Freshly back from Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill. in the Chicago area. I agreed to drive out with Pete (the owner of BC Racing Suspension) from San Diego all the way out to Illinois (instead of fly) for the third round of the Redline Time Attack. After missing the season opener this year do to schedule conflicts we were fresh off our semi-successful debut weekend from round two at Willow Springs.

This third event (our second) of the year would be the first time the (west coast born and raised) BC Racing 350Z has ever traveled off the west coast.
The trip out there went very smooth as we took our time and traveled from California to Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, then Illonois.

We arrived at the track Friday around 5:30PM, dropped off the trailer, then went to check into the hotel.

Saturday went fairly well as we unloaded to get some needed track time. I had never seen this track prior to this event and neither has the Z. I quickly learned a few things (good and bad)
1) The new fuel tank configuration worked pretty well and resolved most of the pick up problems that we were having before k:
2) But...The car was having a brake biased problem. It was not using very much rear brake at all thus causing me to lock up the front brakes on some of the braking points :thumbdown: Not fun. This caused me to get into the wet grass just off the racing surface and get stuck on two different occasions and had to be towed back on the track (not fun ) After that mess, I decided to down shift harder than usual (compression brake) to compensate for the lack of rear brake.

The rest of Saturday we spent learning the track.

Sunday, the competition day rolled around. As we are running both Unlimited rear wheel drive class and modified rear wheel drive class with the same car, we were going to be busy changing tires, etc.

The first timed sessions came up and I went out to run modified class. I did get a little better feel for the track, yet I knew my lap times were not as fast as they should have been probably do to my over-driving :ugh:.
Then it was time to immediately bolt on the new unlimited class Hankook tires and head out for our unlimited session.
The car felt pretty good as I ran a 1.32.382 on my first lap out. The second lap I slipped up a little again on a braking point (damn brakes) and slowed down a bit. ... and on the third timed lap everything felt really good until I reached down to grab fourth gear and there was no fourth gear anymore.... or third,.......or fifth, so on and so an.... Yes, it looks like the constant pounding on the transmission for the downshifts to compensate for the lack of rear brakes finally took its toll on the transmission.

So, that left the rest of the day open for me to watch and see if the lack-luster first times I put up were good enough to stick and carry us to a podium finish at least.

Despite the track cooling down significantly and most everyone running a full second faster in their second attempt, we were able to secure the second place in the Modified RWD Class, and even better..... We were able to take first place in Unlimited RWD, setting a new track record in the process.

The BC Racing Suspension crew and myself really would like to thank Jim Wolf Technology for all their extra work and efforts this year. If it wasn't for JWT we would not be running this year, also a big thanks to Hankook, my tire sponsor, they are a huge help this year in keeping new rubber on the car for UNL. class. We also thank my guys at Relentless Autosports for the hard work as well.

Here are some pics of the car at this event (thanks to Budski photography)






The next event will be at Nashville Superspeedway, near Nashville TN. where we set two track records and got two first places last year.

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SCOTT @ RELENTLESS AUTOSPORTS