Although war is a touchy subject for most, it usually results in a winner, whether it's for the right cause or not. But that's not what we're here to discuss. The war we're about to talk about takes place on a closed circuit, and its soldiers are bred from the finest Japanese and European automotive manufacturers. Represented by its prospective trademarked insignias, like Honda's H, Mitsubishi's Diamond Star, or Ferrari's famed stallion, one thing is very clear: They are all here to win. The proving ground is the Buttonwillow Raceway, and just in case you didn't know it, the event is Time Attack 2.
Serving as a follow-up to our widely successful inaugural challenge held last April, our second attempt at bringing the US' fastest cars together for a friendly game of softball was not just a competition to see who would come out the fastest, but it was also a challenge to see which world power would outdo the other, the Japanese or Euros? For the Japanese entries, familiar companies such as Sparco USA and Signal Auto brought their winning Evo Revolution and R34 GT-R (respectively) with the hopes of capturing the fastest laps, but even then, there were new players in town. The most anticipated entry was the arrival of Japan's second fastest Super Lap record holder, Sun Auto's Cyber Evo (see our complete feature elsewhere in this issue), which is only a mere second (55.801) behind the top seated HKS TRB-02 Evo (54.739) on Japan's Tsukuba circuit, where all of the Time Attack nonsense started. For the European side, the Japanese had the likes of Turner Motorsport's BMW 325i and CEC's twin-supercharged Novitec Ferrari 360 Modena to face.
Signal brought out its entire race team, including drift, drag, and Time Attack-prepped vehicles, as Kousuke "Mad K" Kida was intent on winning each category. Even the list of lesser-known teams was impressive, with the return of Raceline Development and Hasport, while new for TA2 was the drift category with entrants such as Pac Rim's Dai Yoshihara and his S13 Silvia.
Unlimited Class
The Unlimited Class was by far the most exciting group of the event. Whenever these guys were on the track, everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. Of course, these were the fastest cars of the event. The Sun Auto Cyber Evo was the number-one qualifier overall with a time of 1:48.906 at the hands of Eiji "Tarzan" Yamada, which broke his previous record of 1:54.2 with Signal's R34 GT-R-nearly 6 seconds faster! Although he didn't have a repeat with the Skyline, Tarzan managed the second fastest time in the Unlimited Class by also driving the same GT-R to 1:55.640.
Derek Stevens drove the Hondata Civic EG and edged out John Hotchkis (Hotchkis' Celica) to clench the Unlimited FF spot using K24 power to finalize a 1:59.394, and in the Unlimited FR/MR class, the Euros shined through, most notably Turner Motorsport and its driver Justin Marks. Their BMW was powered by a World Challenge-spec motor and took Fourth overall with its 1:56.741. Coming in second for the Unlimited FR/MR and as the second fastest Euro was the Prototype Racing Lotus Exige, which relied on a Honda K24 powertrain to knock off its 1:59.653. Oh yeah, JIC's Porsche 996 twin turbo came in slower than many Civics and Integras, with a flaccid time of 2:22.588! Even Donny Bagnot's Jeepney runs the Uni-Market 5 faster than that.