Modified Tuner Shootout - Final Results

GST Motorsports goes drag racing once a year - at our Shootout. And they kick ass every year. What gives? Well, turns out that a very clever ECU tuner by the name of Mike Warfield (who also happens to be the owner of GST) seems to have a knack for setting up the launch control, differentials, no-lift shifting and gear-specific boost in such a way that pilot Gary Sheehan can consistently get it down the quarter-mile strip in less than 11 seconds. In fact, they only used two of a possible three runs after posting a 10.451 at 137.29 mph, figuring it was best to save what the engine and transmission had left for the time attack.

This turned out to be a smart move by GST, since dyno king World Racing really struggled to get its turbo spooled up and the Xtrac sequential gearbox working well out of the hole. Simply put, despite having the most power, pro drag racer Chris Rado simply couldn't get his purpose-built time attack Scion to launch the way he needed it to. Still, after the World Racing crew thrashed like rock stars to make some changes to the tC's setup, Rado did manage to post a respectable 11.789 at an impressive 135.96 mph. Full-Race also struggled a bit during this event, despite having the second most powerful engine in the competition. Driver Mike Speck was getting too much wheelspin out of the box, and even after making changes to the center diff settings the R14 never quite hooked up. As a result, Speck had to feather the throttle and short shift to prevent wheelspin during gear changes, leaving the Full-Race crew with what they must have considered a disappointing 11.893 and fifth place in the event.

With the two horsepower titans placing fourth and fifth, Tage Evanson's EG made the absolute most of its available power by putting down a stunning 11.564-second run at 117.43 mph. Tage, being the crafty competitor that he is, borrowed a set of drag slicks off a friend and put the onboard 50-shot of NOS to very good use, putting his Civic in second place for the event. Crazy!

Jim Cozzolino also shocked and impressed us all with his perfect drag launches and extremely consistent e.t.'s. The Coz Motorsports NSX, equipped with well-worn Yokohama AD08 street tires throughout the event, pumped out three runs in the 11s, the best being an 11.598 at 129.95 mph. Best of all, Jim could enjoy some music and A/C between runs because his NSX is a true street car.

AFI Turbo continued to get the better of its S2000 rival AQ Motorsports, Renshaw peddling the silver AFI machine down the quarter-mile in 11.897 seconds to JC Meynet's 12.568-second best in the AQ S2K. But both of these cars showed signs of mechanical stress in the form of missing gears. How this would affect their time attack performance remained to be seen.