Following the battle of the Chevy LS E46 BMWs came another Nissan vs Nissan rivalry. This time was Aaron Velezquez in his Spacious Garage RB25DET S14 240sx, vs Meliton Villamor’s TriSpeed Performance 2JZGTE S14 240sx.
The RB powered car took the lead first, initially breaking away from the other S14 throughout the bank and the sweepers. However, midway through the hairpins, proximity was easily regained as Aaron spun out, the two Nissans almost making contact in the low-speed section.
With a spin in Meliton’s favor on the first run, the writing was on the wall for the outcome of this bracket. The TriSpeed 240sx broke away hard, keeping a gap of roughly four car lengths throughout the course, despite a bad line through the hairpin even.
Meliton took favor of the judges, moving on to the Great 8.
Following that was the battle of Carlos Cano Estrella in his A80 Toyota Supra and Tony Cisneros in his S14 Nissan 240sx.
The S14 led first, the freshly finished Supra simply unable to initiate drift whilst coming off of the bank. Despite initiating a drift later in the right-hander sweeper, the car didn’t have the speed within it to maintain any proximity with Cisneros’s Nissan, resulting in distance so great I noted a potential inactive chase call by the judges.
Following Cisneros’s lead run came Estrella’s lead run, which went well enough through the first few sweepers. However, the Irwindale Luck had chosen the black Supra to strike it’s curse on: Upon entering the hairpin, the front end of the Gazolina Supra simply washed out, resulting in a fortunately low-speed, brakes-locked collision with the infield wall.
Cisneros moved on as a result.
Next up was Bear Rzesnowiecky in his Achilles Tire E46 BMW and Shawn Hartum in his Zestino Tire FD RX-7.
The BMW took to the lead position first, his big V8 enabling him to race away from Shawn’s turbo 13B rotary off the line. Due to the impressive gap, the RX-7’s weight advantage wasn’t able to improve much along the line of proximity up until the entrance to the hairpin, which saw Hartum get up close and rest his car in the E46’s pocket. However, not unlike the start line, the BMW’s V8 with buckets of torque to spare allowed Bear to jump away from the RX-7 upon exiting the hairpin. However, less distance was gained from this jump.
The time then came for the rotary rocket to take the lead, the much smaller car’s weight advantage enabling it to not break away has hard, but maintain a more constant distance and speed throughout; a challenge for the heavier, torquier BMW to match the pace, despite a great run-up by Bear upon entering the hairpin.
Shawn took the win, moving on.
With the first brackets cleared, it came time for the Great 8.
The first battle of the Great 8 came to be Jon Shaffer in his S14 240sx and RJ Contreras in his Big Duck Club E36 BMW.
Jon took the lead first, however, the run was short-lived. RJ oversped into the first corner in an attempt to keep proximity to Jon’s S14, resulting in a spin coming off of the bank.
