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Those were my thoughts when heading to the track Friday AM and that is exactly how it turned out. Road Atlanta regulars went out at a good pace while those teams not familiar felt out the track, found the line, and got used to the elevation changes. As we all know car setup varies from track to track and those setup for flat and shorter courses would have to make changes to go faster. For this weekend GTA found itself with more session by getting cars on track at 8AM. As we made our way through the paddock, we took in all of the teams and cars that made it out to the event and we were shocked to see many teams from Arizona and California setup and ready to rock. Night Motorsports made their way out from Cali. with their 2006 STi, UMS tuning brought out there recently “Nerd eye viewed” Evo VIII, Snail Performance and the Barnes' also trekked out with their WRX from California. While these are the teams that traveled the farthest the “where from” list shocked me as racers came from all over to lay it down at Road Atlanta.
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| The Night Motorsport crew brought out their Garrett GTX3576R motivated STi to compete. They towed to ATL from California to compete in the Street AWD Class with this 600HP beast. |
We were pleased to see Turn In Concepts out in their Unlimited class AWD WRX. This car has not seen action since GTA New Jersey last year as the crew focuses their efforts on road racing. We had high hopes but the team's OEM pulley had other ideas. What appeared to be a failed harmonic damper section of the OEM crank pulley put an end to their weekend with crank/lower end damage.
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| Have I ever said how much I like this car? It was great seeing TiC and Tony out again! This car is designed for one thing and one thing only: Raw speed! Unfortunately this weekend they were sidelined by a crank pulley issue. The morning light made for some amazing pictures and thankfully Sarah was on hand to catch them. |
Travis Barnes in the Snail STi took to the track quite well in the AM on Friday and despite some lawn mowing he would establish a respectable time of 1:35.204. The morning also saw the return of the #44 SOHO Motorsports G35 of Kevin Parlett. If you remember, this car had a nasty accident last year at this event and this weekend was the first time it would set rubber on tarmac. The car looked solid early in the day, would they be able to keep it together to set down a flyer?
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| Travis was not happy with the length of the grass at the top of turn 2 and as such he decided to do something about it. Functional aero that doubles as lawn care equipment. John Deere has NOTHING on Snail Performance and Forced Air Technologies. |
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| This is the Daniel O'Donnell we have grown to love. That quirky goodness that only a team like Professional Awesome can pull off. Friday they would have issues with the car not boosting as well as hitting the two step. We saw Tony Szirka of UMS lending them a hand to sort out their issues. Of course they would get the car ready for Saturday! |
