I was at the track all day today for track support duty on the M-Workz 350z. The car is owned by my friend Steve Mitchell and was driven by the one and only Tarzan Yamada. The XS BNR32 Time Attack GT-R was missing some parts (we can thank Tomei for the delays…) and so Tarzan was cool enough to drive The M-Workz 350Z. We finished a very respectable 3rd in the Unlimited RWD class. This is the car’s first time out with the new Cosworth VQ engine tuned by your’s truly and the M-Workz tuned suspension. 450whp at 7200rpm was all we could get before the stupid belt on the Vortech blower started to slip. That’s a shame because we can spin the engine to 8500rpm.
The GMG Porsche GT3 Cup World Challenge 996 was present (the one I bitched about previously) and it finished 1st overall with a 1:08:658, 2nd was the AMS EVO 8 with a 1:08:89, and 3rd was the JIC S15 I think with a 1:09:6x. In my book the AMS EVO 8 won because there’s no reason why a professional race car should be competing at a tuner competition. That’s like putting a DTM car in World Touring Car. Cars raced in professional series benefit from seasons of suspension and chassis development available with BIG budgets. Tuning shops simply cannot compete with this because we have a business to run. But who gives a shit because the GMG GT3 Cup car still couldn’t beat the XS BNR32’s time last year of 1:07:68!!
The cars built and tuned in the USA are getting much faster, but the XS BNR32 GT-R and Tarzan Yamada still own the TA track record at California Speedway in Fontana. That was the XS GT-R’s FIRST time on the track with a stock transmission so we know it could have gone much faster (had Tomei delivered the engine parts!!) this time around. If all goes well, we should win the Redline Time Attack in April at Buttonwillow. Anyhow, here are some pics.
Left to right: Daiji from C-West translating, Tarzan the Time Attack master, Mike Kojima the suspension master, and Johnny Mac the aerodynamic master discussing the car’s handling. Masters At Work. It had a slight understeer which we tried to dial out throughout the day.
Here’s Steve gettin’ down and dirty adjusting the front toe. Alignment is critical at the track.
Here we were talking about the long nose 350z’s they have homologated in Japanese endurance racing (Super Taikyu/N1). Tarzan says there is a pretty damn big downforce difference with the long nose cars.
Tarzan is in the pre-grid warming up the engine.
There’s Mike Kojima the umbrella girl, or I mean guy, for Verena Mei. You could call this role playing since it’s usually the other way around.
Verena Mei was driving James Chen’s Axis Wheels 350z. He was busy cruising his Bentley around (literally) collecting a shitload of cash so he asked Steve to maintain it and Verena drive it. What a guy, huh?