Wow, what a weekend!!! There is really a lot to say so I'll start at the beginning. Thursday night and into early Friday morning, we loaded the car up and sent her, Mr. C, Toan, and Sye off to Haltech for a tune on their stand alone. I crashed at Daryl's house near by the shop, and tried to get some sleep. We headed back to the shop later Friday morning, picked up a few things we needed and headed off! The route was easy for the most part, with rain every now and again, but we trucked on, literally, lol. We managed to see the Dent Sport Garage crew twice on the way down waving both times, and drooling over their cars as well. Every hour or so we'd call just to make sure the tuning was doing well and what the numbers were, at first it was 340... uhh ok, we'll call back in an hour. 380, that sounds a little better. An hour later is was 413, ok, thats great, but whats taking so long! The last number we heard was 460, and I figured that will be enough to lay down a smoking time, little did I know it would lay down a little more. 10 hours later Daryl and I arrived at the track and found out it opens at 6am for Time Attackers, so we grabbed a bite to eat and had a drink at the bar across from the hotel. We returned to the hotel for some sleep and somewhere around 3am the car and rest of the crew arrived. All too early the alarm went off and we grabbed the keys to the trailer and headed to get a garage spot.

We arrived at the track at 6:15, 3rd in line and Bob, the gate keeper, was not letting us in until 8am, when the drivers meeting is 8:15. With a few phone calls to redline officials, and the passing of 45 minutes everything was ok, and Time Attackers were allowed to enter. We managed to grab a great paddock spot in the garages next to Doug Wind with his super fast SRT-4 and Alex in the slick motorsports Evo. The unpacking began and it become apparent 1) the Haltech ECU was unplugged and sitting on the passengers seat, and 2) we didnt have the keys for the car, lol! Several photographers showed up that remembered the car from last year, all of which were waiting to get that two wheeled shot in turn 4. The Music City Scion Club also came around and looked at the car. Just after the first session Mr. C, Toan, and Sigh arrived with some supplies and some needed sleep. Instantly the car was up and running and Toan explained to me that the Haltech was set to boost by gear, and was less powerful in the lower gears in hopes to eliminate wheel spin, but he said they are all tuned for a few settings I was amazed what the Haltech could do and was eager to try it! I headed out onto the track and was watching all the gauges. Water temp was good, Boost was holding, oil and fuel pressure were good as well, it was time to rock and roll! Coming onto the straight between turns 4 and 5 I shifted into 4th the first time, and was greeted with the, now too familiar, feel of a round 4th gear. I pulled the car back into the pits and held up 4 fingers coming into the paddock. Toan was devastated, and everyone found out shortly their after we now had a 4 speed transmission. Within seconds parts were flying and people were thinking. How do we get the tranny out ASAP? Could we do it in the garage? How long would it take? Eventually j3st3r called up Delk motorsports a local mustang shop who offered us a spare bay. We loaded up, nearly hitting a few Hondas that would not move out of the trailers way, and got to Delk. In 6 hours we had the gears swapped, and the car back on the road, but there was another problem. Due to the limited time available at Haltech for the final fine tuning, they were not able to fully tune the acceleration enrichment tables! Given the lack of track time at this point to fine tune the unit, it was decided that we should just revert back to the Greddy EMU for the rest of the weekend. We then hoped the dreaded "false redline" problem, which occurred in the lower gears, would not come up, but its better than nothing. After heading back to the hotel for a much needed shower we headed out with the Music City Scion group for a nice dinner at Sizzlers. It was a great time getting to know them better, and we eventually retired for more sleep.

Sunday came bright and early again, but it had rained over night and there were going to be showers in the area all day, great! After the drivers meeting we fired the car up and I was ready for some practice laps on track. The boost was set to 14 psi , the car was running well, and it showed as the little tC passed just about everyone. The car was perfect! The wing made high speed instability a thing of the past, the front grip was amazing but as usual the transitions off the banking were rough! I managed a good consistent string of laps, knocking a second off last years time. With the same power and a better setup the car pulled 1:09s in practice. I was not taking it easy since I had no practice the day before; I wanted every lap to count. One portion of the track is a high speed chicane which taken with enough speed would bottom the passengers front suspension out but not upset the car. This setup the car perfectly for the rest of the corners and yielded a good show. However, Turn 5 was the cars undoing. During the cool down lap I lost all drive, and had to pull off the track and wait for a tow. I jumped out of the car and looked under the hood and under the car. Nothing was dripping, nothing was broken it looked like. The tC was towed in by Nashvilles EV crew who were really nice and very prompt! When the car arrived at the paddock I could see the despair in Mr. C's eyes. I explained the problem and we were nearly about to pack the car up and head home. However, the Music City guys were not about to let that happen. Within minutes people were calling junk yards for transmissions and others were on the way to rhythmnsmoke's house for a spare tranny. Nearly an hour later the car was high up on stands and we had two transmissions coming apart at the same time. The crowd around the PTuning Garage space was growing and tension was rising. The first time attack session came and went, with our nearest competitor Benjy setting a 1:10 in his civic, right on top of my practice times. We had until 3:10 to get the car rolling under its own power, and it was going to be close. For a little motivation I offered up a steak dinner to the PTuning guys if the car was done before 3:10. When the transmission was fully apart, the supposed culprit, a broken final drive was just fine. So where was the problem? The crew quickly started looking at other parts and thats when the passengers side axle came apart in Mr. C's hands. It had been slipping in and out and we didnt even notice. The transmission was reassembled, the axle was fixed and by 2:45 the car was off of stands. I took it for a quick spin around the paddock and she drove, but would everything hold up? I was given instructions about setting any time on the first lap, what the boost levels were and that we needed points. If we were to DNF at any event, our season is over, and in order to win the 2009 Championships we needed another undefeated season meaning another win at Nashville. 3:05 rolled around and I moved the car into the hot pits. At 3:10 the first group of modified cars hit the track and I counted down their laps. We started to stage as the first group was coming in and the tension was rising once again, would the car last? would it be fast?

Ahead of me I could see the Forged Performance Nissan roar onto the track, followed shortly after by the Takata Time Attack Sti. Chris dropped his hand and it was my turn, with the boost turned up I did my best to warm up the tires without spinning them, or causing more problems. Rounding turn 9 onto the straight I could see the green flag, lap 1 was about to begin. The crunch heading from the banking onto the infield signaled turn 1! Hard on the brakes, and I tried to make the turns a wide as possible so as to not break the axle again. Coming into turn 5 I was offline trying to make the transition as easy on the car as I could. Coming out of turn 9 I knew we had a lap in the books that was good enough for some points and it was time for some real speed. Burying the needle past 140 the car screamed into Turn one for the second time, this time braking as late as possible, on line and hitting the apex. I battled wheel spin on the short straights between corners and made sure I was close to the curbs but never on them. Turn 5 was coming up, and with a quick stab of the brakes I turned in. The car slid over the apex right over the curbing just missing the cones. Out of turn 9 again it was everything I could do to get the power down. Not caring about 4th gear anymore I revved the car all the way up to the 7800rpm redline and then into 5th, still accelerating on the banking. Lap 2 was in the books, but was it good enough for a win? No time to think about that as I'm back on the brakes for turn 1, carrying as much speed as I could. Though the infield and back onto the banking, the car had done it. With 3 timed laps in the books, was it good enough for the win? What were the times? How did we place in modified over all?

I took the car back to the pits and everyone informed me of the time, a 1:08.5, which was more than good enough for the win, but the car could have gone faster. I changed out of my fire suit and jumped in the truck to see Chris Rado in his tC tear it up. Chris won his class with a very impressive 1:03, breaking the FWD class record he set in 2008. When we returned to the pits I offered up the PTuning Time Attack tC for a photo shoot with the Music City crew, and they gladly accepted! When the car was in place I also thought it would be great to have Chris Rado's World Racing Scion in the group as well! We then moved all the cars over to his trailer and started another shoot. Chris even offered for us to get up on his wing which was a very cool experience! After a few more photos, and the awards ceremony we packed the car up and the crew wanted their steak dinner! We headed to outback for steaks, drinks, and recalling just how fast we could tear apart a transmission. By 9:30 we were on the road headed back to northern VA. At 7:15 am, we arrived, dropped the gear we needed and headed home for some much needed rest.

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Ross Miller
www.spazeracing.com
www.ptuning.com

I need to get me a rav4 for the next Redline Truck Attack!