S2K Challenge Round 3, Chuckwalla Raceway
I left my home in Temecula at 4 AM, giving myself 2.5 hours to get gas, and get to Chuckwalla
The weather forecast was going to be substantially hotter than the weekend before.
Combine this with the tire rules being more stringent then last weekend’s event, I figured I was going to go slower on my NT01’s vs my Yokohama A052 from last weekend’s VTEC club event.
Turns out, I was wrong. My first session I went out and brought a 1:59 lap. I was so jazzed I screamed in my video (below)
I took a celebratory lap to cool everything down before tying for that solid 1:58, but unfortunately I went ham on turn in for turn 4 and pushed off of the course causing one of my brand-new Titan 7 T-55’s to drop off about 6 inches of curbing. Footage of that here:
I decided to play it safe and come off track to make sure I didn’t just destroy my brand-new wheels or de bead the tire off the wheel. But as it turns out, everything was fine.
Recap for session 1:
Modified Class:
Kevin Burke: 1:59.936
Ryan Delgrosso: 2:00.966
David Palmer: 2:02.110
Charles Kuhnau: 2:05.996
Michael Tsay: 2:07.550
Albert Castro: 2:09.136
Fernando Muga: 2:13.063
Street Class:
Michael Guyette: 2:06.247
Paul Ghuman: 2:06.704
George Sangster: 2:17.938
Stock Class:
Rick Purcell: 2:18.765
As you can see in the qualifying session, the competition was going to be fierce! Both Ryan and I PB’d that first session and David had just installed new JRZ’s on his car he was trying to sort out, and in 4th place we had the Titan 7 shop s2000 doing “parade laps”. Which must be code for hauling ass, as 2:05 is a fast parade lap.
And in Street class, we had local Michael defending his turf from Paul.
Second and third session are the competitive sessions for this series, this creates a more even playing field, as temps should be more consistent in those sessions.
It seemed almost immediately after we got on track the sun came with a vengeance, and track temps became very hot, very quickly. I think we all knew that we would all be going slower from this point forward.
Recap for session 2:
Modified Class:
Kevin Burke: 2:01.082
Ryan Delgrosso: 2:02.268
David Palmer: 2:02.778
James Yang: 2:05.027
Albert Castro: 2:05.366
Charles Kuhnau: 2:06.509
Fernando Muga: 2:10.008
Street Class:
Michael Guyette: 2:06.265
Paul Ghuman: 2:08.308
Ivan Zarate 2:13.242
George Sangster: 2:15.552
Stock Class:
Rick Purcell: 2:14.202
Despite the hotter weather, we had many improvements made by George, Albert and Fernando! And Mr. consistent Michael Guyette put down time that was within a tenth of a second from the first session, which tells me that he drove much better in the second session even though temps were higher.
Recap for session 3:
Modified Class:
Kevin Burke: 2:02.630
Ryan Delgrosso: 2:03.012
David Palmer: 2:03.659
Michael Tsay: 2:04.946
James Yang: 2:07.072
Albert Castro: 2:05.783
Charles Kuhnau: 2:06.509
Fernando Muga: 2:10.389
Street Class:
Michael Guyette: 2:07.143
Paul Ghuman: 2:08.669
Ivan Zarate 2:12.084
George Sangster: 2:17.371
Stock Class:
Rick Purcell: 2:17.104
As the day got hotter, everyone slowed down quite a bit with a few exceptions, but the end results were:
In the bonus session, I was able to give a ride along to a good friend of mine Josh, who just purchased an s2000 in order to compete in the series! So, I wanted to take him for a quick spin and we both had a great time. See below for some highlights:
Also, in the bonus session, Michael Guyette was able to break into the 2:05’s with an impressive lap time of 2:05.984!
and here is some bonus footage of me playing with a Mclaren in session 3 of the day, after i gave up on going faster and just wanted to have some fun!
As always, I want to thank all our sponsors and especially thank Titan 7 wheels for coming out and supporting the event in person and bringing their cars to the race track for same fast parade laps!
See you all at Las Vegas for round 4!
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