Extremespeed AWD Competition – Willow Springs – Round #2
Well the second round of the Extremespeed AWD Challenge is done and in the books. We ran the tighter Streets Of Willow Springs clockwise with a great turnout. A lot of people felt the track a little off, maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the wind. With no record setting times to be had everyone made the best of what they had to deal with.
Gevorg had the best ride with his big off. The car was fine other than one wheel beign pretty well done in. He borrowed some stock wheels from Zhong, ran back to LA and picked up some spare wheels and tires to finish the day. His best time for the morning was his best for the day and good for 3rd place. Ben Sui had a great day and was 1st in Street Class. Nate;s MR was fixed up from his exhaust leak issues from the last event and earned a close 2nd place finish.
Extremespeed AWD Competition – Willow Springs – Round #1
RRE tuned EVOs took first place in both the Street Class and Modified Class of the season opening event in the Extremespeed AWD Challenge Time Attack this last weekend. We brought out the shop truck and tools and an empty trailer for support.
Gevorg took 1st place in Street Class with a 1:33 in his RRE tuned daily driver white EVO 9.
RRE customer Kevin Fairley was fastest in Modified Class at 1:31 in his EVO 9 track car. He recently changed to a BBK Full turbo from CBRD and is pushing 480 whp on E-85 on a stock long block.
Kevin was running with his new side exit exhaust that we just built. It sounds incredible!
Results and points from the day:
Extremespeed AWD Competition – Dyno Day/BBQ
A few of the track regulars from So Cal EVO go together this year to organize their own time attack competition. Rules and classes by and for the people! With points for various mods and some HP caps, they divided it up into a “Street” class and “Modified” class. Street cars are limited to roughly 400 whp and 5 points. Modified cars are capped at 500 whp and 10 points.
RRE volunteered the Dynapack AWD chassis dyno to be the official dyno for the series. We hosted a dyno day/BBQ to kick off the race season before next weekend’s opening event at Willow Springs Raceway.
Here are some pics from the event. Along with some dyno charts from a couple of the cars that will be running. One of the guys just picked up a new camera and looking at Nikon D7000 Accessories, using the remote and microphone for filming the dyno pulls here in the future is going to make for some sweet video! No more editing out video of me running from the camera to the driver’s seat :-P
http://www.extremespeedtrackevents.com/
One of the guys just picked up a new HD Nikon and looking at Nikon D7000 Accessories, using the remote and microphone for filming the dyno pulls here in the future is going to make for some sweet video! No more editing out video of me running from the camera to the driver’s seat :-P
Matt Dennison – North American Festival of Speed
Congratulations to RRE’s Matt Dennison for his 1st place in AWD Street class at the North American Festival of Speed at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this weekend!
Full race coverage @ UrbanRacer.com
S-AWD
1st Place Car# 23 Matt Dennison S-AWD 1:25.319 Sunday
Heat Protection
Back over the last month we have been tweaking on Ben’s new track car. Remember the pretty red EVO RS on the cover of DSport? That one. With the big manly Borg-Warner EFR Series turbo and loopty-loo manifold hanging out there baking everything for 30 minutes at a time on the road course, some protection from all that heat was in order.
How things looked a month ago:
Ben started with moving the radiator hose away from the manifold. Then we connected the water cooling ports to the twin Tial wastegates to keep the diaphragms cool. We had to re-configure the water pipe and thermostat housing to try to keep the hose routing clean and tee fittings under control. The boost and coolant hoses had to be heat sleeved.
My favorite part is the heat shield that Lod came up with to get the manifold heat up and out of the engine compartment. It is a simple bolt on piece of sheetmetal with some reflective insulation on it. It directs the heat up and out the hood vent before it can bake anything else under the hood. This chopped pic shows it in relation to the hood vent.
The car is getting prepped for Superlap Battle November 8-9 @ Buttonwillow Raceway.
Matt “O-TownFL” Dennison
I asked Matt to send me a bio but he just sent me these pics.
I told him that if he did not send me a bio, I would tell everyone how he is an exotic dancer in West Hollywood and that his character is a Fireman. I guess my threats were so close to the truth, he did not want anything changed. Oh, and Matt races EVOs really fast. He has some sponsors. RRE is one of them. We work on his car.
Matt Dennison Kills it at Global Time Attack May 2011
by MATT “O-Town” DENNISON
I got a special invite to attend the Global Time Attack at Willow Springs. it is essentially all the fastest cars in the west who could care less for Redline Time Attack. Records were destroyed to back the fact that GTA has the fastest time attack cars running in their series.
I on the other hand didn’t set any records but made my driving experience more exciting and slower by customizing my front bumper in a off road excursion in the 1st session… meh
I did finish the day running a 1.33.7 with no front aero, good enough for 2nd place…
Heres a write up from UrbanRacer.com
http://www.urbanracer.com/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=4858&z=1
If you didn’t know they added a new section to the track that has a 10 percent grade… sickness
Thanks to all my sponsors Mike@RRE, Road Race Engineering, Robert “Robi” Fuller, ACT, Odyssey Batteries, GT Spec, SPY+optics, BERK Technologies
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
Matt Denisson – RTA – Auto Club Speedway Rd.4- Recap
Here is Matt’s race report from the Redline Time Attack this last weekend. Good job Matt!
What a weekend…! A podium finish by a mere 1/10 of a second on my final time attack lap, huge support from Kyle and Eric of NWautoevents.com, a track that was running 2 seconds slower than my last outing, and not to mention my turbo failure here last year in the back of my head. So I didn’t know what gremlins to expect. Where am I, you ask. I’m at the 4th round of the Redline Time Attack series at the ever exclusive high speed track we call Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. With speeds of 200 mph by NASCAR standards, you can only expect us competitors to try and muster up a top speed of the like. The weather was bearable, but the winds with gust of 30+ mph were the trouble.
My last outing here in November was a bitter sweet moment. I placed 1st in my class, claimed the Enthusiast Championship, but had a turbo failure that sidelined me for the rest of the day. Luckily the later happened after I had completed a single fast lap in the first time attack session. That lap was fast enough to hold for the entire day, securing a 1st place victory. So now we’re back in 6 months time for the 2010 season. With a new turbo set-up, several new sponsors and old, such as Road Race Engineering, RobiSpec, NWautoevents.com, GT Spec, and Mil.Spec. I was sure to put up a fight among some of the fastest Street Class cars. And a fight it was in an all new class for me.
With the weather being much warmer this time of year and the mix of high winds, I was well off my fast lap time of 1.53:2 of yesteryear. Mother Nature was keeping it fair for everyone, but the track was an easy 2 seconds slower with the given conditions. The COBB STi and the StopTech Evo 10 were both running in the low 50’s. Given my budget compared to theirs I would only hope that they would be the top dogs of our class. So 1st and 2nd are easily given to both camps. Now this is where the fun is for me, the fight for the last podium position. I would be going head-to-head with Jon Drenas of HBspeed and Mauricio Calderon of Massimo Power. I was running a consistent .55 all day and so was Jon, but he had me by several tenths before going into our first time attack battle.
Going into the Time Attack sessions, it seemed as if the StopTech Evo 10 ran into a problem and was not able to get a timed lap and would not be able to compete for the remainder of the day. The COBB STi ran an impressive 1.49:7 and HBspeed ran a 1.52.7 taking 2nd place. Massimo Power had me beat for 3rd place until my last flying lap where I nudged him out of 3rd by a mere 1/10 of a second with a 1.54:7, to Mauricio’s 1.54:8!
The weekend was exciting as always and even better to see long time friends, not to mention making new ones. As competitive as it is, I have already accepted the fact of not placing on the podium this year due to the ultra competitive nature of the Street-AWD Class. But it just goes to show, don’t ever give up…!
-Matt
Thank you to all my sponsors for the support…!
Road Race Engineering
RobiSpec
NWautoevents.com
GT Spec
Mil.Spec
JLB Motorsports
SPY+optics
Kerryann De La Cruz Interviews Rob Tallini Interview OwleTV
SHAKEDOWN!! Rob Tallini driving the RRE 4G GT Eclipse in the RTA at Auto Club Speedway
July 20th, 2008- Road Race Engineering/Motorsports finished 3rd in the FWD Class at Redline Time Attack, Auto Club Speedway-Fontucky, CA. This was the debut of the Road Race Mitsubishi Eclipse Time Attack Car.
[This is a picture of Tallini driving really fast. Notice the blurriness of the background.]
