This weekend we closed the shop to drive to New Jersey for Redline Time Attack at New Jersey Motorsports Park. The event was held at the Lightning course, the little brother course to Thunderbolt. Lightning was exciting. I hadn’t done it yet. There were a couple of sharp turns over crests that made the track interesting as well as an interesting extended right hand turn onto the straight.

The Pleasure Evo donned it’s new graphics package, simply a poem from poet Jim Daniels across the roof. We made a lot of big changes to the cars over the winter. We installed a new roll cage and revised the suspension of the Evo, new tires and some smaller changes to the brakes, mostly fine tuning. I felt that the car would be great in Modified with the new tires. I purposely sought no sponsorship this year, not to say that I would get any if I tried but it reduces any extra performance pressure and also allows fluid testing procedures of new parts and somehow makes the experience only mine. My press release would be short. “Thanks to my friends, thanks to my wife.”

Bill had done much more to the Maxi over the winter, as usual. He installed electrically assisted power steering with a custom electronic control box which allows for no belt and also for complete control over the level of assist provided to the driver. He also changed his rear subframe, rebuilt his cylinder head and degreed his new Tomei cams. He also installed new fuel injectors after learning two were faulty. Matt retuned the car and it made more power than ever, 464whp on our dyno. I really felt that this was the time for Bill’s car to shine.

We left Norwood on Friday at about noon and promptly got stuck in NYC traffic, arriving at about 6pm to the hotel. Saturday’s setup and practice went smoothly. Redline is working hard to increase it’s professionalism in tech inspection, instruction for new drivers and also by creating schedules for driver movement and sticking to it. I also liked the new transponder system, much better than before!

The Evo had more grip than ever with the Nittos. I was really surprised. After all the winter homework and interviews of COM guys who used everything I chose to buy Nitto NT-01 and I wasn’t disappointed. I think that with these tires I can do a 1:10.X at NHMS in chicane-chicane this year. Anyway.. the Evo honeymoon soon turned into a nightmare of twisted ribbed v-belts and overheating. My store-bought alternator relocation kit was again causing the same problems that it had in 2008, fixed in 2009 until this day. The belt would derail and I would lose power steering which wasn’t the end of the problem. The P-S belt also runs the water pump so the car would promptly overheat. The second practice session I had a boost pipe pop off, fixed that and continued to eat belts and overheat the car into the evening. My best time of the day was a 1:14 or something. I felt happy with the power of the car and with the handling I was hitting the rev limiter too early on the straight away because of my short gearing, a hillclimb compromise. The car had never been so good, if only the belt would stay on.

Bill’s car ran very well on Sat in practice. He had some first-outing problems also. His steering assist would be inconsistent. Scot and Bill worked hard on dialing the suspension. Bill switched from last year’s R1 BFGs to used Grand Am Cup tires and picked up over 3 seconds. I wish he had real new tires.

Sunday my car was throwing belts in AM practice. A certain car was trying to pass me on the warm up lap, which compounded my frustration. Nick had bought me a couple belts on Saturday so I had 4 spares in total. Ramana and Burak kept me calm and we came up with a strategy of going slow on the outlap to not disrupt the pump so the belt might stay on. During Time Attack session 1 I got on the gas hard onto the straight for the first timed lap and the belt popped off within 2 seconds. I pitted in. Pit row is halfway down the straight.This combined with my rally-geared top speed of 140 was really putting me in a fowl mood. I would hit the rev limiter in 5th on the first 1/3 of the straight.

I put on a new belt, checked the car over and let it sit with my fingers crossed for the time Trial, skipping a practice session.

Meanwhile Dan C. and Anthony P. were competing in Street class with Dan’s Subaru WRX wagon, 2.5 liter/Tomei power and Tony was testing his 4b11 with Matt’s tuning and Garrett’s bolt-on turbo. Both drove very well, to their credit. The other cars in their class were built much closer to the Redline rulebook and not to our local club’s which dealt them a significant handicap. Cars in Redline’s street class cannot be driven by professionals although Cobb had a driver with quite a resume. Tony was probably the only guy in the class that actually drove his “street” car there, and 6 hours away! It was difficult mentally for both drivers to drive on good tires Saturday and then swap to the legal, narrow street tires for Sunday. They both deserve a lot of praise for their 5th and 6th place finishes in Street AWD.

For Bill, Sunday was a day to focus on pushing hard off the straight onto turn 1. He found the limit in practice and put 2, or possibly 4 wheels off over the right hand crest. I didn’t see where the car went, just the dust. It was good though, because he had knocked off 6 or so seconds from Saturday’s practice. I don’t remember Bill’s first time attack run because I was working on my car in the pits. His second was fast. He was nipping on Jeff Ricca’s heels which made things exciting. Their friendly rivalry was talked about a lot over the megaphone as they lapped.

On the final lap of the Time Attack Bill surprisingly pitted in instead of continuing down the straight. He motioned wildly as he drove up to Scot. I was watching from a small hill above pit row, unable to go in since I was wearing shorts. I leaned against the fence in anticipation. Scot understood Bill’s flailing and grabbed the fire extinguisher as he approached. Was Bill’s car on fire? Luckily no. The exhaust had broken in his earlier off-course excursion but the break wasn’t visible underneath the heat shielding. The 3’ long exhaust was now 1.5 feet long and dumping on the bodywork, melting it and Bill’s feet, which operated the pedals above it. The car was fine but I chuckled as I imagined Bill trying to maintain his concentration and at the same time fight the burning sensation at his feet. It must have helped because he turned a 1:11 lap.

I wasn’t sure how I did after my session but I was happy. The car once again threw the belt only I decided to just keep driving after the first lap with the temp needle pegged in the red. It remained there for the duration. I got into the pits and the car wouldn’t start again. The head was severely damaged but I didn’t want to let everyone down. It was too long of a trip, too much work over the winter and too much fighting with the Pleasure Evo to allow it to ruin my day.
-alex