This past weekend, I had to change gears from the #81 WRR Spec Miata back to the #916 Enjuku Racing LS350Z to take on some of the faster Time Attack drivers in North America at Motovicity Distribution's Premier Event: The SpeedRing.
One small hiccup heading into the weekend was that Toyo was back ordered on 295 R888R's so I was going to be bumped to Unlimited RWD with my Toyo RR Slicks. It turned out not to be such a bad thing, since Unlimited RWD only had a handful of entries for the event, at first I wasn't sure why. But once I turned a few laps at the newest track in Detroit, M1 Concourse, I knew why. The track, while very smooth, was plagued with very low speed <90 degree turns (we're talking about 30mph apex speeds), and a concerning lack of run off space with the majority of the 1 mile long circuit lined with metal guard rails.
After a few laps, we determined the risk vs. reward factor was too high, and elected to not push our luck or hurt the car in Saturday's competition. Of course the competitive side of me kicked in, and I pushed hard enough to totally kill my differential. We did manage to put together a decent enough lap to steal a distant 3rd place and a podium in Unlimited RWD, behind the Faessler father/son team in their ridiculously fast mustangs.
On Sunday, things got interesting with the new Touge Battle Bracket where the top 10 from each class (Unlimited, Limited, Street Mod) went head to head regardless of drivetrain in a cat-and-mouse style hot lap battle. Essentially, two cars on track at a time, No passing aloud, lead car wants to create a gap, chase car wants to close said gap. After one hot lap, they take a cool down and switch positions. Ties are broken with a One-More-Time Battle. We had to face Andy Smedegard in the insanely fast RS Motors Evo 8 in the first round. Despite the diff crying for help (literally) we did manage to shave two seconds off our best lap with Andy in our mirrors, but no where near fast enough to knock Andy out!
We stuck around to watch the big guns go at it, which was very cool to watch! Unfortunately, quite a few cars made contact with the tire walls, with $30,000 Cash on the line, many of the teams left it all out on the track!