Modified Tuner Shootout - Final Results

There's just something special about bringing together a group of the country's most highly tuned and meticulously prepared track cars and putting them to the test in a no-holds-barred contest of power, grip and agility. The fact that we get to do this with the help of a tireless and fun-loving group of people from NASA AZ, UMS Tuning and Continental Tire under the desert sun in Phoenix makes it that much sweeter. Sure, the economic downturn means we've got a few less teams in the Shootout than we've had in previous years, but with three teams in each of the three drivetrain classes (FWD, AWD and RWD) and back-to-back defending champ GST Motorsports in attendance, we fully expected another year of high drama to go along with all the high hopes and high horsepower.

Just like the previous two Shootouts in Phoenix, we've got a dyno competition worth 25 points, an autocross worth 100 points and a time attack worth 100 points. And just like in past years, the event winner will score the maximum for that event and all others will be scored as a percentage of their time or horsepower value. Where we've changed things up a bit this year is with the drag event, with the maximum points having been reduced from 100 to 75. We did this based on the unusually large point spread we've seen during the quarter-mile test in past years, and since we didn't want this single event being overemphasized, we've reduced the points for it. Our hope is that with the dyno and drag events spanning a total of 100 points we've covered the power portion of the event appropriately and left the autocross and time attack to capture differences in handling, braking and overall chassis balance.

Before we get down to the nitty gritty of this year's Shootout, we'd like to thank AFI Turbo for making very cool CNC-milled plaque awards for this year's event, and most importantly, we'd like to thank title sponsor Continental Tire for its support.