Modified Tuner Shootout - Final Results

We've had our share of drama during the time attack event in past years, but this year the drama dial was cranked to 11. For starters, the Sportcar Motion Integra threw a rod while blasting down Firebird's long front straight, ending its event with an impressive tailpipe smoke show.

This wasn't the only smoke show the time attack would provide - Full-Race's truly unique R14 caught fire on its second timed lap. Driver Mike Speck did an amazing job to get the R14 safely back to pit lane, where fellow competitor and NASA AZ head honcho Tage Evanson quickly grabbed a fire bottle and controlled the blaze until the fire crew arrived. Speck was uninjured, and the damage to the R14 was minimal. Turned out that a power steering fluid leak had coated the header wrap and when the thin-walled aluminum exhaust pipe snapped, the resulting sparks ignited the soaked header wrap.

The Full-Race mishap had a bit of a cascade effect, since the track was shut down and a number of teams had their sessions ended before they could post a lap time. Chris Rado managed to post a very quick 63.692-second lap in his World Racing Scion before the track was shut down, so he elected not to go out in a later session to complete his final two laps in the dark.

Jim Cozzolino of Coz Motorsports wasn't so lucky because he didn't complete a single lap before the fire ended his session. This meant that Jim would have to do his three timed laps during a later session under the lights rather than during the daylight. This put Jim at a huge disadvantage, but rather than complain about the hand fate had dealt him, Jim soldiered on and posted a safe lap time of 88.200 seconds in the dark.

The fire delay proved to be a bit of a blessing for AFI Turbo. Just as we suspected, AFI had lost fifth gear during the drag event, but worse still when they arrived back in the paddock and tried to fire the engine back up they realized they'd also fried the Hondata KPro ECU. With the only spare available being an AEM EMS out of a RSX, the AFI crew madly swapped the entire wiring harness, having to literally repin the OEM harness in the process. In an amazing display of good sportsmanship, Mitch from AQ Motorsports pulled apart the AEM in order to move around some boards so that it would recognize the hall sensor for the crank. With Mitch's help the AFI car finally fired up, just in time for Renshaw to jump in the driver seat. Sadly, once out on the track, Renshaw quickly realized they'd also lost third and fourth gears to go along with fifth gear, so all he could do was limp the S2000 around in a best time of 74.990 seconds.

This opened the door for JC Meynet and the AQ Motorsports S2000, which had gearbox issues of its own. In a strangely similar set of circumstances, the AQ roadster lost fourth gear during the drag event, which just so happened to be the most used gear around the road course. This meant Meynet would have to get creative with his gear selection during the time attack, but he still managed to post a very impressive 67.241-second lap. The almost 8-second gap back to the AFI S2000 meant that AQ Motorsports jumped ahead of them in the standings and claimed the Shootout RWD Class victory in the process.

Meanwhile, GST and Tage Evanson were the fortunate two that ran before Full-Race, meaning they each completed their session uninterrupted. Well, Tage actually interrupted his session with a little unscheduled bump into the tire barrier around the final turn, but he still managed to throw in a very quick 65.74-second lap time. GST, on the other hand, chose to play it safe by running its Impreza on its low-boost setting (24 psi) in order to ensure a clean lap was posted and the overall Shootout victory secured.

Amazingly enough, Sheehan managed to break the Shootout and Super Lap Battle track record (a 62.100 by Crawford Performance last year) by posting a blazingly fast 61.666-second lap. Had team owner Mike Warfield unleashed Sheehan with a full 32 psi of boost, their in-car data suggested that a sub 60-second lap would have been well within reach.