Time Attack Round 6 - The Final

Seems I never have the time to update this blog, even though Im always promising I will!!

The final of Time Attack 2008 took place at Snetterton circuit

A morning fog held up proceedings for 2 hours so 1 less session and a lot less photos taken, oh well at least it wasnt raining

Pro Class

Well someone had to win and today for the 4th time in the season and sealing the 2008 Time Attack championship was Olly Clark in the Roger Clark Motorsport Subaru Impreza 'Gobstopper' with an amazing 1.09.8 - 2 seconds faster than the BTCC lap record

2nd was Steve Gugliemi in the Gugliemi Motorsport Lotus Elise 'Batmobile' with 1.10.4

An extremely committed drive from Jamie Stanley in the RC Developments Evo 6 getting 3rd with a 1.12.2. Not long after this event, RC Developments ceased trading

Simon Norris in the Norris Designs Evo 9GT was 4th with 1.14.2

Fifth was former BTCC driver James Kaye in the Auto Ergonomics Evo 8 with 1.14.4

Club Class
2007 Club Champion Kev Atkins in the MA Developments Evo 6 had his first win of the year with a 1.14.7

Second was Andy Forrest in the Lateral Perfomance Impreza with a 1.15.8

Third was Sam Kerr in the Performance Subaru Impreza with a 1.16.0

Fourth was Craig Winstaley in his Chevy V8 power Mazda RX7, with 1.16.5 which was also the top normally aspirated time



So a rather comprehensive overall win for the Roger Clark team, 4 wins, and 2 podiums, the team have raised the bar in both terms of performance and car preparation, and it will be interesting to see if anyone can equal or better their results in 2009

Time Attack 2008 Round 4 - Oulton Park

Sorry for the lack of activity recently, but hopefully the recent events I have attended will be uploaded quicker from now on, anyway onto Time Attack
Round 4 of Time Attack and Oulton Park was the venue, where the Pro Class cars had come to hunt down and kill the BTCC lap record of 1.28.8......

The cars swarm around the cameras, ready to attack the lap record

Pro Class

First up to the kill was Phil Bennett in the Autosportif / TEIN Impreza with 1.28.545

Then Steve Gugliemi in the Gugliemi Motorsport Elise did a 1.28.031 to secure 3rd place

Tom Ferrier in the Zen Performance Impreza claims 2nd with 1.27.2

There had to be a winner - and for the 3rd time this year it was Olly Clark in the Roger Clark Motorsport Impreza with a quite amazing 1.25.9 lap, faster than both the BTCC race and qualifying lap records

Still the top Skyline GTR in Pro is Ron Kiddell in the RK Tuning R32 GTR with 8th place and a 1.32 lap

Top 'privateer' runner in Pro so far this year is Lee Broadhurst in the NR Autosport/Edgehill Evo 9


Top RWD is the same as 2007 Darren Robinson in the WhifBitz Mazda RX7. The car was very fast at Brands in 2007 so should have a good result there at the next round - Brands Hatch

Club Class

The future? RC Developments had their new R35 GTR running in club class with a top 20 finish, 6 seconds off the pace, which shows how fast the club challenge cars can be!

John Begley in the torrential rain which made the morning sessions interesting

More rain, Marco Haig in the Fiat Coupe, 1 of the more distinctive cars in club

The next round of Time Attack will be at Brands Hatch on August 10th as part of the Autotuner show

Time Attack 2008 Round 2 - Knockhill

I have a love/hate realtionship with Scotland, its a nice place, nice people, but it always rains, but at Time Attack Round 2 at Knockhill it didnt, glorious weather all day with glorious performance to match!

Pro Class

There had to be a winner and finally after over a year of trying it was Olly Clark in the Roger Clark Motorsport Impreza with an amazing 52.186, which is faster than a BTCC time around the track..

2nd place was Rory Butcher in the Autosportif / TEIN Impreza with a time of 52.254

3rd was Chris Ward in the RSE Motorsport Evo 7 with 52.565, the top 6 all got into the 52's

A bad day for Guy Harrington in the Auto Ergonomics Evo 8, despite a very commited drive, with terminal engine failure

'Crazy' Jamie Stanley put in another red mist fuelled drive in the RC Developments Evo 6, eventually finishing 5th overall, maybe if the rear wing struts had not collasped, resulting in the loss of a lot of downforce, he would have been faster again

Lee Broadhurst in the Edgehill / NR Autosport Evo 9 leads Andy Harvey in the Scoobyclinic Impreza

Earlier Harvey attacking Duffus Dip

A more sucessful run for the ZEN Impreza with Tom Ferrier driving to 5th place overall with 52.879

Club Class
Kev Horsley again took the F/I win with a 54.073 lap in his Scoobyclinic supported Impreza

And Craig Winstanley took the N/A win in his Chevy V8 powered RX-7 witth a 56.418 lap
Kev Atkins in the MA Developments Evo 6 attacking Duffus Dip

Barrie Rycroft in the DCY Evo 7, a flaming good car


And finally Tim Chandler in the best sounding car on track, Porsche 911 GT3 RS

The next round is at Silverstone, as part of the Japanese Tuning Show, featuring a visitor or two from Japan....

UK Time Attack visits Tsukuba

Recently 4 of the leading cars from the Time Attack series were shipped to Tsukuba circuit in Japan for the RevSpeed Tsukuba Super Lap event, probably the best known and highest level Time Attack event in the world

The cars were:

Zen Performance Subaru Impreza (2007 Champion)

RC Developments Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6 (winner of Round 2 2007)

Fensport Toyota Celica

Sumo Power Nissan 350Z

As part of the build up,some of my photos were used in RevSpeed mag (bottom left corner) - a great honour for me!

In October the cars were shipped to Japan where they were stored in the Do-Luck warehouse,Mr Ito doing a lot of the behind the scenes work on the Japan side.

Unfortunatley - as much as I wanted to I just could not go, and I knew this so for once it was not so bad being sat 12,000 miles away watching it all unfurl!



Onto December and all the cars arrived safely, but during some dyno tuning for the Japanese fuel the Zen car sheared a cam sprocket - not good. After a miraculous overnight rebuild completed at 5am it was off to the track, where a misssed gearchange caused the Fensport cars engine let go in a big way and with a few custom parts installed that are not available in Japan (strangely!!) a standard 3S-GTE was installed, which although greatly down on power at least made the car mobile again, with a best time of 1.04




More bad luck, with the Zen car throwing a rod though the block,caused by oil surge,a common fault with tuned Impreza engines - but before this,driver Phil Glew managed a 58.5 second lap, good enough for 11th overall!!

Current Tsukuba record holder Nob Taniguchi tested the RC car and after testing different setups recorded a 59.1 second lap, which placed them 14th overall, another fantastic result.
A very trouble free trip for the RC lads a testiment to their work

NOB prepares to go out,also in the photo is Abe san of Blitz



The Sumo Car with Andy Barnes at the wheel set a best time of 1.03.5, later Tarzan Yamada improved on this slightly with a 1.03. With a track the size of Tsukuba (1.29miles) half a second is a big difference!

Overall winner was the M-Speed Nissan R34 Skyline GTR with a time of 54.202,which sets a new GTR record. The overall record is still held by Taniguchi in the HKS Carbon Evo 8 with 53.999

Tarzan gives his opinion on the cars for the cameras

2008 should be good!!