After a few laps, Dai drafted and slingshotted the faster TSX on the oval to get into first.
Dai checked out after that ending up winning by probably half a lap despite being slower down the straights and the oval than some of the other cars.
Dai was on the podium in both drifting and road racing a lot that year. He also won the Formula Drift championship.
In between rounds I took the Dog car out for a Time Attack and finished 2nd in Unlimited FWD to Chris Rado which was a joke. I got stuck in unlimited because of the lexan windows.
Dai also won what was the Dog Cars most epic win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We had added a few aero revisions to the car. We added a rear diffuser, closed off some unused bumper vents. We improved the ducting to help the aerodynamics in front of the radiator. This stuff really reduced the car’s drag and added stability. The Dog Car was pretty aerodynamically efficient which helped make up for its relatively low power.
Starting on the pole, Dai had a tough battle with an Ex-World Challange TSX which had way more power.
10 comments
whats the replacement?
E46 M3!
I am glad to see the Dog car has found a new home. I am also glad I got to see her in person when I was in SoCal earlier this year. I have followed this car for many years and it will be a shame to see her go. I have been building my sentra for the past 20 years, slowly trying to get to the same level as the Dog twins. Great write up, and great job on a great car. Good bye Dog car!
Some of those photos reminded me of the old “robot vs monkey” articles in SCC. Its fun to see a longer story to tie it all together rather than what could fit in the magazine.
Poor Jared, his performance was so poor the series didn’t continue. The monkey was so bad, he never made it past the morning warm-up! They never did get the story because his car always broke before qualifying.
That was a superb intro/out-tro to Dog Car at the end of it’s tenure with you. I think even for long time-ish readers of MotoIQ, the story of this car is not known. The stories from its development of a crap car into a competitive car with good handling and good aero would make great articles.
If they are already on print somewhere, I hope they can be brought together here for your global readers.
In the last picture, you can see the Sentra has a well balanced suspension with minimum roll, while the Acura appears to have an oversized rear bar, and low roll stiffness up front. Great job on developing that car Mike !
I believe it had no front bar, really stiff rear bar and rear springs which is popular with Honda racers. Although this was a competitive car in a higher series I was proud that the Dog Car with its crude suspension was much faster in the turns. A lot of this was due to Dai’s driving as well.
I remember reading about this car in SCC. Jared’s B13 too. Great memories. Thanks for sharing this car with us for so long Mike!
What a send-away.
You never forget your favourite car and the racing stories with it!