Global Time Attack “Super Lap Battle” 2015

Rif Dagher played “double duty”, also driving the Platte Forme A.G. BMW M3 in Limited RWD.  Boost control issues kept them off their previous fastest times, but he was still able to finish 3rd place in a large field at a lap time of 1:54.457.

Will Wattanawongkiri has been working hard to make his return in his Limited Class Nissan S13 for some time now, but mechanical issues on the dyno right before Super Lap Battle kept the Nissan from making it out of the shop.  In its place, Will drove the Lucky 7’s Racing FC RX-7 to a 2nd place finish at 1:50.854.

Evasive Motorsports is one of the top import tuning shops in Socal with their high level builds for both customers and shop cars.  Their Scion FR-S, driven by Robert Walker, has seen not only Time Attack duty thoughout the US and Japan, but also Pikes Peak Hill Climb competition.  The elegant and nimble Scion was able to finish top spot in Limited RWD at a pace of 1:47.472.

Limited RWD podium, Rif Dagher 3rd place, Will Wattanawongkiri 2nd place, Rob Walker 1st place.

The Limited AWD class was one of the largest of the event with some of the highest lap time pace throughout the field.  The fact that Ivo Tuchi’s lap time in his exceptionally built Renner Motorsports GC8 Subaru RS landed him 4th place at 1:47.758, just shows how intense the competition was.

Mark Jager and Yimisport Tuning took a huge overhaul of the Jager Racing Subaru Sti in preparation for stepping up in class from Street AWD (in which mark dominated) to Limited AWD.  Most of the year was spent building with high attention to detail for minimal mechanical issues.  Even though Mark was able to pull an amazing time of 1:46.970, it was only good enough for 3rd place in class.  More testing and seat time throughout the year might have made the difference.  2016 will be very interesting for the Jager Racing Subaru.

One car that did see more testing and tuning leading up to Super Lap Battle was the JD Motorsports Mitsubishi Evo, owned by John Le and driven by John Carson.  With well-designed aero and being driven to peak performance, the JD Motorsports Evo finished 2nd with a very quick time of 1:46.370. JD Motorsports plans to further dial in the car in order to run even faster next year.

The Professional Awesome/ Fortune Auto Evo 7 had quite the adventure leading up to and throughout Super Lap Battle.  During the week prior at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas and while unloading the car, the transportation company attempted to jump start the car, however they put the wrong cables on the terminals, shorting out the AEM ECU.  Grant Davis of the Pro Awesome crew flew out to Vegas to confirm the issue and took the ECU to AEM in Los Angeles for repair.  As the rest of the Pro Awesome and Fortune Auto crew transported the Evo from Vegas to Buttowillow, Grant and the repaired ECU were picked up to be installed at track.  Once the ECU was in and the car ready to go for first practice, a blown alternator fuse was discovered; a quick fix was implemented, and then the car made it on track.  Shortly thereafter, the car’s front splitter had been torn off the front-end from insufficient support bracket strength.  Once the front aero was reinforced, the car made it out on track again just to have the power steering pump let go.  Luckily, a friend of the team who had used to live near the shop and recently moved to the LA area, picked up another pump at a local junkyard and brought it up that evening of the first day. Repairs happened over night to give it another shot for day 2.

Various electrical problems still plagued the Evo session after session, leaving driver Jeff Westphal stranded on track on numerous occasions.  Also, during second to last session, what was thought to have been an engine failure happened to be an oil filter that had come loose.  After clean-up and reinstallation of an oil filter, Jeff went out one more time for the final session.

With fresh tires, oil staying in the engine, power steering functioning, and electronics firing properly, Jeff was able to lay down a new Limited class AWD record of 1:42.694 and the over all Limited class win of the event.

Limited AWD podium, 3rd place Mark Jager, 2nd place John Carson, 1st place Jeff Westphal.