World Time Attack Challenge 2011 Pro Class Controversies
By Eric Hsu
The Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC) 2011 was a massive success for the promoters, competitors, fans, sponsors, and vendors alike. Ian, Nathan, Kyle, the announcers, and the volunteers who all make up the World Time Attack Challenge and Superlap Australia successfully put on the best damn Time Attack event anywhere in the world to date.
If you missed WTAC 2011, you should make a vacation out of it and attend WTAC 2012. The world’s fastest time attack cars, a huge vendor row, show cars, crazy drift cars without I don’t know how to build an import Chevy LS engines, smoking hot Australian models (wait until you hear them speak with that accent), and a bunch of cool enthusiasts all in one place means you really need to go. Screw the Tokyo Auto Salon unless you’ve got that otaku style yellow fever. Make your 2012 vacation a trip to WTAC 2012. There are plenty of Asian chicks in Sydney anyway so you’ll be fine.
Here's a pretty cool one minute teaser promo video from Hankook Australia.
In Australia, internet access is rare and expensive for visitors. In retrospect I should have purchased a Vodafone prepaid wi-fi stick for $50 which gives you 300MB. Hotels charge up the ass: typically $25 for 24 hours for internet access. The exchange rate was US$1.19 for AU$1.00 so there’s basically a 20% surcharge on everything. This was part of my reason for not posting updates and not keeping up to date with the internet fodder. People kept asking me, “Mate, did you read all the hype on the web about the Cyber protest?” or “Hey man did you read about the shit people were saying about when you guys covered your pits?” Aside from the lack of internet access, the entire last week was just a crazy week for me. I had no time for updates during the event and no energy for updates afterwards. Who had time for updates? I had a job to do: support the Sierra Sierra (SSE) EVO during the day and explore Australian pubs and restaurants by night. Jeff and Martin did an excellent job handling the updates this year.
In case you're out of the loop, Tarzan finished in 1st in the CyberEVO, Dave finished 2nd in the Sierra Sierra EVO (Christine), and Kinoshita finished 3rd in the Garage Revolution RX-7. For WTAC 2011 results, click here.
I have no idea where to start to be honest, but my goal is to try to clear up some of the drama or “mind games” as some have called them, that happened between the CyberEVO and Sierra Sierra teams. Then there are several other controversial topics that need clearing up as well. Next week, I’ll do some more coverage of the Pro class (unlimited) and some of the cars. The Aussies stepped it up BIG TIME this year and there are definitely some cars that need to be mentioned (and featured in the future).
