Next came the dragstrip, which luckily ended up being held during a brief break in the rain and on a dry but dusty dragstrip. Brady Dohrmann jumped aboard, just like last year, and turned a neck-snapping, 11-second run on his first sitting in the car!
The uncharacteristic April weather continued to throw us a few curveballs, though, and there was continued sporadic on-and-off rain. Unfortunately, we never got any dry time on the Firebird circuit before the evening time attack and final portion of the event. I did get to run a short wet session just to try and get some type of wet-weather handling package under the car in the event that we had to run the time attack in the rain. It turned out that the setup was harder to nail down than a shingle roof in a tornado, and although we ran some pretty competitive times, I was taking some big chances to get us there.
Finally, the evening time attack event came up and conditions were dry and predictable. We immediately went back to the Hankook slicks and stiffened up the shocks and bars. We knew that we weren't going to catch Gary Sheehan in the GST Subaru unless it broke, but we also knew that we had a healthy lead over the Third Place Nissan GT-R and Fourth Place SOS Honda NSX. Even though I really wanted to turn a good lap for bragging rights, I'm nowhere near cocky enough to think that I can go quicker than Tarzan or Sheehan with me in a street car and them in more properly built race cars. And on top of that, we had Second Place secured as long as we didn't blow up or have me crash us out of the running. So we turned down the boost from 30 to about 22-23 and set off to see what we could do.
The YimiSport Full-Race power was still strong, but nothing like it had been during the full-boost test, and I still found myself waiting for the boost to build longer than I would have liked. I drove as hard as I could, pushing the limits in all the braking zones, especially turn 1. With an indicated 142 mph at the end of the Firebird straight, I knew we were giving up a bit to some of the other cars and I tried to make it up by braking as late as I dared. Of the three timed laps that we were allowed, I was pretty sure I was going to kill myself in a couple of the corners on at least two of those laps. I was pushing so hard that the brakes glowed cherry red long after the car came out onto the straight, and one of the photogs said he actually saw the Brembo Grand Turismo brakes on fire once! Stopping power was decent, however, although there is only so much that one can expect in terms of slowing a 3,400-lb car from triple-digit speeds, but as always, I knew that the Brembos would be up to the task.
When it was all said and done, we turned a 1.05.4, good for the third-quickest lap overall and a little more than 3 seconds off Tarzan in the Crawford car and the GST Subie with Sheehan at the wheel. Our lap increased the gap to Third Place, made me feel better about my driving for the day and gave me something cool to write about for the column. Plus, and perhaps most importantly when you look at this whole process from a business standpoint-and believe me, this sport is about business-it made the trip for the YimiSport guys worth the effort.
I was content as we lined the top-three cars up for the cover shot at the end of the event. There were well-deserved congratulations to Sheehan and the whole GST crew with more than a little champagne spray in the air. As I told Sheehan later, they earned that win all the way down the wire. It would have been exciting to have Tarzan run the whole competition, but I guess we'll have to wait for another time.
Watching the two Pauls that are the brains behind YimiSport driving the 500hp, '08 STI back to the hotel after a very long day, it dawned on me again that this car was proof that with some good thought processes and some solid equipment, a street car can be made to do some amazing things. I'm looking forward to what we might be able to do next year.