Matt Dennison – SpeedVentures Time Attack Round 1 – Buttonwillow

By Matt Dennison

Cliff Notes:
-long nights
-early mornings
-fast times
-1st place finish

After a test-n-tune weekend at SOW in weeks past, I fell into a few problems. 1) being my clutch problem that the good ‘ol boys at RRE help relieve and 2) my coilover cap loosening off and spewing oil all over my wheel well. It left a lot on my table that needed to be addressed for the 1st event of the SpeedVentures Time Attack sanctioned through Redline due in a few weeks time. And my work schedule is not the ideal one to have when things need to get done…

The decision to run the event was made at 7PM on Saturday and I still needed to prep my car and then make the 3hr commute to Buttonwillow to run on Sunday… so let the Grape, Orange, and Lemonade Rockstars flow through my blood…

Making it into BW at around 1:30AM I meet up with a few friends and was able to lay me head down at about 3:30AM, only needing to wake up at 5:30 to finish prepping the car…

Arriving at the track I was surprised to see over 130+ cars in attendance and over 40+ in the Time Attack portion…! Making it no easy task for winning any thing…

Well as time is never on my side I missed my 1st session due to changing out pads, bleeding brakes, swapping wheels and removing all the track necessities from the trunk and car… it’s tough being a one man army…

Good thing the 2nd, 3rd and 4th sessions are the ones that count toward the SVTA, and the 5th session is only a “fun run” according to the schedule…

Fully prepped for the 2nd session I went out just to feel out the track and scrub in the new set of Federal 595RS-R tires… only running a best of 2:02.605.. as interesting as it is, you can see the times drop in each lap as the tires come to…

Heading into the 3rd session I umped the boost to break the holy grail of the 2minute barrier at BW… The car ran phenomenal the entire session and I started to get my motor functions back in line and then the “black” flag is waived for the entire run group to come in… Coming into hot pits I was fortunate enough to get gridded behind 3 slower cars. Resulting in me never to improve my time and only running a best of 2:03.353 for the entire session…

Once in the paddock area I was looking over the car to make sure fluids and other things aren’t leaking or loose. Knowing that I have had a problem with my exhaust manifold nuts that connect to the head, I looked them over… Low and behold they rattled loose, most likely causing lag that I don’t need… Putting a Honda-Robert-forearm-gorilla-grip to them I made sure to tighten them down well…

Going out for the 4th and final SVTA timed session I was distend to get some clean laps. Making enough head way ahead of me and not knowing when those pesky nuts will rattle loose I steamed ahead… sure enough I clocked my fastest lap of the day in the third lap and then times began to slip away due to the exhaust leak… that best time was a 2:01.876… good enough to put me at the top of the podium…!

Having all the time attack sessions over it was now time for the 5th session “fun run” and for me to attempt to break a personal goal of mine, “the under 2 minute lap”… Before heading out I once again checked the nut on the exhaust manifold and once again tightened the nut that has now been problematic for who knows how long now… Having the same demeanor as in the 4th session I gave myself some leeway and throttled as fast as I could before problems started… the fastest lap in this session was the first with a 2:01.613, then a 2:03.126, then a 2:03.360, than a 2:03.865… somewhat showing I was losing steam…

All in all, it was a epic track day hanging with friends and running my personal best… Congrats to all of those that placed and I could not thank my sponsors for making it a little easier for me to attend events…

–Road Race Engineering
-Federal Tires
-Robispec
–ACT
–GTSPEC
–SPY+optic
-Odyssey Batteries 

I’ll see you at the track…

-Matt