November 6, 2004

“TIME ATTACK”

photo courtesy of Head-On Photos

“It’s Europe versus Japan, class versus inbreeding, finesse versus lots of stickers, but in the end, it’s all about bragging rights and the fastest lap times.”

Time Attack is an event that’s been popular in Japan for several years. The premise is to take street-derived vehicles on DOT street tires and attempt to turn the single fastest lap on a given track. It’s a simple but exciting format that requires every aspect of the car to be optimized. This wasn’t just about straight-line acceleration and maximum power…it takes finesse and cunning, and that is where the best do their best!

The event took place in the first week of November; the chosen track is “Buttonwillow Raceway”, the 3-mile road course situated in Buttonwillow, California. The rules were straightforward, the cars separated by front, rear, and four-wheel-drive configuration. The cars were then subdivided into the Limited or the Unlimited classes, where the Limited cars were required to drive to the event on the public roads. If you didn’t or couldn’t drive on the public roads, then you were in the Unlimited class.

There were 46 cars total entered into the Time Attack. Erickson Motorsports was invited by Eurotuner magazine to compete in the Unlimited Front-Wheel-Drive class, which consisted of eight competitors. Some of the most outrageous “Unlimited” cars were visiting the USA from Japan - here to attend the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Included were a pair of Mitsubishi Evolution 8’s with near 800 hp and a Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R with 1000 hp, both driven by Eiji “Tarzan” Yamada of Japan! Claus Ettensberger brought a 555 hp twin supercharged Ferrari 360 Modena and had “top gun” driver Tommy Kendall doing the driving duties - just to name a few of the cars and celebrities in the Unlimited class.

Brett Erickson, owner and driver at Erickson Motorsports commented on his experiences during the competition, “I was really excited to be hand picked by Eurotuner magazine, there were so many cars that could have had great potential to do well in this competition. As I arrived at the track the morning of the event, I was amazed at the level of competition that I was up against. I soon learned that I had brought a knife to a gunfight. I had to use all of my talent to wring the last little bit out of the Volkswagen GTI Touring Car to stay alive in the fight. It was a great challenge and great fun driving the GTI to its limits. I learned a lot about my newly constructed car and myself as a racecar driver doing so.”

The Volkswagen Bay Area Dealer Ad Association sponsored VW GTI finished the event with a respectable 5th place finish out of the 8 in the class and 26th overall out of the 46 cars entered.

Eurotuner magazine was quoted as saying, “We knew the Unlimited FWD class was going to be pretty frantic, with lots of noisy Civics puffing out black smoke, and yet we wanted a car that would display poise, class and speed. We chose Erickson Motorsports’ Golf GTI as that weapon of choice.”

Erickson Motorsports wishes to share special thanks to: Vic Sias of “Sias Tuning” for their assistance at the event: www.siastuning.com & Nik Saran of VF Engineering for helping to continue the development of the car by supplying their exclusive new motor mounts.
www.vf-engineering.com

For more information please go to the February 2005 issue of Eurotuner magazine… “Time Attack”