It’s been a while since we had an update on this car and a lot of people were starting to wonder what happened to it. Between the many obstacles to overcome, developing some custom parts, going back and forth on decisions, the owner of the car (and myself) having two having kids, this became a sideline project in the shop. Our usual chats shifted from the K20 swap to sharing our experiences raising two young children. Although progress was made slowly throughout, I wanted Part 3 to be the final part of the blog.
The team arrived back in Colorado Springs on Saturday, June 15th and we were greeted at COS airport by some really cool window artwork promoting this year’s race. After leaving the airport, we immediately headed over to our home-away-from-home: Winslow BMW of Colorado Springs and we were met with another fun surprise; this year’s “Signature” car, a BMW Z3M coupe and “Parade of Champions” car, a new BMW i5 M60 electric performance sedan. The liveries for both cars were unique for the 102nd Running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Legendary PPIHC Hall Of Fame Inductee, Clint Vahsholtz, was this year’s driver of the “Parade of Champions” car; which meant that after the race on Sunday he would lead all of the competitors down from the summit of the mountain back to the start-line. It’s an incredible honor, and I can think of no one better for the job considering Clint has raced Pikes Peak 30 times. And out of those 30 times, he’s won his class 24 times and he was King of the Mountain in 2020. Wow!
Following several successful planned test days at our home track of Sonoma Raceway in April and May, we finally arrived at the first Official Test Weekend ahead of the 102nd Running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC). This weekend took place on Saturday and Sunday June 1st-2nd, and as a rookie I was informed by the event-organizers that my performance across both days would be evaluated in order to make a final determination of my eligibility to race on June 23rd. No pressure or anything, but game on.
Over the 2023 winter holiday break is when things got really serious for our Pikes Peak car. We used the downtime to get a lot done, including a full rebuild of our Drexler rear diff.
It’s been over 3 years since I put the Honda K24 into our Lotus Exige and it was the first car that I made an engine harness for. Although the harness was reliable and never gave me any issues, I felt that my harness building skills have improved much since then. What I really wanted to do was get rid of all of the unused wiring and the mess under the dash.
This event marked our second attempt at the Sonoma 4-hour enduro, part of the NASA Western Endurance Racing Championship series (also known as WERC). Last year, we attempted to run this race with 2 cars (my ST4 Honda S2000 and Liam’s ST4 Honda Civic). Unfortunately, both cars had to retire early because of parts failures. I broke two differentials (my main and my spare) and Liam lost a gearbox.
July was a nice break month for us. With no racing on the calendar, we used that time to do a few things: Sourced (thanks, Graham) and began building another duplicate J32A2 engine with Supertech valve train (thanks, Martin), P2R fuel rails, and other performance goodies; Rebuilt a spare AP2 transmission with fresh OEM gears that we sent out for WPC coating treatment…
This past weekend (May 19-20, 2018) marked the third round of racing scheduled for this year’s NASA Pro Racing Super Touring championship series here in Northern California. I was thrilled to return with the team to Sonoma, because it’s close to the shop and it also happens to be one of my favorite tracks to drive at (I love the complexity, the narrowness of the walls, and the overall rhythm).
We left off in March after having just picked up our new (to us) J32A2 engine, and as promised we've been busy getting it ready for the demanding rigors of race conditions. We were thrilled to receive high-performance valves, springs, and retainers from my partners at Supertech Performance in order to do just that. These awesome parts allow us to rev the J32A2 engine well beyond it's OEM redline limitations, but safely.
Sonoma Raceway, again. But we aren't complaining. The track is beautiful, and it's only an hour away from the shop. October 28-29 marked the last race weekend of the NASA NorCal region, and this would be the weekend where we secured 2nd overall in points for the Super Touring 4 (ST4) Northern California Regional Championships. It was also where we would try our first-attempt at endurance racing for our Trackspec Autosports Honda S2000, "Irene."
This weekend marked the first time Trackspec Autosports had ever competed in the NASA Western States Championships. The event is still commonly referred to as, "NASA Nationals," because up until 2015 it gathered racers from across the United States together to compete against one another. But for the last 3 years, NASA has split the national championships into two events (East and West) in order to make it easier for racers to still compete against the very best; without having to tow more than halfway across the country. The result? We finished 8th in Super Touring 4 (ST4). But the journey to get there? Well, that's where things got interesting...
Sonoma seems to be the NASA Northern California Region's favorite race track this year. Once again, we packed our bags on Friday September 8th and headed up to wine country for Round 6 of the 2017 NASA Super Touring Series. "Irene" had received her usual post-event treatment at Trackspec after two days of hard racing at Thunderhill last month. This included a thorough inspection from head to toe, fresh GLOC brake pads (the fronts were getting low), an alignment, fresh Motul fluids, and a new differential cooler pump switch (we discovered that the automatic temperature switch was no longer working and opted for a more reliable route)...
Former US Secretary of State and four star general Colin Powell once said, "there are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." We couldn't agree more. After a pretty good weekend (4th place both days) at Sonoma Raceway back in June, our team spent the entire month of July improving, learning, and preparing for Round 5 of the 2017 NASA Super Touring Series August 12th and 13th. The result? A great weekend at Thunderhill Raceway...
One of our really good customers invited us to participate in a car show he helped created years ago. From a shop called Weksos Industries, no longer running but which primarily focused on the sale of aftermarket car accessories, evolved one of the biggest and most well-known car shows in the nation: Wekfest, which is now hosted all over the map, including Hawaii, Long Beach, Japan, Chicago, Seattle, New York, and of course, San Jose....
Monday through Friday
7am to 4pm
