Superlap 2010 World Time Attack Challenge – Day 1

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By George Skentzos | May 21st, 2010

The first public day for the Superlap 2010 World Time Attack Challenge kicked off this morning at the Eastern Creek International Raceway here in Sydney.

Competitors from around the globe – including a few big players from Japan and the USA – have arrived to showcase their tuning, modifying and driving ability on the world stage.

They have been met by a fleet of Australia’s best modified cars for a battle royale against the clock to determine who will become Superlap champion.

Sierra Sierra Mitsubishi Evolution from the USA

At the top of the food chain sits the Sierra Sierra Mitsubishi Evolution entry from the USA which is every bit as fast as it is menacing, driven by David Empringham.

Hot on its heels is its arch rival, the Tomei/Cusco Subaru Impreza WRX driven by none other than Eiji “Tarzan” Yamada – a superstar in the world of Time Attack.

Monster Subaru WRX STI from Pulse Racing

Currently both cars are tussling for the lead with less than four hundredths of a second separating these two giants of the tuning world.

As it stands, the Sierra Sierra Evo is narrowly in front with a fastest lap time of 1:32.248 – just over a second behind the all-time V8 Supercar lap record set by Mark Skaife in his Holden Commodore VT back in 1999.

PanSpeed Mazda RX-7 from Japan

The smaller teams are largely comprised of performance workshops from all around Australia, including a few well-known favourites such as Hi Octane Racing, Pulse Racing, 999 Automotive and Notaras Motorsport.

While only a handful of the local teams have the performance to match the international heavyweights, the rest fight it out for bragging rights as Australia’s best tuners.

Eiji "Tarzan" Yamada

Australia’s best hope in the Pro Class is the Prep’d Motorsport Lotus Exige GT3 driven by Angelo Lazaris which is currently in fifth place with a best time of 1:33.951.

The doors to Superlap 2010 World Time Attack Challenge are open all day Friday and Saturday so make sure you come by and check it out.

Michael

It would be great if the words flowed with the images through the article.
George

Sorry Michael. Had to have someone else put the photos into the article as I was having a few problems doing it from the track.
john

So all of these world top tuned cars can’t beat a V8 supercar lap that was set 11 years ago. Something is very wrong there.

JML

Considering a V8 supercar costs (from memory) about $300,000 for the car and about twice that to run it for a season, yet these cars are probably in the range of $50 – $80K, not really much wrong there IMHO.

Hugh Jorgan

I think you’ll find time attack cars are limited in their tyre choice due rules. If they had proper slicks then I’m sure they’d be faster.

As for 80k cars. Not quite. Maybe the motors are worth 80k in some of these cars.

Phil C.

Anti-Spam = Koenigsegg. Now that would give ‘em a run for their money!

Considering the Supercar was running many control parts it is suprising that the cars competing haven’t challenged that time yet. But, it was on slicks which at the time were reasonably grippy. Certainly better than the current control tyre…

Thanks for the coverage!
nogz

cool writeup, thanks

by the way, the superlap cars run semi-slicks, so slightly different.

george – was fernandez’s ford or the commodore in today, or any news of em?

http://www.caradvice.com.au George Skentzos

Definitely no Fords on the grid, only the pink Donut King VY Supercar and a Wynn’s VE Supercar were there for the Australian made entries.

Richo

Jose is definetly entered in a BA Falcon in the Wynns Pro-Class

http://www.caradvice.com.au George Skentzos

The car has been entered into the event, but was definitely not on track today.

Paulie

JML are you serious? These cars would cost a bucket load more than that, the Evos themselves are worth that much when new. The prime reason they’re still slower is because they’re using semi-slicks and V8 Supercars use slicks.
Richo

Jose Fernendez is running a full V8 Supercar spec BA Falcon just with an XR6T engine in place of the usual V8 engine. The turbo 6 engine is apparently in full race spec, dry sump, all the usual race stuff, putting out well over 700hp all day long apparently, the rest of the car is current V8 Supercar spec and Fernendez is confident the car can win the event in its first time out.
T

I love how people are watering down the specs of these ‘modified’ street cars. They are highly modified, purpose build race machines; some of them have had hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on them. The tyres would be cutting off a few seconds from the lap so it is a good effort, but it goes to show we have come a LONG way from the Nissan smashing V8SC days…a 5 litre naturally aspirated V8 in a V8SC against cars that have more power than them and with forced induction. IMO it’s the V8SC’s that are punching above THEIR weight.

toxic_horse

Your are forgetting that Skaife is a bloody good driver.
Driving was his full time job and he had driven that track thousands of times.
V8 supercars were actually faster back in the good old days then the are now. Back then thy didn’t have all the regulation they have now.
Also HRT had a pretty much unlimited budget back then. Think of all those test drivers, engineers, pit crew, driver coaching.

toxic_horse

Forgot to add, Skaife still holds the lap record at Bathurst in his skyline. (although the track has been changed since then)

Richo

lol no, just no, that is so very very wrong. The track was changed in 1987, the skyline GTR wasn’t introduced untill 1990, so the track that the GTR ran around on is exactly the same as it is today. The Bathurst lap record is 2m.06.8594s set by Greg Murphy in 2003. The fastest the Skyline GTR went was in the top 10 shootout at Bathurst in 1991 at the hands of Mark Skaife in a time of 2m.12.630s, nearly 6 full seconds off the pace.

Sit down before you disgrace yourself even further…
Richo

Also V8 Supercar’s have been getting faster and faster all the way along, the cars in the “good old days” where miles off the pace of a modern supercar, back in 1995 for example a time of 2m 11 at bathurst was superhero type speed! Now if your not in the 2m 7′s your miles off the pace!

The tyres are indeed no where near as grippy now days as they where back before the control tyres where introduced, but they are still much faster. They’re purpose built race cars now days, no longer “touring cars” in the true sense of the word, as in production car modified for racing, a modern V8 is a race car with production car body panels over the top

T

@toxic_horse

I can guarantee that these drivers are no slouches either! They are professional race car drivers who do this allllll over the world. They are probably more qualified than Skafe at being race car drivers

http://www.superlap.com.au World Time Attack

Fernandez XR6 has arrived late in the afternoon and didn’t get a chance to hit the track. The crew are working overnight to get the car ready for tomorrow morning.
chuck

The actual v8sc laptime is 1.30.8955 set on 28-04-2001 set by Marcos Ambrose. Skaifes lap was during the race.

Go Panspeed!
chuck

Skaife doesn’t hold the lap record at bathurst either. Greg murphy does. 2.06xxx.
Tom22

This will no doubt be negatively commented, and yes im aware a v8 supercar is a racecar, but its also made to a cost and is purposely fairly detuned. Yet these ridiculous high powered japanese cars can’t beat one? These are more race car than road car, most of them don’t even have headlights.
Jack

Yes, this is definitely good press for the V8SC format.
darren

also remember that time attack runs on semi slicks whereas the v8 supercars run on full slicks so there disadvantaged aswell….add to the fact that guys like tarzan who have never driven the track before nor was there car fully tuned to the track like a v8 supercars who have spend years knowing how to fine tune there car to this track and still managing to set a 1:32 lap and win is pretty impressive