Dai had the edge in handling but the TSX was much faster on the oval and down the straights.
The TSX lost control and took Dai out of the first race. Since Dai missed a few races due to Formula Drift schedule conflicts he needed all the points he could get. This incident took him out of the points lead with one more race the next day.
Overnight we patched the Dog Car up the best we could and Dai was once again fast.
Dai had a hard battle with the TSX for a few laps. It was exciting, if Dai won, he would be the champion. If the TSX won that team would take the crown.
You can see the difference in handling right here! Dai ended up winning the race and the MPTCC championship. Dai would go on improving his grip driving and doing well in road racing in Time Attack, Endurance Road Racing and even GT racing.
The Dog Car’s final iteration has more aerodynamic refinements. The grill was closed off making it a bottom breather and greatly reducing drag. The side openings for the oil cooler and ram-air system were closed off by more than 50% to reduce drag and make the splitter more effective.
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!