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The L-Con crafted roll cage has perfect craftmanship. Look at how the floor plates wrap around the frame rails.
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The upper part of the hoop has sano corner reinforcements and flawless tig welding. A hand-formed aluminum panel replaces the heavy sunroof.
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Sparco seats save lots of weight. Sparco harnesses protect the driver and occasional passenger. A quick release steering wheel makes entry and exit of the car easier.
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Sparco steering wheel is quite ergonomic! |
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| Berk’s race team manager Bee makes sure the car looks as good as it runs before getting back out on track! |
Louie Contreras of L-Con fabrication built a basic roll cage from DOM tubing for the car. Since this was a street class car, the stock interior had to be retained. It is quite difficult to cleanly integrate an effective cage with a full interior but L-Con did an amazing job. The cage improves safety and greatly improves chassis stiffness and handling. The interior also includes lightweight Sparco seats on Macht Schnell seat rails and 6-point harnesses. Switching to the Sparco seats trimmed 70 lbs from the car’s total weight, nearly making up for the weight of the roll cage! A NRG steering wheel quick release and Sparco steering wheel round out the interior mods.
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The V-Fiber air dam and the APR splitter make a lot of needed front downforce.
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| The 135i has good underbody aerodynamics. The car is nearly a flat bottom. This helps the splitter and diffuser’s effectiveness. You can see the cool Berk exhaust very well from this underbody shot. |
The exterior features a bunch of functional and tasteful mods. An APR GTC rear wing and rear diffuser provides downforce in the rear balanced by an APR front splitter. A V-Fiber front airdam and side skirts manage airflow around the car. A vented Seibon carbon hood sheds weight and helps the engine stay cool. A Seibon rear deck lid also trims weight from the car. APR carbon GT3 mirrors cut drag as a large percentage of a modern car’s drag is actually caused by the mirrors.
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The Seibon carbon hood has generous venting. This greatly helps engine cooling and helps improve the effectiveness of the splitter.
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| The APR rear wing provides tuneable downforce. |
After a 2009 development season and with a new veteran driver Mike Bonanni, the Berk 135i entered the 2010 Redline Time Attack season with a roar securing enough points to just about clinch the 2010 season championship at this time. Below is the cars record in the 2010 season to date.
Buttonwillow – 1st Place – 1:58.839 **New Street Tire RWD Record
Las Vegas Motor Speedway – 2nd Place – 1:49.111
Auto Club Speedway – 2nd Place – 1:51.373
Willow Springs – 3rd Place – 1:30.415
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The V-Fiber side skirts look good and somewhat help underbody aero by resisting the air’s tendency to curl under the car.
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| The Seibon rear trunk decklid saves weight while the APR rear diffuser helps create downforce. ..and the Laura in the background does her best to distract photographers. |
Despite its ontrack prowess, the Berk 135i is still quite streetable and would be a pretty decent street car, mild enough for comfortable daily driving! The car is a true statement that a fully streetable car can still easily be a winner in the hands of the right team.
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