Posted on Wednesday, 15th April 2009 by admin
Thanks to great effort from the team and JC’s incredible driving, Harman Motive took first place in the TTU class at the NASA AZ Firebird Race on April 11, 2009.
JC managed a blazing 1:04.297 during his first full session with the car. Along with the NASA win, this also qualifies us for the Super Lap Battle at Buttonwillow Raceway on November 3rd. This was truly an awesome event that ran really smoothly (in spite of a little rain). Lots of great competition and a great group of racers in attendance.
Even with a damp track, we had excellent grip from the
Toyo R888 Tires, JRZ Coilovers, and Kaminari Components
The pressure was on for the race given our uncharacteristic issues at the season opener two weeks earlier. We worked around the clock to rebuild the motor (thanks Cosworth) and sort some other issues that popped up. To further the sense of urgency, we had yet to complete more than 1 hotlap the entire year. While we had great confidence in the new buildup, it’s certainly nerve racking to attack the track some 400 miles from home.
After a typical all-nighter, we arrived to a cold and rainy track – go figure we get stuck in a huge rainstorm in AZ. Since we arrived early, we treated ourselves to some goodness at the local Waffle House – C16 for the body!
Fortunately the rain let up by early afternoon and we took to the track. Our first practice session revealed a terrible high speed vibration that was traced to our flexing front splitter. We attacked the splitter in the pits, cutting it down and reinforcing it and sent the car back out for the first race group.
Since we were still unsure about the setup, we sent the car out at wastegate boost (400whp) with a set of well used Toyo R888 tires. Despite being total scrubbers, the Toyo tires worked beautifully and gave JC excellent grip and great feel. JC managed to make the most of the 400whp and set his fastest time (1.04.297) just 6 laps in. This was a huge improvement over last year’s performance even though we were trapping 10mph slower down the straight (low power).
Low boost kept top speed down
However, we hadn’t escaped the gremlins yet. Toward the end of the session, JC noticed the water temps were starting to climb. He pulled the car in to check on the problem. When we opened the hood, we were greeted by water spilling out of the radiator! To our amazement, our radiator fan had exploded, sending a fan blade right through the radiator!! Fortunately JC’s head’s up driving and our quick action kept the car from loosing too much coolant.
After Mitch reviewed the datalogs, we decided that the engine likely did not see any damage, so we broke out the JB weld and went to town on the radiator. As per usual Adan made a diamond out of coal and the radiator and car were ready to run again. We’d like to say thanks to the great guys at Goodspeed for getting us a spare radiator incase our ghetto repair didn’t hold up – thanks guys!
We sent the car out again hoping things would be alright. If everything held, we would have turned the boost up, thrown on some fresh tires, and set out for the track record (which at the time was a 1:03.8). But it wasn’t in the cards and JC pulled off after his first lap. It seems the coolant leak had caused another headgasket failure. Oh well, at least the JB weld held up!
Fortunately we had already set what would be the winning time for the TTU class and secured our spot for the Super Lap finals. We were disappointed as we clearly had a winning setup, but that’s racing. We packed the car up and settled in to watch some great competition unfold in the Modified Magazine Shootout and the NASA race featuring the likes of GST/Sheehan, Crawford/Tarzan, Dynocomp/Garcia, Sharif/Forged Performance, Tage Evanson, Tim Kuo, and many other talented teams/drivers. There were a ton of fast locals too in some amazing Corvettes and Porsches.
Our lap times remained at the top of the pack until late in the day when GST and Crawford stepped it up, breaking into the 1:02s! That’s a blazing fast time and these guys really deserve some credit. We’ll take a moment to remind everybody that these are unlimited class cars running full slicks, but still, 1:02 is f’n moving!
In spite of our issues, we had a great time at this well run event. Congrats to GST for pulling out the overall win in the Modified Shootout, great guys to hang out with too. Also, thanks again to everyone involved running the show, it was a very friendly and fun atmosphere. You can find the times and results here – http://mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=401956
We are thrilled to know that we have truly competitive speed and we will work hard to get back to the 100% reliability that we enjoyed last year. We have shown that we can be competitive with many of the fastest unlimited class cars and can’t wait to see what we have with full race settings. The next race takes us to Big Willow on May 31st. JC knows this track quite well from his motorcycle days and it’s Dan’s favorite track – hopefully that’ll be enough to get past our cooling problems!
Unfortunately the gremlins attacked our video system too, so we don’t have any movies to share with you for this race. Sorry guys L
Special thanks to Adan Quesada (AQ Motorsports) and son, Mitch Pederson (MP Tuning), Ian Andewelt, Frank Chen (JRZ), Rob and Chase, and all of our great sponsors and supporters. Thanks to SP Engineering for letting us use their great dyno and facility at short notice too – these guys are great! While we were there, we picked up a Titek unequal length header – check back for a full writeup.
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Setting Up
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Check Out the Water
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Squat…
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… and lift
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Front End
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Dan & Frank Fix The Splitter
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Takeoff!
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Last Corner
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Cosworth Power!
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Radiator Post JB Weld
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Side/Rear Shot ;)
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Dyno @ SP
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Dyno @ SP
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Dyno @ SP
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Mitch’s Tuning Face
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Dyno @ SP
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Titek Header – Coming Soon!
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GST
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GST V-Mount
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Yimisport (Great job guys!)
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Dynocomp
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Turbo S2K
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Turbo KA24
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FX Racing / Billy Johnson
Harman Motive Racing is Sponsored By:
Advanced Clutch – The 6-puck clutch and flywheel are working great!
AEM – The best standalone engine management hands down.
AQ Motorsports – Adan is the man for installs and fab in So Cal.
Cosworth USA – Great motors and fantastic customer service! Thanks for getting it done guys!
Deatschwerks – Even with 1600cc injectors we still have great idle and response.
Driveshaft Shop – Driveshaft and axles that’ll take the abuse (if we ever turn the boost up!)
EDO Performance – The Zerosports bodykit really cuts through the wind.
Enkei Wheels – Stong, light, and beautiful NT03s.
Harman Motive – Turbokit, fabrication, and so much more.
Hose Techniques – The finest silicone hoses available.
JRZ Suspension – The 3-way competition coilovers are amazing.
Kaminari – Competition ready bump steer kit, tie-rods, and lateral links.
Kognition – Carbon fiber wing
Kartboy – The finest shift available.
Motul – Fluids
MP Tuning – Mitch’s tuning and analysis have been spot on.
Stoptech – The new brakes are working great, so much stopping power JC is still getting used to it.
Toyo Tires – The R888 has proven to offer amazing grip and excellent life. We set our fast time on a set with 15 heatcycles! Incredible!
Tags: firebird, nasa, ttu
Posted in RACING | Comments (1)
