Friday, April 10, 2009

2008 was full of a lot of firsts!




I installed and ran my first full set of aftermarket suspension, I ran my first timed event, I had my first major 'off', and I obtained my first sponsor just to name a few. I also met a host of great people and learned a ton along the way!

Coming from 2007, I had decided to upgrade the brake system and add in some extra safety via harnesses and a rollbar for the coming year. My abilities as a driver were quickly increasing and thus making the car faster and faster around the track. I would be venturing out of the DE/HPDE world and hopefully run some timed competition events.

Starting in April, I obtained my Time Trial (TT) licence with the Midwest region of NASA. My car in stock form fits into their 'B' group, but since I have some modifications already done, I landed in 'A'. Therefore, I competed in 3 events in their TTA grouping running against some Evo X's, C5 Z06's and heavily modded M3's and Mustangs to name a few. TTA is historically dominated by the C5 Z06 at both the Regional and National level and there were a lot of them out!

I ran the car as-is for most of the year. I was able to obtain sponsorship from AMS Performance mid-year. AMS helped tune my car, get me some replacement maintenance and upgraded parts, further align the care for the track, and just generally helped to answer a barrage of questions that I always seem to have. They've been great and I look forward to continueing our relationship and bringing them to the podium in 2009.

In the 3 events I competed in, I took a couple of 2nd place finishes, just missing out on a 1st at my last event. I quickly realized that to be competitive, one really needs to maximize their car for your specific group - one thing I planned for 2009!

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