,
In the Street Class we would see some teams go to great lengths to succeed and sometimes those lengths would involve 2 week long road trips with a race car. Dan O’Donnell driver of the Professional Awesome crew would have the longest road to the Redline finals with a journey that lasted over 14 days for some of the crew. It all started the week before with a scenic drive from Indiana to Las Vegas for SEMA week as their EVO VII was part of the Zeitronix SEMA booth. It turns out that SEMA and Redline were one week apart and the time frame was just short enough that a drive back home to Indiana wasn’t worth it. After a weekend of professional and awesome racing by the Professional Awesome crew they could go home with a big smile on their face with a new record and resounding performance in the Street AWD class. They were able to take home the class win and street tire overall record against the Stoptech & Cobb Tuning powerhouses. Their best time of the day was 1:46.674 with a leaking radiator and boost leaks.
 |
| The Professional Awesome team drove over 2000 miles to make it to this event. Of all the miles driven the 2.88 miles of the Auto Club Speedway roval were the most important where the crew set a new overall street class record for the weekend. |
There were a couple of distinct holes found in the usual Street RWD lineup. There were a couple of good stories behind the cars missing in the usually stacked street RWD field.
First, the Berk Technology BMW 135i was seen practicing early Friday morning. The Berk team had just gotten the car back together two days before the event after an engine fire. The engine was fired up for the first time literally hours before the event. The team laid down a few quick practice laps and drove the car straight from the hot pits and onto the trailer and hurried down to ECU mapping specialist GIAC in Irvine. After 4 hours at GIAC things were looking good for the weekend. After the Saturday morning practice session the Berk Technology BMW would throw another electrical tantrum and would refuse to run on all six cylinders. Upon further investigation the crew would learn that the car suffered from a high pressure fuel pump failure that is a known Achilles heel for these turbo direct injection gasoline BMW’s.
 |
| The Berk Technology team is one of the most consistent performers in the Street RWD class. However this weekend definitely did not go their way as frustrating electrical issues sidelined them for most of the weekend. |
It was too little too late for the Berk crew and they would have to settle for a respectable 4th place finish in a borrowed near stock Honda S2000 Enthusiast class car belonging to Brake Horn Productions and Kam Urquhart. Nevertheless the Berk Technology team was in great spirits with the championship already clinched at Round 7 and the help of a keg of Bud Light which has become a regular feature inside their pit and hospitality area.
 |
| The Berk Technology team celebrates their first ever Redline Time Attack Championship. It looks like the Berk car was so fast this season that it brought a tank top wearing man back from the 70’s. |
The second casualty in the Street RWD lineup would come from the Godspeed 240SX. Driver Eddie Lim was poised to take this track by storm with a new turbo setup and his stellar come from behind win at this track in Round 4. Saturday practice would claim the life of the Godspeed 240SX’s engine. The dedicated team at Godspeed sprang into action and worked feverishly to swap aero parts onto another 240SX they happened to drive to the track. They worked into the night to get things done but luck was not on their side. The backup car would also suffer an engine failure early on and the Godspeed crew was forced to withdraw from the Competition.
 |
| Eddie Lim and the Godspeed Racing crew have been running strong all year. Despite the herculean effort by the team they were unable to get the car running again for the Sunday competition. |
Dave Lemon in the MazdaTrix RX8 was sporting a brand new turbo setup making in excess of 450hp. Dave was looking good for a strong performance at this horsepower friendly track. Nobody was immune to the engine gremlins this weekend as Lemon and the MazdaTrix would be forced to retire the car early and miss Sunday’s competition.
 |
| Gone was the supercharged power plant that Mazdatrix had been running all year and in its place was a new turbocharged setup. Driver Dave Lemon testing the setup before a mechanical ended their run. |
