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 year seems to be just flying by. We last raced at the end of March, and since then the team has been busy with a wide variety of cool projects at the shop. Personally, my calendar has been filled with work, travel, and everything in between. One event in particular that transpired during this time was the official launch of the Yokohama A055 tire.
After our successful test day at Sonoma on Friday March 1st, Graham and I brought “Heidi” down to SS Customs in Redwood City, CA that very same evening for the installation of this year’s livery. I was thrilled to once again partner with Adam and Scott from Skepple on the design, and my longtime friend, Shareef, from SSC on the print/install. The plan was that they would finish the car in time for the season opener, and boy...did they deliver!
This past Saturday, the Exige returned to Sonoma Raceway for the SpeedSF Challenge time attack event in the "S2" class. The competition in this class includes cars such as the Porsche Cayman GT4, Chevy Corvette (C5 Z06 and C6 Z51), and highly modified Hondas and Subarus. This was the first outing with several changes to the Exige performed by Trackspec intended to help it be more competitive without compromising the ability to drive it on the street with a full interior and air conditioning.
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).
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."
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)...
Barely 3 weeks have passed since our last race, but it was once again time to pack our bags and head up to sunny Sonoma, CA for Round 4 of the 2017 NASA Super Touring Series (June 17-18). This weekend was special for a variety of reasons. First, it's rare for NASA to repeat racetracks back to back during the season. Second, it was Father's Day weekend. And third, it was the first time my good friends, Graham Downey and Liam Downey were returning to NASA Pro Racing after a 6 year hiatus...
Hey guys, Tom Tang here. I’m excited to write the first of many blog posts here on the Trackspec Autosports website. As you may have seen or heard, I’ve teamed up with Trackspec for the 2017 season and together we are campaigning my Honda S2000, “Irene,” in the NASA Super Touring series (in ST4 class).
Monday through Friday
7am to 4pm
