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| The Redneck Racing 500 Abarth was fitted with a prototype intake prior to the event. It was great to see a platform so new to the 'States already being flogged on the track. |
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| Fiat of Ft. Worth also provided a 500C for a driver's challenge. When this car left the event on Saturday night the tongue was hanging out, as were the cords on the drivers side front tire… |
In addition Snail Performance and Forced Air Technologies had 4 cars at the event representing in fine style. The Snail man himself Travis “the Sauce Bauce” Barnes had his black STi on track in Unlimited AWD; Markos Mylonas was piloting his WRX in Enthusiast AWD; Taylor Wilson brought out his GR chassis WRX wagon complete with top mounted wing; and rounding out the SNAIL/FAT team was Dale “Papa Bauce” Barnes in his Mustang GT. As you can tell there were plenty of new and revised cars on track which made for some exciting racing. Also on hand in Texas to display their wares were “Nerd Alliance” members Whiteline suspension. Synergy Turbo and Deatsch Werks also had full booths to show their stuff and also put product money on the line for class winners!
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| It is always great to see vendor's on hand to show off their wares and to support motorsports. Whiteline Suspension, Synergy Turbo, and Deatsch Werks are all on hand to answer questions and share some shade. |
GTA has never run at this track and many teams had zero experience, as such for most of the teams the first session was used for shakedown and layout. After spending some time taking some initial setup shots we walked back to the pits to find many teams making changes. The GST Impreza L was in the air and being tweaked and as luck (good or bad; you decide) would have it they were short a pair of hands. The front alignment needed to be finalized so we set our cameras down and lent a quick hand to get that taken care of.
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| Here I am lending a hand to Mike and GST in diagnosing a vibration issue. Turned out to be an easy fix. I am shocked Mike from GST is willing to let my hands touch the car when I am usually involved in some sort of wager against him. |
Overall the track was challenging in that the surface was quite bumpy and the grip would prove to be ever changing based on sharing a section of turns with the XDC Drift Cars. As the morning sessions progressed it was quite obvious that the Vorshlag Mustang of Terry Fair as well as the Evo IX of Tim Schoeppner had the track figured out quickly; they were both pushing hard and it was apparent they would be teams to keep an eye on. Pushing hard to turn a fast time in the AM on Friday was a good strategy as it would provide slightly cooler conditions as well as a track that had not yet seen a lot of action from the drift cars. This theory proved somewhat true for the day, in watching the drift cars start practicing on the shared section of the track there were a large number of “offs” that brought dirt and gravel back on to the track. Luckily much of this was off of the racing line however it made for an interesting situation if any of the Time Attack cars got offline.
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| From the very first session Tim Schoepner's turned his Evo IX to XI and was very fast. If my memory serves me correctly he was the first competitor to break the 40 second barrier on Friday. He was the class of the field in limited AWD. |
