ITCC

A new direction for me in 2010 is the newly formed Irish Touring Car Championship
This new series has developed out of both Irish Time Attack and the need to have a decent Saloon car series in Ireland.

The class is open to any make and model of saloon or hatch back car. The openness of the rules means the first race will boast a grid consisting of BMW, Peugeot, Mazda, Honda, MINI, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Ford, Renault and other well known marques.

I am now the official photographer for this series so regular coverage will be found here

The B-Racing K20 Civic doing some testing, with a best lap for now of 1.02, expect more from this car

Round 1 is at Mondello Park, this weekend - April 4th

TRIAL

Most tuning companies in Japan are a little bigger than ones you would find in the UK and Ireland but there are a few which are huge and the biggest in Japan is TRIAL in Osaka. Think of a premises the size of a large main dealer except its purely for tuning and modifying cars and your getting close. After a quick meeting with the company founder/director Makihara san, then being smitten with cheif racequeen Chihiro it was time to take it all in, and there was a lot

Heres a shot of a small part of the car park, most of these are customers cars. I love the palm trees

10 work bays, an inhouse engine dyno, a set of rollers and a dynapack, almost everything is done inhouse, all thats missing is a circuit. Not to mention the massive showroom

Im standing just inside the doors here and the 1st thing you see is this smart NSX, also for sale, bit too much for me at the moment!

Also you can see some of the extensive parts displays in the background


Most tuners/garages probably have just a small kettle or its a case of go to the shops for refreshment, but TRIAL have their own bar, and thanks to me and Chris, theres some proper Irish whiskey behind the bar now too!!

In the corner of the showroom, 1 of TRIAL's original R32 GTR's is on display

While outside their PS13 Silvia track car and a R34 GTR for sale can be found

Aswell as some of the latest TRIAL demo/development cars, a FD2 Honda Civic Type R and a MY2008 Subaru Impreza STi

A 350Z convertable on the ramps getting alignment work done

TRIAL will tune any car, from a Suzuki Kei car to a R34 GTR

or 2......

Getting ready to lock up for the evening, or maybe a spot of racing around the kanjo highway.......

Extra special thanks to Yuichi Ikegami and Keisuke san for their help and hospitality, not to mention Chris for his amazing organising skills

Time Attack - Round 4 - Brands Hatch - THE FINAL

Wow what a day,what an event, Brands Hatch was the venue for the final of Time Attack and a great event it was, with all 3 championships going to the wire and being decided today. An extra big update was needed to cover it all
Pro Class

There had to be a winner and today it was Phil Glew in the Zen Perfomance Subaru Impreza WRX RA,who set a 49.771 second lap which won the Pro Class and the Pro Class Championship overall

Second was Steve Gugliemi in the Gugliemi Motorsport Lotus Elise with a 50.967 lap

Third was Clive Seddon in the RC Developments Mitsubshi Lancer Evo 6 with a 51.113 lap, this car had the highest overall speed on the day, with 155mph, which for the Brands Hatch Indy circuit is very fast

Having a go today was Mark Luney in the SVA Imports Nissan 350Z drift car,if the 2 way differential had been swopped for a 1.5 or 1 way the car would have been in the Top 10.....

Apart from Gugliemi in the Elise,the only other non-Japanese car in the Pro Class has been Dan Lewis,better known as Renton in the Redline Magazine Ford Sierra Cosworth with a 4x4 conversion

Martin Greens RC Developments Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 5 - a nice car but a photographic nightmare

Making its debut was John Goodwin's fabulous WGT Developments Mazda RX7 FC3s

Also trying out in the pro class was Martin Hadland in the Reyland Ford Escort Cosworth,which may be seen full time next year

After even more tweaks the Sumo Power 350Z was being driven by ex BTCC driver and now Aston Martin GT racing boss Mark Lemmer

Apart from Ireland, the only overseas entrant in 2007 was 'Trackday' John Terzidis from Greece in the Auto Ergonomics Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8

Club Class

Todays winner and winning the club class forced induction championship was Kev Atkins in the MA Developments Evo 6 with a quite amazing 52.914 lap,which would have been quick enough for 9th in the Pro Class final

2nd overall was Ron Kiddell in the RK Tuning Nissan R32 Skyline GTR

3rd place was David Harrison in his Abbey Motorsport supported Nissan Skyline R34 GTR. This is the old Sumo Power R34 'Ichiban'

1st (again) in the club class normally aspirated was Nadine Geary in the Viper (note the reg plate)

2nd was Jeff Mileham in his AC Schnitzer BMW E30 3 series

3rd was Dixon Cheng in his Honda DC2 Integra Type R, which was enough to secure him the club class normally aspirated championship

Phil Burdock in the vastly improved Burdock Flooring Impreza

Oliver Crawford's Supercharged EP3 Honda Civic Type R,shoots nice flames,but sadly got none on camera,maybe next year....

And finally the trailer for the Motors TV coverage of this round of Time Attack