2019 Super Lap Battle USA at Circuit of the Americas

Austin local Mike McGinnis of Innovative Tuning pulled off a 2:21.156 for 3rd in Limited class with his daily driver. Mike is a smart guy and did multiple test sessions prior to Super Lap and found a blown shock during one of them. For all you budding racers out there, test test test BEFORE the event.

Mike has been playing around with an active rear wing. It’s fun to watch the vids he’s made of it moving around. Right now, he just has a simple control scheme using braking force, throttle angle, and vehicle speed to determine the wing angle.

Sorry I didn’t get a closer picture of the engine bay. But it’s pretty mild. It has some aftermarket intake manifolds from what I can tell, some IC pipes with BOVs, a fuel rail. The frontend aero is mild with just some fender vents and a small front splitter to balance out the rear wing.

Mike works at COBB and has the Accessport on the dash with a MOTEC on the windshield for lap data.

The rear seats and passenger seat were removed for Super Lap. They were back in the car that night after the event. Gotta take the kids to school after all.

6 comments

  1. Honest question? Is there a lack of participation / competition going on at this event? Doesn’t seem very many serious competitors for the top spots.

    1. Looks like a total of 46 cars were entered. In reading comments on various forums, it seems the high cost of entry due to it being at COTA deterred some from participating. That said, I think the notable cars missing were the Professional Awesome Evo, PZtuning Civic which seems was in Japan and just set the Tsukuba FF track record, Chris Boersma Civic, Can-Jam STI. RS Motors Evo. Could any of them have beat the Lyfe GTR? Not so sure…. would have been interesting for sure. Hopefully they all make it out next year.

  2. Great article on a great event. I’m positive that this will become a standout event that draws everyone. SuperLap Battle USA, well done on taking what must’ve been a huge risk and making it happen. Khiem, so glad you were able to get there!

  3. Not too sure that radiatior on the Miata is going to be effective. Even though you have high dynamic pressure at the stagnation point on the front bumper, it the streamline would have to turn something like 80 degrees, into another high pressure zone under an unvented hood. I’m sure it works but it probably adds a ton of drag. I hope he builds a ducted hood vent eventually. Or you could do what Ferrari did recently with the 488 Pista and vent beneath the car. Ferrari claims 10% better cooling and 7%less drag. Another bonus is that the rear gets cool air instead of hot air which is denser, with less turbulence and entropy so the rear wing or spoiler becomes more efficient. The CoG is better too.

  4. I had to know what was going on with the SR3 Radical suspension. Found a pretty fascinating message chain. The original inventor chimes in at the end.

    The nik-link uses a bell crank to compress the top of the coil over as well as the coil over compressing from the bottom a-arm. This gives more shock travel to control the spring they say. The ARB is a tubular bar bent downward at one end and is mounted across the chassis connected to the bell cranks on either side. When the suspension moves the bar bends (bows) causing roll resistance.
    ubrben (Automotive)

    27 Jul 04 17:50
    This is what I hate about the whole patenting system. The ‘nik link’ is identical in concept to the front suspension system Andrew Thorby designed for the early 90s Van Diemen Sports 200 car. He subsequently used the design on the Lister Storm LMP

    LMP900 (Automotive)
    4 Aug 04 13:25
    I did indeed use it on the Van Diemen and the Lister. There are a number of benefits, but on the front of the Van Diemen (and presumably the Radical) it allowed the good motion ratio of a pushrod linkage with the chassis simplicity of a simple double A-arm/coilover layout. Didn’t realise it was patentable though….

    Andy

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