The 200TW tire market is really hot right now because budget endurance racing is really hot right now. Plus there are also time trials and other racing classes specifically targeted at tires that meet these criteria.
Hoosier has been a dominant name in racing in both the autocross and road race markets. Now they’re also venturing into the pool of medium-treadwear ultra high performance tires to compete with the likes of Nankang, Maxxis, and Continental. The new Track Attack promises to eclipse the performance of something like the Continental Extreme Contact Force, and with an extremely large variety of diameters from 15” to 21”. The asymmetric pattern means you won’t be able to exchange all four corners of your car on a square setup, though.
Initial testing by various outlets is positive but some people with heavier cars have voiced some complaints. Hoosier is responsive to feedback and keeps its finger on the pulse of the market, so I’d expect any kinks to get ironed out pretty quickly.
Improved Racing was another manufacturer that caught my eye because they had an item in the new product showcase. That item happened to be this super cool low-profile filter relocation housing. I’ve been looking for something fancier to upgrade by super basic Greddy barbed filter relocation kit, and this thing is probably the ticket.
It features a completely modular design that allows the base to fit a wide number of engines while still maintaining the same external dimension. Additionally, the center housing is totally clockable and double-sealed, which means that you can point your hoses anywhere in a 360-degree arc while still providing a fluid-tight seal to the engine block. And, at the filter end, they offer both thermostatic and non-thermostatic filter blocks, in case you want to more tightly control oil flow through coolers.
Another thing that I’d been looking for was an easy way to attach a pressure sensor or temperature sensor to the filter relocation kit. Greddy smartly included a 1/8 NPT port on their adapter, but oddly, most other aftermarket manufacturers don’t include anything like this. Improved Racing has a spacer that adds ports for sensors and other solutions without adding a lot of height, and it is shaped in such a way as to allow for longer temperature sensors to not end up hitting the interior of the housing.
Lastly, Improved Racing has a unique media-free catch system that can either recirculate or vent to the atmosphere. The internal airflow system maximizes kicking oil out of the air without using a media, like a steel-wool-type solution, which inevitably captures and retains oil and impacts the airflow through the system. I’ll definitely be looking at adopting their system to replace my extremely lame plastic setup.
Molecule has been helping me keep my racing clothes and my gym clothes and my race car clean for a while now. For 2025, they have introduced a detailer specific for matte-finish vehicles, which is pretty neat. They also have released a rain/water repellant to compete with RainX. That’s a market that is ripe for disruption, and I wish Molecule the best in competing there.
Finally, they also have a waterless hand wash that has mild antimicrobial properties and moisturizers. Because your significant other doesn’t want you touching them with your greasy, smelly, cracked and dry hands. You goon.
We covered Sentinel a few years back, and they have continued to update and improve things since then. This is now version 3 of their motorsports telemetry and live-streaming system. This system features dual bonded 5G SIM cards that work across multiple provider networks. They’ve also implemented the network stack in such a way that, instead of being either fail-over or simple round robin with each data packet going across a different network, the system dynamically determines which network is likely to provide the best latency and uses it.
When viewing the stream directly over the internet and not via a service like YouTube, Sentinel claims latency as low as 1ms which would absolutely work for live driver coaching and team telemetry applications.
Their updated cameras now feature a global shutter which helps improve video quality and avoids that jello blobby screen effect you get on certain camera systems. The system comes with three cameras and features an HDMI out, which means that the rear-facing video camera could be wired to an in-car display to act as a live video rear camera like you see on super fancy GT cars.
While AIM is the primary data stream supported for telemetry at this time, you can work with Sentinel if you have a different data system that you want to integrate. The entire system only weighs 16lbs with the three cameras, two cellular antennas, and the control box. That’s not a lot, considering all the power this thing is packing. MSRP is around $4000, which might sound pricey, but I bet your sponsors, your mom, or your spouse would really like to watch your livestream.
And, if you can keep a secret, Sentinel says they’re working on pit-to-car communication over the data network as well.
This is the new Sabelt Hyper TB-12. You might remember some of the super-light shoes that I showed off from Sabelt a couple of years ago. Well, after some extensive testing, it turns out that a little heavier-duty shoe with a little more sole stiffness is warranted. Sabelt took a popular shoe design and completely revised it to produce the TB-12, which is still super light despite being extremely durable in both the sole and the heel areas due to the new design.
3 comments
I am aroused by the new baby EFR. It will be the PERFECT miata turbo.
I’m annoyed that a compressor muffler is a thing that exists
On behalf of myself and random lurkers who don’t comment, thank you for the great coverage and writing.
I’ve never been to SEMA nor PRI. I just turned 44. I’m missing out. Articles like these do the job filllng in though.