Great success!

Only four months ago, when I ran Buttonwillow with SpeedVentures, someone from the SV crew (I think his name is Dave) looked at my laptimes and said to me during a download meeting: "how's it going out there? Is your arm tired from giving point-by's?" I am obviously still a beginner and have a long way to go, but it is nice to see some progress and a bit of reward and recognition as well.

With the assistance of some very key modifications, namely the APR GTC-200 wing, 225/255 Nitto NT01 tires and SPC camber kit, I ran a laptime of 2:07.3 to win First Place Street Class in the SpeedVentures S2000 Challenge. The wing and tire combination was magical out at Buttonwillow, and the only complaint was some high speed understeer. Now the only trick is to increase front grip, which I will work on before the next event.

Since I am running AP2 rears all around, the front tires are at +65 offset. I will push that back out using a Project Kics 10mm spacer (to reach +55 offset specifications). I will also try to get some front aero via AP2 bumper with CR lip or APR GT front bumper. This will hopefully solve some of the high speed understeer I was experiencing at Buttonwillow. I am now getting quite a bit of body roll with the R-comps, so I think ordering MY2008 front spring is a good idea. Especially nice is that I won a $100 gift certificate to HardTopGuy.com, who can probably order those for me.

Emilio, the current points leader in the S2000 Challenge Series, did not compete this weekend due to some car troubles. He told my friend whom he was instructing: "if I brought my car, it was going to be an easy win." Last time at Buttonwillow, he ran a 2:06.9 in much cooler temps with a much bigger wing. Sure, he probably got a bit faster by fine-tuning his setup, but so will I. Hopefully some of us will continue getting better so that the 10 points are no longer automatic... for anyone.