With the season off to a rocky start and the GT-R suffering engine trouble, I wasn’t sure what to expect at the Auto Club Speedway event. However, with a month of downtime spent rebuilding both the STI and the GT-R, we decided to go for broke and run the GT-R in both Modified and Super Modified with our new Yokohama A005 slicks.

However, we were taking on a big challenge running two classes, and on a motor that was not track tested, and with a front diff that was not track tested. The weekend before we had missed our test day due to some knock sensor issues with the new forged internals of our GT-R engine. With no test day under our belt, anything could have happened. And with our racing luck this year, I was sure that anything WOULD have happened to upset our weekend. To ward off any bad monkeys that might have been following me around on my back, I dyed my hair COBB blue for the weekend.

Perhaps it was the blue hair, or maybe it was all the hard work and preparation put in by the COBB Tuning Motorsports and Surgeline crews, but it worked! We had an extremely trouble free weekend and took home 4 top spots, in Modified, Super Modified, the Super Session and the overall event win! In addition our street class STI took home its first, 1st place win, so I think I may have to go blue for the rest of the season. After a long month of sleepless, work-filled nights, insanely long hours, lots of travel, and enough anxiety to cause physical ailment, this event really gave me and the team a shot in the arm. Yes, a lot of the big hitters were not there in Super Mod, but I believe our time was still competitive given the track conditions. It was also our narrowest margin of victory in the modified class with James Elterman in the COBB sponsored Takata Time Attack/LIC Motorsports STI getting faster every event.

The only problem from the weekend was a bizarre front diff issue. To be clear, it wasn’t a front diff issue at all. Our new OS Giken front LSD was functioning perfectly, it was the brain of the GT-R that was confused. Imagine that. For some reason the lack of differential front wheel spin was causing the ECU to not demand FWD from the center differential. The result was a kind of a RWD car for the weekend, although worse because the FWD would go on and off, creating an exciting ride behind the wheel with 700+ lb feet of torque, and a chassis not setup for RWD only. But with a lot of sideways driving and a set of corded RA-1’s later, we got the results we wanted which included the new track record for a Modified Class car.

Now it’s on to Chicago, and Autoban Country Club for Round 5, the second round of the East Coast championship. I really am looking forward to this event. I love learning new tracks, seeing new competitors, and I believe we are going to have our toughest event to date battling with Ryan Gates in his EVO X. That car has shown some incredible speed in practice at a couple of event, but mechanical faults have kept it out of any official times sessions.

See everyone in Chicago, with a fresh coat of COBB blue in my hair.