BEHIND THE SCENES>> GLOBAL TIME ATTACK CHICAGO
After months of planning, building and tuning the Need for Speed Scion tC2 time attack car is finally up and running. But Chris Rado will go into more detail about this car in his upcoming blog.
The trip to Chicago was worth it just to watch this "thing" run on the track for a couple laps.
Like clockwork, the team strips everything apart after spending an entire day putting it together.
Everyone on the team was stressed out trying to get the brand new car running for the first time. Even Slick, the team's mascot was on edge from all the foot traffic in and out of the race rig.
Not everyday is fun and games when you are on a race team.
Gandalf the Grey mechanic could not handle the pressure and left the team mid race. Working on a race team is not for everyone.
Chris may seem like a hard ass but he has a soft side. His biggest fan, Wade "Weezy" Conway, traveled all the way from Evansville, Indiana, to see him in action.
Chris gave Wade his race suit that he wore last year. In return, Wade helps out around the paddock.
Filmmaker, Adam Rehmeier, was on hand as always to document the drama that is World Racing. Keep an eye out for his next webisode.
The World Racing team believes strongly in the Global Time Attack series, so they do their best to help out the owners, Jason Dienhart and John Nadiri.
I've never been to the Autobahn Country Club so I decided to do some exploring. This is the clubhouse in the middle of the track.
I was going to take some photos of the inside but I got some weird looks going inside with my camera.
This has got to be the cutest looking Sunoco gas station I have ever seen.
Even the Good Year blimp came out to see the time attack action.
There was a go-kart track as well as a skid pad. This Mazda 3 belonged to the defensive driving school.
There was a cafe that served wonderful $9 hamburgers.
I wonder if it's a requirement to have a cool looking golf cart once you become a member of this exclusive country club.
What really impressed me was the track-side houses. There were at least 30 of them.
I decided to check out the inside of one of these luxury race homes.
It's easy to say I was quite impressed.
It must be nice to have your own tire rack.
There is something about having cars stacked on top of cars. I don't see this very often coming from earthquake prone California.
This is the view out the back door.
On the first floor there is a locker room, a bathroom, a laundry room and two bedrooms.
Here is one of two downstairs showers.
There was a large assortment of "race" parts that were just collecting dust as well.
What a clean work space. I wish my garage looked like this.
If full size cars are not to your liking then you can just hop on one of these go-karts.
It was time to check out the second floor. On the wall were aerial shots of famous race tracks.
Another look at the 20 car garage from the second floor.
Forget everything you know about camping track-side.
I could live in this house.
Here is a view from the kitchen. There is also a master bedroom on the second floor.
Here is a view from the second floor balcony. On the left you can see the track.
It was time for me to stop drooling at my dream home. I decided to take photos of some race cars. It was good to see the GST team out at Round 3 of the Global Time Attack Series.
There is something about Time Attack cars and using Mountain Dew as catch cans.
Jeff Westphal holds 6 overall unlimited class track records and 7 AWD track records in the GST Subaru Impreza. That is including the overall record they broke this event with a time of 1:23.594.
Ryan Gates always looks great around the track in his Nitto sponsored Evo X.
That little "Domo" went for a wild ride as Ryan got 1st place in Limited GT AWD with a time of 1:30.692
Mark Forenbaher got a 1:39.163 in a very stock looking Mitsubishi Evo IX. He ended up getting 3rd place in Limited GT AWD.
This Mazda Rx-8 was driven by Frank Hart. He ended up getting 1:46.158 which was good for 2nd place in Street GT RWD.
It must be nice to be sponsored by Chick-Fil-A. Can you imagine all the chicken fingers you can eat?
This very clean Honda Civic was driven by Aaron Byram. He finished 1st place in Unlimited GT FWD with a time of 1:31.628.
Even Chris Rado was over by this car checking out the quality build by Pure Tuning.
Bryan Hedian drove the Wired Race Team Honda S2000 all the way from New Jersey. It was worth it because he got 1st place with a time of 1:44.034.
Tony Wiesenhahn was jumping those candy stripes in the TurninConcepts Subaru WRX. He could not beat the GST Impreza but he got a solid second place with a time of 1:28.974.
Last time Tony Szirka drove the UMS Tuning Mitsubishi Evo 8 so hard that the brakes caught on fire.
This time his brakes worked great and I even noticed the rotors were glowing at the end of the strait away, even in the daytime. He ended up getting 4th place in Unlimited GT AWD with a time of 1:32.189.
Of course everyone's favorite privateer team brought out their car once again on a U-Haul open trailer.
Daniel O’Donnell set a new Street GT AWD record with his Professional Awesome Mitsubishi Evo VII at 1:34.275.
The action off the track was just as nuts. The access roads got very wet and slippery when it started to rain.
Gary Rubio in the mostly stock Performance Motorsport Nissan 370Z got 1st place in Unlimited GT RWD with a time of 1:34.851. That is not bad considering all the problems they had all weekend. They had to borrow the mass air flow sensor from their rental Nissan Maxima to keep the car running.
His partner in crime and owner of Performance Motorsport, Carmine Dell Aquilla, decided Autobahn raceway's lawn needed mowing.
Maybe he was just hungry and wanted to make a fresh salad.
Carmine's team could not cut a break at all this weekend…
…The Corvette Z06 got its rear window and taillights busted from a gust of wind blowing their EZ-up into the race car. He still managed to squeeze out a time of 1:42.264.
They were still in good spirits as they asked me to join them for some track side BBQ.
Carmine decided to grill some dogs since we were in Chicago.
If hot dogs were not your thing then there was plenty of pizza to go around as demonstraited by this GTA model.
The teams battled strong winds, rain and mechanical problems throughout the entire event. I think everyone involved was ready for some much needed rest. Global Time Attack is one of the few time attack series left in North America and I look forward to their last even of the year at Infineon Raceway. There is already 50 registered entrants for the final battle so it should be action packed.
Larry
