Project Professional Awesome Time Attack Evo: Part 0 – The End of an Era, the Beginning of a Legend
My name is Dan O’Donnell, I’m the driver of the Professional Awesome Evo and I’m a Time Attack-aholic. It’s been 4 years since I first started and it’s taking over my life. I have no money, I find it hard to focus at work and I’m slowly converting all my friends and family to manual transmission cars. They are concerned because I mutter confusing statements to myself such as “If I can just shave a tenth in turn 3” and “If the engine will hold 30psi, surely 35 won’t hurt.” I need help.
Some need more help than others. I, on the other hand, need Dr. Phil to cure my issues.About three months ago I wrecked the Professional Awesome Evo during a Global Time Attack event at Road Atlanta. Leaving the track at 90+ mph and backing into the wall at 65 mph destroyed the chassis, ruined half the suspension and a fair amount of the drivetrain. With so much damage and little financial means to rebuild, time attack was put on hold and my life changed dramatically. I started exercising more, a relationship with a lovely young woman blossomed and I had free time to travel and enjoy a summer more than I can remember. Despite these changes, addiction is a hard battle to overcome and temptation lurked at every corner. A chance phone call with ex-competitor, Fortune Auto, flipped my world for the better (Or is it worse?) and with a new partnership formed, a replacement Evo was shipped out from Solid Autoworks in Salt Lake City and I fell off the wagon hard.
Our Time Attack Evo V2.0 is not a VII as used previously. As much as we loved our VII platform, it required quite a few modifications to work with USDM parts. These changes became more and more frustrating over time so either a VIII or IX of the USDM variety was in order. We ended up choosing a 2004 VIII with complete drivetrain as ours was substantially damaged in the accident.With new support from Fortune Auto, Professional Awesome Racing has now started building our Time Attack Evo V2.0. The goal is to improve the areas we compromised on our first car and leave Limited Class track records so difficult to beat, that competitors grimace when they see the times on the clock. We’d love to compete at the Global Time Attack/Super Lap Battle Finals this year. We don’t know if it’s realistic or not, but we will try our damnedest to do so!
Before we focus on the future of the Evo, we thought it wise to reminisce about where we’ve been. With that in mind, we'll recap Evo V1.0 and throw back to curtain to reveal all our secrets (almost!).
When you last had an in-depth read about the Professional Awesome Evo V1.0 on MotoIQ it was the summer of 2011; the Arab Spring was fresh and seemed like a good idea, the Shuttle Atlantis landed safely to conclude NASA’s space shuttle program and the Occupy Wall Street movement was just starting to get busy on their goal of accomplishing nothing. Needless to say, things changed dramatically from then to now for both the world and the Evo.
