We Didn’t Crash!: An Enthusiastic Outing at Road Atlanta in Global Time Attack’s Enthusiast Class
Truth be told, I don’t consider myself the best tech writer. I have a comfortable working knowledge of what goes on with a car, but how to explain said knowledge so that others can understand and enjoy, well, let’s just say it doesn’t come as easily as it might for a Dave Coleman or Mike Kojima. Regardless, I do like to spin a good yarn and having a minimally modified 2013 Mitsubishi Evo X to compete in Global Time Attack’s Enthusiast Class at Road Atlanta affords me the opportunity to chat with you all, without having my brain struggle to explain the intricate details of a full blown racecar.
This is behind-the-scenes proof we are actually working on the new Limited Class Evo VIII. This here is a special little 2.2L 4G64/63 hybrid. More details will follow SOON!First, don’t be mad at me for the lack of updates on the Professional Awesome Limited Class Time Attack Evo. They are coming, swearzees! The car will be unveiled soonish and loyal MotoIQ readers will hopefully be proud of what we’ve accomplished. Second, the reason why we campaigned an Enthusiast Class car was because the new ride wasn’t complete in time for what we hoped would be its maiden voyage. With a goal of supporting sponsors, getting valuable track time and meeting up with old track friends, a mad dash was made to prepare our friend’s daily driven Evo X.
Here’s our mildly prepared 2013 Mitsubishi Evolution X. A daily driver of a good friend and neighbor from down the street. Underneath all those stickers is a near stock car that weighs over 3600 lbs with the driver!Enthusiast Class, for the uninitiated, is the entry level position in Global Time Attack’s time attack pyramid. Next class up is Street, then Limited and then the pinnacle is Unlimited. Think of Enthusiast Class like the unpaid intern that keeps the dust off of Kojima’s Z32. Maybe said intern doesn’t garner all the attention, but damned if he’s not learning valuable lessons and planning on a new project car that would kick that 300ZX square in the evap canister and leave it seconds behind on the track… if Kojima were to ever actually drive the damned thing that is.
The car had to be de-modded ever-so-slightly to complete legally. Enthusiast and Street class require catalytic converters and Indiana, where we hail, has extremely lax emission checking laws. Because of this, the car had a full titanium Akrapovic exhaust, sans cat. As luck would have it, we kept the original factory exhaust and threw it back on the car. The once throaty sounding Evo X was now back to factory vacuum cleaner sounds and we got on to the next modifications.
Unfortunately we did not have a picture of aligning the Evo X before hitting the road, but the methodology is the same as Mike Kojima here. We’ve had absolutely the best success aligning the car with the string method and recommend it wholeheartedly, see Kojima’s Basic Drift Chassis Setup for more details.
