4 us us, blah blah, we could work on the cars while driving to events, blah blah, we could sleep right at the track and save on hotel costs, blah blah....I think X-box came into the conversation as well.......yeah, some reasons were more outlandish then others

Anyway, unloading the trailer and getting the car ready took up a lot of time. Before we knew it, the event organizers were running through the pits asking us to get our cars in grid! Billy hops in the GT-R, fires her up, and rolls over to grid for the drivers meeting. We were thinking this would be our event, after all we had Billy Brooks right!!?!? There were some serious machines out there though, and we never really fully tested the GT-R in real autocross situation before. We ran a few slalom tests at Miller Motorsports Park, but thats about it.

Some of the cars in grid:


While Billy was in the drivers meeting eric started to get a slightly worried look on his face:


I don't like it when Eric looks worried, and I knew what he was thinking. The OEM Dunlops are not going to allow us to be competitive. We made the decision to let Billy run them for his first warm up laps and switch over to the R888's we brought. Good thing we picked up those 19" Volks for the G37. They just happened to fit on the R35 well enough to stick some sticky rubber on them. After Billy ran a few laps on the OEM wheels and tires, we performed our version of a NASCAR wheel change...only it took us 5-10 minutes instead of 15 seconds. Our saving grace was some on course drama....someone sheared some wheel studs and was stuck. This allowed us enough time to get the Volks swapped over and Billy back into grid.

[Justin]

The competition was heating up as the drivers were getting the course dialed in. Some cars left the scene early only to return later for another go, but all in all, it was a tight battle from the start!



The wheel and tire swapped was working for us. The Toyo R888's allowed us to drop 3 seconds right away, and Billy was getting faster and faster. Here is a shot of him with my camera full zoom from the far side of the course:

[Justin]

Convinced we had a good timed run to get us back into contention, we settled back to camp to get the car ready for the drag racing portion of the event. Seeing as this is one of the more stockish cars we have raced, prep work was minimal at best. We simply put the OEM Dunlops back on. We did so because we were not sure of the rolling diameter of the Volk/Toyo combo would hurt us or not, plus we were not sure if we would have to much grip and break something since we have not ever drag raced this car before. Looking back, we all wanted to see what the Volk/Toyo combo would have done. Its certainly a lot lighter than the stock wheel/tire set up.

GST was getting serious and the crew removed the rear wing for Gary Sheehan:


Not to be outdone, we rolled up with.....the gold wheels back on!


After Billy had a few practice runs, Dave jumped in to hose down the twin intercoolers to make sure we were doing what we could to keep the car happy!


Billy was using the OEM launch control feature that the GT-R has. After a few toggle switches, the car sets into launch control mode. From here on out all Billy has to do is keep his right foot planted to the floor, and make sure he flips the flappy paddle with his right hand at the correct moments to keep from bouncing off the rev limiter.

[Justin]

It seems this car does what it does, and it does it very well. No matter how Billy drove the car for the drag race, it was pretty much the same outcome every time. Left lane or Right lane, change up the shift points a little here and there, the GT-R is all about consistency. This is all she had in her, and we were not disappointed.





We did our best at the drag racing and we were satisfied with the results. This should still keep us in contention for a top finish. The Final event was a few hours away, the Time Attack. They would get a few hours of practice in daylight before having to wait for it to get dark before the timed session would begin. The GT-R was parked so it could rest, while we decided to try to catch some of the others and see how they faired in the 1/4 mile.

Some of the others were pretty fast....thats most likely why Dave looked like this:

[Justin]

We decided to take advantage of the HPDE event that was also going on. Billy has driven this course once or twice before, but Eric needed to learn the fast lines. We tossed of Time Trial decals on the cars and sent them on their way. Eric learns track layouts quickly, which is a good thing because Billy says the backside of this track does not have a whole lot of light. Both of them will have to take a few turns from memory in order to stay fast.





After a few sessions they were content that they could both secure a few fast lap times. Eric is trying to qualify for the Super Lap Battle and Billy is pulling double duty trying to also qualify and still stay focused for the Modified Tuner Shootout. They both park the cars and rest up. It will be dark soon and then the timed sessions are a go!



Time Attack at night, on this track, is quite scary. They are letting cars go 20 seconds apart, with no more than three on track at one time. Billy gets in some of his fastest lap times yet, but its not without drama. Unfortunately there is not much more I can say without giving to much away. Modified Magazine ask me not to say to much, but I still think this gives a pretty good overview of what happened throughout the weekend.

Our MazdaSpeed3 saw great success in the hands of Eric. He is really beginning to show his driving skills and will only get faster as time goes on.

We look forward to seeing everyone again at the GT Live event at Miller Motorsports Park this June 28 and 29.

[animedork2075]

Way to leave us hanging. I love these threads. When does the article come out, so I can actually read your story?