Congratulations Billy Johnson and Team FXMD/Cricket Wireless!
MotoIQ Staff Report
MotoIQ would like to give a hearty congratulations to our very own Billy Johnson for his smoking lap time of 1:36.106 at the Redline Time Attack 2009 season finale at California Speedway last weekend. Billy's time was good for:
1st Overall
1st Unlimited Class
1st Unlimited RWD
New RTA track record (and track record for a production-based car).
The win sealed Billy's Redline Time Attack Championship's in both Unlimited and Unlimited RWD classes.
The victory by the FXMD team was not without drama. On Saturday the right rear tire de-beaded in Nascar Turn 2 at 150mph, putting the NSX sideways at the wall. Billy caught the slide only to have the back end swing around again which put the NSX right next to the wall. Johnson caught the second slide and got the car under control. Unfortunately the shredding tire destroyed the KW 3-way shock's remote reservoir and killed the shock. Fortunately KW's Chris Marion was there with a backup set of shocks and the car was able to be repaired.
Sunday initially turned out really well with the FXMD team being the fastest in the 2 practice sessions. Then on the 2nd session disaster struck again, the transaxle input shaft on the NSX snapped in half. The FXMD team did an amazing job swapping the transaxle on the ground with no lift, installing a stock transaxle, the teams only spare. This transaxle wasn't prepped, and was equipped with the inferior US-spec wide ratio gear stack. The spare transaxle had a partially effective stock LSD, unlike the tuned OS Giken LSD the team normally uses which caused spinning of the inside tire at over 100mph.
To try to make up time lost due to the inferior transaxle, the team increased the boost, raised the ride height and switched to a different alignment and stiffer spring rates to better cope with the increased loading of the banking the team was able to knock off almost 2 seconds from a lap time of 1:37.7 to a 1:36.103 for the overall win.
FXMD's Yokohama Slicks, KW 3-way motorsport dampers, and Performance Friction Forged Monoblock (multi-pad) calipers and 2pc floating rotors worked flawlessly to help achieve FXMD's 5th (out of 5) Overall victory and track record, Unlimited Class Championship, and title of Undefeated in RTA 2009.
Awesome job Billy! Brought to you by MotoIQ, the magazine whose editors actually do things.
