Some questions/comments to respond too

Well how about that people do actually read my blog from time to time, I am honestly honored so thank you for the various Facebook messages, emails etc you made my morning!!

Now based on that I feel I should perhaps respond to a couple of them for clarity sake!

Ok your ragging on people that talk about the good old times at Redline Time Attack was that aimed at me? - I actually toned this one down a bit it had a little more profanity in the actual message!

Well honestly unless I mentioned you by name then no it was more a blanket rant based on stuff I have read everywhere but then again if what I wrote struck a cord with you or someone you like or whatevers current stance then sure take it as directed at you, it is what it is and after all this is my blog and my opinion and everyone knows opinions are like assholes everyone's got one!

You mention Redline screwed up sponsorship for you, firstly why do you think Redline should be helping you with sponsorship and secondly you come off like you have a right to it??

Wow someone missed the point a little, let me see if I can make this a little easier to understand! With the way Redline essentially devalued Time Attack sponsors were simply not interested in sponsoring Time Attack cars, I mean this as a general statement be it for our program or anyone else's. The fact is sponsors are looking for ROI and the way Redline handled themselves during 2010 and 2011 made it clear to companies there was no ROI in being involved in Time Attack be it as a series or team(s) sponsor.

The second part to that is pretty funny and was hard to read at the gym, imagine just reading that and sitting down to do some sit-ups yea you've got it if I'd have eaten anything spicy last night I'd have left one serious bum curry in the gym that's for sure!!

I'll break it down for the hard of hearing, I don't feel like I am entitled to anything! The truth is we work damn hard to gain any support we're lucky enough to get (damn thankful for it as well) I'm sure any of our current or past sponsors can attest that when we send out our proposals we actually attend more events than we commit to and go the extra mile outside of our agreements to add as much value to our sponsors as possible. Seriously why else would we build a junk yard engine out of random shit at Fontana in 2010 to simply turn a lap. Hell anyone remember us rewiring the whole car at Willow Springs in 09 overnight only to break 4th gear in the transmission on the first lap, then basically steal a transmission from a guy we didn't know in the parking lot 2 hours before our session just to get out there and put a lap in? It's not like either of those cases we did it thinking we still had a chance at a win or even a podium we do what we do for our sponsors to pay them back for all of their support.

Do you get paid to swing off of GTA's nutsacks??

LOL that one was awesome! Let's see, am I paid by GTA? Nope although we have won a few bucks here and there at events. I'll expand the question a little as well, am I affiliated to GTA? Nope I am a paying customer of GTA's.

Why do you support GTA as vocally as you do??

That's really simple, instead of sitting here typing how much I love Time Attack and can't wait for the new Redline etc, etc I'd far rather be part of the solution, the truth of the matter is it's not about the past of time attack or the future it's about now, given the salty taste in sponsors mouths past, current and potential by how Redline handled itself during it's fateful years the onus is on us as Time Attackers to build the sport back to where it should/could be. This is not on GTA they have provided the playground for us it's our responsibility to embrace it and make these events as good as possible to grow the trust back and bring out more teams and enthusiasts.

Yea sure it's all easy for you to say Mike, we don't all have WORLD Racing to transport our cars to and from events!

Yup very true but let's put this into perspective, I'm very fortunate to have the entire crew at WORLD Racing as friends first and foremost (albeit we go head to head on the black top all the time!) Now if you'd stop staring at pictures from 2009 and attend an event or two say from 2011 till present (Fuck try looking at pictures from this season if you like) Notice something??? No?? Damn look again, yea now your getting it we have more WORLD Racing vinyl on our car than Chris does on his, so why do you think that is? Nope it's not cause we had some spare space and wanted to piss away money on WORLD Racing decals to look all fast and furious it's because WORLD Racing is a sponsor of our car and program!

In closing I had a few people say the party's at Redline were great! Yea your right they were but seriously you think Redline had anything to do with that? What are we talking about anyway the one in Pahrump perhaps?? Oh yea the one sponsored by AFI Turbo/Mike Kenney you mean? Shit if all everyone wants to do is hang out, kick it and get drunk out of hours during the events then come out to GTA. The series doesn't make the party the people do, I'll bet my left nut if there is 30 people on the piss at the bar in Texas Nad's or JD will throw their card behind the jump and keep it swinging till the sun comes up. Ok out of excuses now? Thought so, I'll see you all in Texas then!!!

Taking the fight out East - Breaking news Redline coming back in 2013! - GTA Texas who's coming out??

Okay, Okay I know I have been slacking bit lately on the whole blog thing, it's not that nothing was happening the excuse for me is going to be that too much was happening as we've been a little busier than a one legged man in an arse kicking contest lately!

So we went out East, yup that's right we broke the confines of CA with a little (ok that's bullshit, a LOT) of help from our friends at WORLD Racing to take on the East Coast and also tackle a couple of new track for Time Attack.

Up first was Global Time Attack Road Atlanta, I have to say if your anywhere near local to Atlanta and into cars you need to hit this place up it's absolutely stunning, if your local and into cars and don't basically your a vagina and reading the wrong blog!

We had a good event and even with a clutch failure managed to post the fastest time of the weekend and a new overall track record (I don't expect the time to stand for long, but hey that's what records are for right!)

Moving right along next up was Global Time Attack Palm Beach Florida, I actually thought the track was kinda blah but the event has potential piggy backed with Formula Drift, one downside was this event was 3 weeks after Road Atlanta which left some teams scrambling due to issues.

It was during this event (Oh we set FTD and overall record but who cares anyway) something hit me, I mean I remember when Redline dropped the East Coast events and everyone from Chicago East started crying online about having no TA events, roll into GTA's 2nd year of doing this and adding more East events and what do you know? The online crying is gone! but none of the homo's crying are showing up??? WTF you have a series putting it's arse on the line and splashing the cash to come out where you asked and not only that tying the events into FD with crowds in their thousands and media up the arse and the whiners stay home.

I did a little research after Florida and found there to be a fair amount of heavy hitter shops etc that ply their trade based off build "Race Cars" and not one of them where in attendance, Weak! Probably all hanging out down in Miami with their stick on furry chests, mullets and knock off "I'll turn your skin green" medallions or something.

Next up was Global Time Attack New Jersey, now if by now our car had not turned into a pile of used duct tape and zip ties I would normally have been excited by this as last year this was one of my favorite tracks and events but sadly by now the L was begging to get back to home base GST for some love so I set my expectations accordingly, I think it went something like this..

If she fires up in the rig and is able to get out and into the paddock area we should have a beer and celebrate!

If she completes one lap and makes it back to the paddock area we should have a beer and celebrate

If still running add boost and repeat the above!

As it turns out even with a tired motor, a transmission that kicked the shifter out of 6th and then breaking the center diff we were able to set fastest time of the weekend and 8/10's off our previous years record (we were down 8mph on the front straight alone with the motor let alone the diff pulling the steering wheel out of Jeff's hands at every corner) My data shows low 1:01 is cake so I hope to go back there again.

Anyhow the car is now safely tucked back in the shop and honestly with the shitload of work I have to put things right I probably shouldn't be even writing this right now hey it's only 6pm so I still have till about 1am until the ball and chain starts blowing my phone up!!!

So how about that little bit of breaking news today?? Redline Time Attack is to rise from the grave to grace us starting 2013. From the announcement I saw it will be headed up by former partner Chris Williard, now I have nothing personal against Chris but I think he must have bumped his fucking head! Simple fact yes there are some of the previous Time Attackers swinging off the "Good ole days of RTA" nuts while hard parking their cars currently at various LA car shows but reality is RTA took a very promising sport/event and systematically fucked it for everyone in it.

Now I could expand on what they did for days but in a nutshell they damaged the legitimacy of TA in the US so much so that by the time of shooting out sponsorship proposals late in 2010 for 2011 season sponsors were basically laughing back at me. Granted who the hell am I, nobody special but at the time we were Unlimited series champions and had a very strong 2010 showing, since the demise of RTA it's been hard to impossible to secure sponsorship funding.

I'll list a couple of things that spring to mind,

Rules that could be changed and broken more times than Freddie Mercury's arsehole

Cars basically in a class they shouldn't have been essentially ensuring a championship!

Waivers passed out for mod's outside of rule sets on the fly like candy.

A season championship structure based on driver not team/car allowing shit like a rental automatic car to be used going slower than a Prius in the fast lane to collect points.

Etc, Etc, Etc

But hey "the good ole days" are coming back, perhaps the hard parking yesteryear contingent will come out in their droves, good luck to them I'll be thrashing on a car trying to break a record somewhere else!

Ok so now something I do give a flying fuck about, yup you got it Global Time Attack is coming to Texas, or to be more exact Texas Motorsports Speedway. Now I'll be the first to confess that not running the roval kind of sucks but hey the event's tied into XDC Drift and some huge high profile car show event (Hey old school TA's bust out your wax you can hard park at this event!!)

I'm excited about this event for a couple of reasons, 

The AZ boys of Snail Performance and UMS (I haz a GTO) Tuning will be back in the house!

My kid is only a few hours away at school so will be coming up to hang out!

Now I did my research a little early on this event and it turns out there are some big boys down in that neck of the woods with some serious machinery! 

First up with have the heavy hitters of all things flappy paddle SSP Performance! I know Jeremy will be out there in one of their cars so that will be cool.

Cobb Tuning the mecha of all things ecu programmable and makers of some pretty nice parts as well have a host of cars, the only thing with Cobb is I seriously hope they are not so busy following up on their blockbuster marketing video of their tube bending machine "Bender" (It's very nicely shot and edited though, look it up on YouTube) with something like Bender 2 "Revenge of drilly the drill press" or something like that as considering they debuted a tracked out Focus at SEMA it would seem a little odd not to bring something like that out to race with they even have a couple of in house shoe's to drive!

Jotech, Now I don't know much about these guys but it seems from the info I can find I couldn't afford to have them work on anything I own and they build or have built some seriously fast cars!

There's more but I'll do that on my follow up in a couple of weeks for now it's time for me get some real work done!