World Time Attack Challenge - Events

Site: Eastern Creek International Raceway, Sydney, Australia

This year’s World Time Attack Challenge has definitely improved when compared to 2010, and with a gathering of such significance, it’s no wonder people have been calling it the “event of the year!” It’s great to see some of the fastest cars from Australia, Japan, America and New Zealand all brought together with a single purpose in mind: take first place at Sydney’s very own Eastern Creek International Raceway.

A few of the new participants for the third year of World Time Attack Challenge included Suzuki-san in the Scorch Racing S15 from Japan, local Australian Ben Creswick in his carbon-fiber Hankook WRX, Mitsuhiro Kinoshita in the Garage Revolution RX-7 (a car that holds the ground-breaking 53.6-second class record at Tsukuba Circuit), Steve Glenney and Mark Hansen in their R35 GT-Rs, and Kiwi Boy Jono Lester in the Team RevolutionNZ EVO. With quite a few new competitors in the Pro class, it was difficult to predict the outcome, but drivers like Tarzan Yamada and David Emphringham had the advantage of knowing the track better than their competitors, having driven Eastern Creek in 2010.

Here’s a sneak peek of what sits underneath the body panels of Steve Glenney’s GT Auto Garage R35 Pro class car.

Here’s a sneak peek of what sits underneath the body panels of Steve Glenney’s GT Auto Gar

During Thursday’s practice session, the Garage Revolution FD3S RX-7 managed to sneak up behind Tarzan’s ’10 record by a few hundredths of a second. The Cyber EVO had some drama in the morning, which lead to missing a few sessions, but the team managed to pick itself up and put down some solid times. The event wasn’t running as smoothly as it should have been for the guys at Sierra-Sierra — a bad ring and pinion in the differential required the team to quickly remove the motor and diff. The same troubles plagued Scorch Racing; unfortunately, the team also ran into a transmission failure.

The time that gave the Cyber EVO team the victory in 2010 was broken by Tarzan on Friday, laying down a 1:30.369, which was slightly quicker than last year’s winning time. Garage Revolution managed to run a 1:30.616 and Sierra-Sierra with a 1:30.749.

With a forecast of rain and strong cloud cover for Saturday, temperatures dropped very quickly early morning. As a result of the unexpectedly cool temperatures, two of the Pro class cars smashed the 1:30 barrier into the 29s! Overtaking Tarzan was David in the Sierra-Sierra EVO with a time of 1:29.024, leaving Tarzan in second place with a 1:29.751. Everyone was shocked with the amount of time they had swiped off last year’s 1:30.587.

As the afternoon came about, so did the fierce-looking storm clouds. The Cyber EVO team opted to sit out of one session when Sierra-Sierra ran a 1:29.024. Unfortunately, things weren’t going so smoothly for all of the teams — Suzuki-san in the Scorch Racing S15 managed to break another gearbox, forcing the team out of the competition. Not long after, Tarzan was back out in full force and managed to turn a 1:28.851, which would turn out to be the fastest time of the weekend. As soon as the Cyber EVO pitted, a light shower started over the Creek, which left the team smiling and knowing their time was safe. It was hard to tell what was happening in the Sierra-Sierra garage because the team’s pits were completely blocked off from all spectators and photographers. After the dust settled and the sun set over Sydney, another successful World Time Attack Challenge drew to a close. Since the debut back in 2009, this event seems to be getting bigger and better each year, so we’re really looking forward to 2012!