A break from the rules and a question answered!

So this morning while reading a Time Attack competitors Facebook page where he was getting some flak regarding his times and subsequently decided to make a new post regarding why he races obviously feeling somewhat compelled to directly address his critics I was messaged and asked why I Time Attack given how much crap I stir up and my vocal disdain for the rules and where the sport lies currently.

After thinking about it for a second I figured it might be something vaguely interesting to put down on paper so to speak!

I attended my first TA event in I believe 04 that was held at the then California Speedway as part of a huge event involving the JGTC field, a friend of mines shop was running an Evo and I'd to a small degree assisted with it's participation, from there I also went to one other event later that year at Streets of Willows and really enjoyed the concept.

At this point TA was really new to the US and I continued on with my focus which at the time was working as part of a Grand AM ST effort to quell my racing fix, In 06 when the guys working for me and I had enough of being a part of someone else's business and branched out we built a car for the NASA 25hr, we didn't exactly have a stellar event although I maintain to this day other than build and approach I'd do it all over again!

Following our less than spectacular event at the 25hr TA was building up a decent head of steam in the US and the Grand AM team I was working with was winding up so the guys and I decided to put on some sticky tires and turn up the boost from endurance mode and have a crack at TA. This was the season opener for RTA at Buttonwillow in 07, I think we came 2nd overall but more importantly we had a blast and I saw a very viable opportunity that would benefit the business!

The viable opportunity was not only we go out and have some fun racing but we could use the car as a fantastic R&D and overall learning experience, from my personal standpoint at this time I wanted to develop engine packages so pushing the component limits in a event format that promoted high HP made a lot of sense, what I never saw coming was wealth of knowledge we would gain in the overall package encompassing chassis, braking and Aero. What we have learned and continue to learn cannot be measured in dollars!

I'm extremely thankful for the knowledge we have learned and certainly wouldn't change very much if anything at all if I rolled the clock back (I've learnt as much from our fuck ups as I have from our successes that's for sure) I've also been truly blessed to work with and glean knowledge from some very good people along away, Marshall Pruett, Gary Sheehan, Andrew Brilliant, Christian Rado, Scott Stanwood, Chris Harrington (really do miss and think of you all the time brother, RIP) and Jeff Westphal to name just a few (it would be a really long list)

Something changed along the way, partly due to our success and possibly as I got older not really to sure but I really started to enjoy helping others nearly as much as helping our own program. I found I was continually passing out info be it setup wise or sharing company contacts to help hook someone up, lending parts, tires or even just a general helping hand wherever needed.

I think during this phase I believed we're all TA brothers, friends etc or whatever you'd like to deem it and paying it forward so to speak was the thing to do. It also made me feel pretty good, it didn't make me a better person or anything as I'm a dick and no sending someone the email address for Hankook or giving them a set of wheels etc is going to really change that but I certainly felt like I was helping and perhaps ultimately the sport would gain as a whole (this all really started as TA in the US was taking a hit)

Over the past two years as we as a team decided to step back and not rush a rebuild things changed a lot for me as an outsider looking in with a keen interest as we still aimed to TA, I'm not 100% sure it was just me as this is something shared by the crew here but what we all thought we were missing was hanging out with friends and overall paddock spirit at events which all of a sudden sort of clicked to us is more of an illusion or quite frankly a thin veiled mask of complete bullshit!

Stepping back a little and looking on opened my eyes to what I see more now as a bunch of small clicks holding a candle that should be flame of a niche sport, perhaps if my perception is in any way, shape or form accurate this accounts for a part of where the sport is currently over here. Regardless if I'm right or wrong my thoughts remain and the fact that I have gone from enjoying to be a part of helping others to feeling like I'm a complete twat to be used in doing so!

Where does this leave me and what I regard as the best crew out there in any form of motorsports (you'll be hard to find a more dedicated group of people on the planet) Simple, we're going to go back to our roots a little and refocus our efforts!

You may ask why continue attending events as you've basically posted above you think people you thought were friends basically used you for shit all the time? That one is also simple, as a person that has always been a fierce competitor at anything I have attempted channeling good or bad things into motivation was something I was trained to do from the earliest of ages. 

So here's why we do Time Attack, as a team we're more than that everyone on the team is family and we are all agreed on the fact we have really enjoyed learning to build a car around a fantastic driver with very limited resources and going up against big budget builds and the others in our class is something we really enjoy doing and none of us see that changing. We are going to put forth all of our efforts to continue to develop and learn with the goal of being the fastest TA car there is.

Rules Wars 1 - A New Hope

Firstly before anyone takes any real meaning from the title of this blog don't bother, I drew reference from Star Wars and thought it was funny nothing more nothing less!

Anyways it seemed I copped a little flak for what I fired out over coffee yesterday morning which in fairness I fully anticipated, if you're curious it was just crap like "Sure it's easy for you to say when your not actually having to write and implement rules" or "Mike your a complete Bitch, Dick, Cock Fuck head...... and more"

As it stands all of which I completely agree with, funny though how pissed off people get when your response is "Sure I agree" it's kinda like arguing with a woman, ever noticed how pissed off they get when you simply agree and move on as if you don't care? It's awesome only in this instance for me at least I actually did agree with them and I really didn't care what any of them had or has to say to me!

Right on to the point (Holy shit only two paragraphs to read prior!) so in the small hours of this morning (Friday) I was contacted by a completely new sanctioning body that will have everything from national NBC television coverage to free all expenses paid family vacations to the winners to create a rule set for them based off of 5 classing's with sub-divisions called MTA using the following guidelines,

Given the vast complexity of the guidelines I was asked to adhere to I decided the first order of business seeing as these are my rules not someone else's I would start with what I wanted them to accomplish for a Time Attack series, we're going to refer to them as goals from this point on!

Goals!

• Primary focus is to help grow the series
• Clear, Concise and easy to follow ladder path defined by modification level to promote driver/car development through the rules groups (i.e. Enth - Street - Mod - CASH)
• Clearly defined driver required experience requirement per class with associated form (this will become more apparent in subsequent blogs!)
• Promote very distinguishable classing structure so as it's very apparent via rule controlled modification level what class a car belongs in
• Tightened up safety reg's in higher classings 

There's a few more that will come to me but as I only have my 30 minute lunch break right now I'm trying to keep this a little short but sweet all while stuffing my face with CJ's.

Now I got to thinking OK I kinda know what I want to achieve here but what's the best path to follow? I mean there's some obvious ways to write a rule book and none are what anyone would call easy but obviously some are easy than others so where I am right now is at the point of choosing a path from something like this,

Once you're overall main rules are written each class rules are governed by if we say you can you can but anything we don't say you can you can't

The other way would be the inverse of the above which to me seems like it would be a royal pain in the ass!

There is a third and much more interesting way of doing it, you do the above (the first option) and then you generate what's called a VSS, a VSS is a Vehicle Specification Sheet. This way of doing things is typically found in Professional racing and is probably by far the most complex way of doing it but the most clearly defined way of equalizing cars to promote level playing fields.

Right the lunch bell just rang and that's all I have time for today, tune in early next week to find out what path I choose to take when I pen and publish Rules Wars 2 - The rule book strikes back!

Rules are for fools... or are they?

Let's face it we all have to deal with rules, they are there in front of us every single day. Society as a whole is nothing but a ruleset governed environment. We all know we have to pay taxes, can't simply shoot someone that pisses us off and more recently regardless of fame can't verbally and physically abuse a co-worker and continue on like nothing happened.

Yes granted some rules are just plain fucking stupid, I mean why can I drive 400 miles in either direction with a truck and tailor and be allowed to drive the overall speed limit yet within the 400 miles (CA) I have a rule that means I have to watch even Prius drivers pass me by? Yea the 55mph rule in CA sucks and is stupid!

When we move into things such as major sporting events and activities things become a little looser and we replace gun toting police officers with whistle blowing referee's and subjectivity and human error comes into play. We've all watched a sport we love and seen a shitty call from the ref and how does that make you feel? For me as a Football (Soccer to you yanks!) fan it really pisses me off I know that much!

Now regardless of shitty calls and such we all can agree that the rules within professional sports are fairly clear and concise and more so we all understand them, obviously they are broken from time to time hence there are penalties and such but all the same we do know and understand them and can agree they are in place for a reason!

Now here's where things take a twist, Ability!

Ability has no bearing on the rules we are all governed with in our everyday lives, sure we all have the ability to chamber a round and shoot someone but in most incidences we receive a penalty for doing so, if we're not caught it's similar in some regards to sports as we could say that person cheated the law or rules case in point would be OJ.

But in sports ability has a much more pronounced meaning, let's face it we all dreamed as kids for running out with XYZ shirt/jersey on at favored teams stadium playing for them professionally but the reality is the statistic for having the ability to be professional athlete is in the 0.001%.

Now as we're all (well for the most part) not in that 0.001% does that mean we can't play? Hell no we all fall into different levels of Ability and such as which there are different levels to play in much the same as Time Attack (yes you did have to read through all of the above shit to finally get to any form of point I may be making!)

So if we're drawing comparison from Societies rules, Sports and using Ability (Ability in some cases with regards to Time Attack can also be offset by cash flow, see below) as our cross reference we have something that breaks down a little like this,

Overall Governing Body Sanctioning rules = Society's rules

The are the general sports rules and guidelines which cover the specifics of the sport and guidelines to be followed by all participating.

Unlimited Class specific rules = Professional athlete

These are if you like your 0.001% with the exception they don't get millions and get to go home and bang Victoria Beckham. Love them or hate them they are the ones that people pay to watch and for the most part have the if you like most Ability!

Modified Class specific rules = Semi Pro athlete

I can't fully determine the statistic here but let's as a broad example call it 25%, these are your guys either apprenticing with the aim of being in the 0.001% Ability stakes above or simply this is where they are going to stay as their Ability which for the most part is cash dependent dictates this is the highest level they will achieve. This level still draws at times a paying sizable crowd without the players bringing in the millions and banging the superstar wifes!

Street Class specific rules = Saturday/Sunday league players

This statistic is huge in sports, Time Attack has one additional class to make reference too but it is equally the largest of the classes so for arguments sake we'll call it 50%. These guys are you're bread and butter, they play week in week out and without them your sport falls out of the mainstream, think of it like this if these guys that give up all their spare time and earnings to play and didn't go to games and buy the teams apparel and such there really would be no sport or need for the guys with more Ability/Cash. Or at the very least the sport as a whole falls out of the mainstream and simply becomes a niche thing sustained by a small amount of die hard's grasping to what was or could have been (Oh the irony of how this hits the mark with current US Time Attack huh?)

Enthusiast Class specific rules = Hmm I've seen that dude bend the ball and bang the hot chick I need to see what this is all about

We'll call these guys the remaining 24.999%, the way I see them rightly or wrongly is these are the guys that perhaps played another sport at much different Ability level and are checking out something new, perhaps the flipped the channel and thought oh that looks cool I'd be down to give that a try.

And the Point is?

Now I'm sure at this point your saying OK Mike you just spent some time (and/or wasted mine reading this) and yet there is really no clearly defined point other than we all can agree we'd like to be that Jeff Westphal lookalike that's made millions from kicking a ball around and gets to bang a smoking hot superstar wife!

Well here's the thing as I see it, Time Attack at least in the United States is at crossroads. Sure I think the last couple of years it's made a very small dent in the damage that occurred in the past but still falls into the niche category supported only by the current crop of die hard's. The crossroads I speak of are whether it's to push on and make it's way back into the mainstream or slowly dwindle as the die hard's move on.

Everybody has their own opinion and obviously I am no different so my opinion of where it's at now and how it takes the right road from this point goes a little something like this,

The rules we're working with are to put it simple archaic written in something like 2004 and slightly tweaked since then, this has lead to a ruleset which has no clearly defined path between whether it's written from the stance of if it says you can anything it doesn't state you can't or visa versa. Keep in mind that the clear determining factor the rules were originally written around were tires being the main differentiating factor between classes, this worked in 2004 and too some extent till not all that long ago but started to fail badly as the sport reached it's peak due to some of these reasons,

 The sport grew and thus tire manufactures support and willingness to create specific tires occurred which in some cases completely lays to waste the existing treadwear class rules.

Technology, obviously nothing stands still modifications that were simply not present at the inception of the rules are not governed

Participation increase and lack of rules that were in place being enforced (think of RTA hay day and all the waivers)


Now if you're thinking OK but how and why are the rules so important for the continued growth of the sport? It's simple, even if my above statistics are mere fiction they at least are somewhat in the ball park. So if your sports main growth stream is its Saturday/Sunday league players (Street class) then without clearly defined rules which set apart it's differences with the higher ability/classes meaning players/cars with higher ability or cash can just run in their class collecting trophies why would more and more people join it's ranks?

At the end of the day most people go out there for fun but at a certain point as in the case with getting hammered by other teams at a sport each week it losses it's appeal and the participant level dwindles. There's a very good reason for the lower classes as they are for everyone to go out there have fun and perhaps if their lucky get up on the podium once in a while and get soaked with champagne, if obvious gulfs in ability/cash or the like exist this becomes an impossible reality which only hurts the overall sport.

My take on how things are shaping up currently due to if you like the loop holes or lack of adapting the rules to the current technology and available modifications is that you end up with you're primary attendance class being overran with trailer queened purpose built race cars running on fictional treadwear tires which serves to not only reduce your overall event attendance but also skew the goals of the class participants (think non achievable records and such) but don't worry they still have some interior so they ain't race cars right?


These are my views and opinions only so feel free to disregard/ignore or call me a wanker it really won't hurt my feelings at all I just felt compelled to explain my own thoughts based on the fact I really would like to see the sport grow as I think it can in the US and nothing more than that.

Global Time Attack x Super Lap Battle finals

It simply wouldn't be the GST way if everything was plain sailing with our latest outing so let me begin this with a little background, get yourself some coffee, beer or fill your crack pipe and read on!

As everyone knows our last outing at Buttonwillow some 2 years ago was a little less than stellar with the car deciding to chuck it's number 3 rod through the block and subsequently blast the turbo and uppipe with around 12 quarts of oil and catching the car on fire on it's very first out lap. If I'm being honest the damage outside of the engine itself was very minor and we could have put the car back to what it was inside of 2 weeks. We discussed that route but honestly I just thought that would be lame and had a number of things bouncing around inside my head that I wanted to do to the car that with no engine in the way made sense!

Anyways a list was created that went something along the lines of this,

• Rebuild the entire flat bottom and framing (The existing had taken a beating over the years)
• Make the brakes actually work and not require the input akin to an international bodybuilder to stop the car
• Redo the front end framing that supports the Intercooler, bumper pieces and splitter
• Design and build a real turbo kit (Dumb Subaru's and their 8 feet of piping) based around Garrett's latest technology GTX4088r
• Change the fueling system to support north of 1000whp
• ETC.
• ETC....

With a lot of external support and help (Now this is a fucking list for you!)

• Yukio at Garrett for the turbo's
• Mike and Co at Greddy for the IC core (Finally a real core, not some boat anchor that I can fry egg's on after one pull!)
• Marty at Turbosmart USA for just about everything boost, some fuel and a ton of Penrite fluids!
• Mike Kenney and Brad Ratcliff for the manifold
• Chris Rado and the whole World Motorsports crew for letting me steal their old scavenge pump and probably more that I'm forgetting right now!
• Andrew over at T1Race (Injector Dynamic's) for really coming through on injectors
• Kenji at Cusco for the diff's
• Rishie at AutoRnD for the kick ass AME TM02 wheels
• Dan at CCI for the awesome clutch kit and spares
• Brian at BC for new rods and crank
• Sean at JE Pistons for the custom pistons with the ridiculous wrist pins
• Steve at RED for the block

I'm sure I'm missing a few folks but this was about 2 years ago and given as I can't remember what I ate for breakfast I feel somewhat OK if I don't remember all of the exact details!

So right where are we, ah yes GTA x SLB 2014, well this time I figured given all the changes and such I'd try something totally new so there I was phone in hand booking a test day at Buttonwillow the Wednesday prior to the event (11/5) Oh shit I nearly forgot another modification of significance during our absence. Our driver Jeff Westphal tied the knot with his long time girlfriend Brianna, the reason I only remember this at this point is we moved the test day back one day as he was flying back from his honeymoon arriving late at night on Monday the 3rd.

After loading up, a fantastic scenic drive down the I5, sleeping in front of the gate we were all set to shake the car down and get started on dialing in the chassis. Did I mention we were testing at Buttonwillow?? Jeff goes out to make sure nothing falls off and comes in stating the car is breaking up under any load. Bare in mind I have probably put around 400 miles of dyno time on the car testing turbo's and such over the past year or so without a hiccup so this strikes me as a little odd or perhaps the norm for us at Buttonwillow!

After testing a few things out it became apparent this was not something we would be able to fix at the track and we had for sure clogged up our injectors and even with our attempts at back flushing them the problem was not going to be something we could get any test data from the car without serious risk to the engine. A quick phone call to Andrew at T1 Race Development ensured we'd have a new set of injectors awaiting us at the shop the next morning.

We spent the weekend removing the entire fuel system (and I mean everything!) cleaning it all out and replacing all filters. With the new Injector Dynamics's injectors in I proceeded to go over the engine on the dyno. We've been having more than a few gearbox related issues with the shear amount of power and torque we're now seeing out of our Garrett turbo so I limited the car tuning to only the low and medium boost profiles as the last time I mapped the high boost I broke 4th gear and an axle on the dyno.

OK sorry if I've bored the complete shit out of you by now and we're not even talking about the event but I wanted to at least get everyone on the same page with a little of the background leading up to the event!


So it's now Thursday test day we're all set and ready with the exception that we have a car with a ton of changes that has had 0 track time, A driver that hasn't seen let alone driven the car at WOT in two years and an timed event the next day!

Thursday went along with us making some small changes and Jeff getting the feel for the car, I think we only crossed start finish once when we used one of the two sets of Hankook C91 tires we had to feel out the balance of the car on them, if I recall the lap was a 1:42.6 while running low boost and RPM. The guys and I spent the evening re-bleeding the cooling system and visiting with friends of ours staying at the track (Snail Performance guys, Kyle Lewis, Aaron Hair, etc,)


Friday morning first session rolls around and Jeff and I made the decision to keep the tires from the day before on the car and stick with the low boost/RPM to put down a banker and see where we were and what we needed to adjust. Jeff clicked off a respectable 1:41.5 while battling with some braking issues and keeping the RPM's down.

Typically the money shot session is the one falling between 10am and 11am and the next session for us was 10:40am which we all agreed was the perfect time to switch to the remaining fresh set of C91's and use the Medium boost map. In between all of this and due in part to me finding a leaking clamp on the cooling system we had to bleed our cooling system again which is no small task to do right with the rear mounted radiator, suffice to say I made a complete bollocks of it and our second session was basically a waste of good tires (I really need to stop working on cars and stick to what I'm good at but I'm yet to find anyone willing to pay me to talk shit on Facebook all day :( )


There was a decent gap between the 2nd session and 3rd session so I knew we'd have time to do the proper bleed process for the car, the guys (Keith, Earl, Vince and Zak) all hustled getting the system bleed and last minute pre-session checks done and we were in good shape with about 30 Min's until we needed to be on grid.

Now in the meantime Cole and Kyle from LYFE Motorsports had put the 2nd session to good use and laid down a awesome time of 1:40.4 so we had our work cut out for us or should I say Jeff had his work cut out for him!

Jeff set out on his flier and was really working the car unfortunately he caught traffic coming into the sweeper before the esses and had to abort the lap, Jeff came into the hot pit lane and we decided that it was going to be near impossible to find a hole to put in a good lap so parked the car.

I have to say at this point the mood in our paddock area wasn't the best, my initial thoughts were "Fuck it let's get her in the trailer and get out of here" but after 10 minutes or so to gather our thoughts everyone agreed we owed it to our sponsors and fans to give it another roll of the dice in the last session of the day. The only change we could make was to switch our front tires to the back as we didn't have any others to use.

So the picture looks like this at this point for us,

• Tires are really not in the best shape for taking advantage of their fresh grip
• We're all a little tired and dejected at this point
• The track has a fair amount of dirt and crap on it and less than ideal

As Jeff started his hot lap for our final throw of the dice I just remember thinking to myself "At this point I'll be happy if Jeff's able to stay on the track" When I looked up and saw the L fly through the bus stop and got my split on my watch I didn't say anything to Earl who was stood next to me but recall thinking "This is on par for a sub 1:40 for sure" Given I had thought the same in the previous session I just kept my mouth shut.

I don't know what it is but I have to say I truly hate that feeling when the car disappears from view after hurtling along Riverside, it always seems like an eternity and given we've already caught fire down in the sweeper it really magnifies that to me at least! Finally the car comes back in view and slides round the final corner for the front straight, Jeff holds 5th with the rev limited (8400rpm) just kicking in as he passes start finish, I look at my watch and say to Earl "Fuck me I think that was a 1:39.1?" A split second later Justin Banner's voice Echo's over the speakers announcing the time was a 1:38.967 as far as I could see on the pit wall everyone was going nuts!!!

Well that's about it really, I'll omit the champagne bath, naked pictures of Tony Szirka and the goat and save you the horrible details of them both.

I would like to personally thank Jeff Westphal as always for proving what a not only supreme talent he is but just a nice person to be around and work with, obviously my own guys Earl, Keith, Vince, Aaron and Zak for putting up with me through thick and thin and their tireless efforts. Finally to our fantastic sponsors whom have stuck with us all this time and truly supported us with their fantastic products.

Hankook Tire USA, Cusco, Greddy, Ignition Projects, AME Wheels, AutoRnD, JRZ suspension, JE Pistons, BC (Brian Crower), Kognition Designs, Mothers, Kartboy, Huck Gee, Vfiber, Competition Clutch Inc, Darton Sleeves, Forge Motorsport, Race Engine Development, Injector Dynamics, Turbosmart USA and Garrett Turbo’s

GTFO 2012 I'm 2013 and this is MY Year Bitch!

So we're all still here which goes to prove the Mayan's just might have been a little full of shit huh? I guess that's a good thing though right (assuming your start to 2013 hasn't completely sucked thus far!) Honestly for me 2012 wasn't so bad, I mean on the business front our shop doors are still open despite a few bumps and our Time Attack team had a pretty decent year to be honest. Yes the car decided to shit itself at the season finale at Buttonwillow but honestly after winning the previous 5 rounds, setting a couple of records and getting to hang out with some great folks who love the sport as much as we do I can't really cry about the one black eye on the whole year at the end!

Actually for the love of the sport as in Time Attack that raises a reasonable topic for me right now! It's been said recently (via Facebook) that if your not aiming to win why bother? I get that to a degree I mean I have read and re-read what individuals and teams have said to bring that statement about and short of me simply being a complete illiterate bastard I can't find anywhere where anyone has said they don't come out to an event to try and win it. I'll be honest my goal is and always will be to try and provide the very best tool for our driver Jeff Westphal to do the job and we certainly go into every event trying our best to break the record for that track, however if we get beat, break, blow up, catch fire or whatever it's not like I am going to go home and punch the wife and kick the dog!

I think what the individuals that have brought the above to light don't get is that most of us whilst attempting to win/break records truly just love being out there with the other teams doing what we do. As I type this I honestly can't recall anything of note to write about a win or a record we have laid down but I could fill this blog with stories I'll remember forever from shit that has happened during the course of every event while kicking it with the other teams. I don't think any record out there set by any team is set in stone so sure you can be a shallow fuck and think your the galactic's fastest but honestly there is always someone faster and for me I don't care if someone breaks a record we may have put down (we'll just try again) but one thing you can't take from me is the memories of all the good times with everyone at the events, they are carved in stone!

Another thing I feel worth writing about is explaining the difference between stirring the pot to generate some interest and excitement and just straight talking shit! Let me clarify it so it makes a little more sense!

I'm the first one to admit I have no problem creating a little drama or giving someone a little stick, I've lost count how many times I have called Christian Rado out for being a car bowler or telling Tony Szirka his Evo looks like a Pontiac GTO and is just as slow but honestly they as well as everyone else has given me just as much shit back and let's face it we're talking about making fun of friends here not acting like a keyboard warrior with someone you've never had a beer with or been in the trenches with. This my friends is stirring the pot, using social media to generate a little drama or just in general taking the piss out of a mate of yours online.

Now if your doing one or all of the following you fall into a different category;

1) Telling teams they are fucking stupid to waste money on their car(s) to not have a chance of winning their class, aside from that being just about as much of a douchebag statement as you can make online let's be real, aside from a lot of these guys just building their cars and spending their money to come out and race, have fun, achieve personal goals, etc. There's also always the chance the fancied potential winner will shit themselves and break so hell you never know right?

2) Calling out  teams with Monopoly money not even coming from your own bank account based off of how fucking fast your cars time is at X,Y or Z track, seriously who gives a fuck I get it your great, awesome, fantastic, etc but for most of us we spend every nickle just getting ourselves, car and so on to events if I had $10k to piss away I'd use it to either make my car go faster or something nice for my wife who doesn't see much of me as all I'm doing when I am finished with my day job is trying to make my car faster or ready! Now based on having $10k to call out everyone and being that you love Time Attack so much how about this for an idea! - Use the $10k to attend a couple of events to help support US Time Attack, don't talk about it be about, there's a whole other world outside of California you should try it sometime!

3) Posting online basically shitting on other people and teams hard work, telling them they pretend to Time Attack, their car always breaks or whatever.

So the above really puts you into the condescending prick category, belittling other people's accomplishments is about the most chicken shit way of drumming up drama or generating interest I can personally think of.


Ah that felt better, now anyway seeing as that's off my chest (Yea like I lost sleep over it anyway LOL) word is none other than NEMO is coming over to the US this year! I can't tell you how personally excited I am to hear that. It seems they have a point to prove and want to have a say in who's really the Galactic's fastest Time Attack machine! Awesome I can't wait to see the car in action, try and get the owner, crew and driver drunk and then take pictures and steal all the idea's I can.

It may be prudent for the perpetrator of the $10k bet to take a little picture of the dough right now as it will probably be covering some of the NEMO's crew expenses for their trip away from their Fosters!

Anyway to that end I'd like to wish you all the very best in 2013 and hope to have a pint or three with you at an event this year!

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!