There's only one word that sums up what went down at the Buttonwillow Raceway Park last fall at our Super Lap Battle Finals, as if you hadn't heard this one enough: major. Our homegrown time attack is the largest of its kind in the United States-the first of its kind-and draws tuners from all over the world to see if they have what it takes to stack up against the best. Super Lap Battle racing measures a tuner's all around ability in regards to building a prime racecar. They need to be able to prepare a car that can make reliable power to pull away through the turns as well as the straights. The suspension needs to be setup to handle massive G-forces from all angles. Aero needs to be set up to direct airflow into the proper areas as well as generating the right amount of down force versus drag. The teams who can master these areas become all too evident, separating the men from the boys.
This year was our most historic yet as we witnessed not one, but five records being broken, the biggest being a three-year-old overall record of 1:48.906 mastered originally by Tarzan Yamada in the Sun Auto Cyber Evo; talk about major. It was Nobuteru Taniguchi and the fiery HKS CT230R Evo that came to steal the thunder by first setting a new record with a 1:44.668. Over the next session, NOB turned the heat up and broke his own record with a 1:44.610, before letting all hell loose in the last session and clocking in a final time of 1:43.523! Do the math; it's a whopping 5 seconds faster than the last record! Breaking track records isn't unusual for HKS; they've been campaigning and breaking numerous records all across Japan with this Evo, so it was only natural that they brought their car to the U.S. to cause just as much damage. Mission accomplished, NOB!
Taniguchi wasn't the only Super GT driver to come over and compete in our event; 5Zigen brought Ryo Michigami over to drive their new Civic Type-R to set the fastest Unlimited NA time of the day with a 1:55.427. 5Zigen told us, as the car was being unloaded and prepped for the course, that the 2.4L K-series engine didn't even have 1,000 miles on it and had not even been broken before it was sent into action. Of course, we don't recommend you doing the same, unless you have a race team budget to work with.
We saw the most impressive times in the Unlimited class and by day's end, we saw Sun Auto's overall record being broken three other times. On top of HKS' major lap time, the Twins Turbo/FASTTRACK Mazda RX-7 driven by Jack Mardikian pulled a 1:48.597 and our nation's fastest Evo tuner, AMS, pulled a 1:48.772 in an Evo driven by Paul Gerrard. In just one year of promoting their Evo, AMS was able to drop their '06 time by over seven seconds and really stepped up to prove that U.S. tuners have what it takes to be competitive with the best in Japan by beating Sun Auto's time. The Twins Turbo/FASTTRACK FD was able break the Unlimited FR class record held by GMG's Cup car in one session, but just when it was starting to get really exciting, Jack's car caught fire in the afternoon session and was put out of commission quickly. Factor X Racing had one of the craziest NSXs we've seen compete and was good for second place with a 1:50.631, and another one of the Twins Turbo shop cars was a silver Supra, which came up third place with a 1:51.316. GST Motorsports represented the Bay Area with a GC8 Impreza that ran a 1:49.168. One of the perennial FF competitors is Bernardo Martinez in the Hasport Integra and this year was no different, with him capping off the event to a 1:54.708, placing him well ahead of 5Zigen's Civic Type-R and Autosport Garage's EG Civic hatch.