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All of the teams are tight knit, helping each other whenever possible and making fun of each even more often. Case in point was the wager thrown down via a major social networking site that contains the word face… In this case it is the Professionally Awesome Daniel O'Donnell trying to save face against none other than Soccer star and Driving wizard David Westphal err… Jeff Beckham, FACK… Jeff Westphal… The details are that Jeff was going to assist the Professional Awesome crew in helping to setup their Evo on Saturday as Daniel had a super secret mission causing him to miss the first day of competition. Enter the bet of WHO will be faster in the PA Street AWD powerhouse! I personally stepped up to the plate with a $ wager in support of fellow midwesterner Daniel “no drama” O'Donnell, after all he has the greatest team name in all of sport on the side of his speed vessel, while Mike “the dodgy Brit” Warfield of GST called my bet. You must now suffer through the rest of my intermediate ramblings to see who had the better time, and who had to pay up.
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| Jeff Westphal and Mike Lewin go over details before Jeff heads out in the PA Evo. Let's settle this fellas! |
We were disappointed to hear via the aforementioned social networking site that bill Washburn in his Dent Sport Garage 240SX was not able to make the event. With a huge team effort they were able to get the car together. However, they did not have adequate time to chase down some electrical gremlins which kept them from taking to the track. Lets hope that the DSG crew is able to get the car to one of the two remaining events this year.
Mike Warfield claimed the GST time machine L was under the weather, was it really? We do know that it has spent the last few months at events and in the custody of the World Racing crew, so perhaps he wasn't fibbing this time. I know that many people were looking forward to seeing if they could shatter their previous lap record of 1:02.460, which is an actual PRODUCTION CAR record for the NJMP Lightning circuit. That's right folks, no other factory derived 4 wheels vehicle has ever circled this course FASTER than the GST L.
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| The GST L in its current state. Yes this motor has not ben serviced since the beginning of the season. |
Will their home brew machine be able to beat itself? Will anyone dethrone them? Perhaps one of the local New Jersey V8 cars that entered in the smack talking would knock them off their ass kicking perch. Always looming very closely to the Unlimited AWD cars is Chris Rado and the World crew with their FWING TC looking to beat their previous record of 1:05.481. To say that any FWD car can hang with the likes of the Unlimited AWD and RWD cars is nothing short of crazy!
SATURDAY
MIQ arrived at the track Saturday morning bright and early to be greeted by none other than NADS. No not a hairy man bag you disgusting individual, John “Nads” Naderi, the grand poobah of GTA; alongside him was the REAL brains of GTA Jason Dienhart, certainly the less creepy of the two.
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| The guy with the creepy moustache is Nads, yep… He pulled up in a white panel van with no windows. All joking aside John and Jason (pictured to the left) are great guys truly in this for the passion of the motorsport. |
I have been to other GTA events but I always get excited to check out the hardware in the paddock. Purpose built machines are right up our alley here at MotoIQ and there is no shortage of those at these events. While there are certainly “usual suspects” in the GTA series seeing these cars never gets old and there is something new on these cars at every event. It's sort of like the where's Waldo of the automotive world, can you spot the changes in the car from the last event? There are more than likely some to behold.
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| The new rear mounted radiator in the GST car is working well. This provided Jeff does not have to try and look out the back window. |
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| See if you can figure out which switches function and which do not. Safe to say that GST has a sense of humor! |
