Just like the title states…literally two weeks and counting. My first Redline Pro Time Attack event with the GT-R is on May 28th & 29th. Its very normal to scramble in the last couple of weeks before a race. Stress, anxiety, frustration, and excitement are at an all time high during this period, especially in the last week. But when your are on 2 weeks ahead and things are looking reasonably handled you are at the cusp of said feelings, there is hope everything will fall into place as it should, but there is also the unkown variable of chaos to completely throw off your plan of making sure everything is ready well before the event, Murphys Law will make or break you.

This last week since my latest blog Cobb Tuning SoCal in Fountain Valley, CA who handles alot of the advanced mechanical work and tuning of the car has brought Godzilla back to life. For many months the engine was seperate from the car during the painting of the engine bay and to start prepping the engine for the hard driving to come. It was good to hear Godzilla’s RB26DETT come back to life and purr with its tell tale “hiccups” playing throughout idle. We all know the reason she runs so smooth is because we have not done much with the engine in terms of adding power only preparing it step by step for future power, making a solid foundation to build upon. Replacing old lines, hoses, gaskets and the like, protecting the engine from oil starvation, repairing broken parts and upgrading from OEM to aftermarket to strengthen its weakness’s has been the main goal leading up to now.

The car will be setup to make safe passes but I will need to keep a keen eye on my temps not having my oil coolers. This is a very important part for every race car especially the RB26 to aid in cooling, but with the right management I have faith that I can run without issue. Tires are also a very important variable, the right set of tires can improve a cars handling drastically and shave seconds off your time, currently the car sports a set of fresh Falken RT615K which though are great street tires, are not sticky enough for a competetive class such as Modified in Time Attack, due to the fact that my car is not going to run as competetive as the top cars in the All Wheel Drive Modified class, I have opted not to run a set of sticky R Compounds which John at Cobb Tuning SoCal made a good point to me about when I was on the fence about picking up a set of tires for the event, fortunately I can manage tires well also.

Friday yieled me with the news of Sparco’s contribution to myself and this project. I made my way down to thier Irvine offices for some custom fitting. Though they have many sizes to choose from and thier standard size chart is easy to use, I still needed some modifications to the suit for a more comfortable fit. The staff was happy to offer custom alterations to the suit and available the following business day. I also picked up a set of red 6 belt HANS friendly safety harness’s and thier black suede 325 steering wheel. Not only is Sparco a hugely recognized name in all motorsports, offer quality product for the very specific safety demands in the racing community, but they are also very easy people to work with. During my time at thier office I was made to feel very comfortable and they were only eager to please even at thier closing hour. Big thumbs up for that! Just a sample pic below of thier HANS device friendly harness.

Tomorrow I will make my way back to Cobb Tuning SoCal to discuss a new scheme for the sponsor decals on the car, I realize with the many pictures I have seen online taken of my car at various events, the current black sticker scheme does not do enough justice for my sponsors. This is not acceptable for me, even though the black stickers offset the black satin powder coated Enkei NTO3+Ms quite nicely in person, it simply does not photograph well, the Calypso red paint literally swallows the black. Come D-Day the GT-R will look just a bit different….but until then, its a secret!

Today I found myself in a comfortable place knowing what could be done before the event, and what I had to compromise and wait until after the event. I feel totally confident in the decisions thus far, we’ll see what the next two weeks bring me.

Be back in a week….still lots to do(as you can see).

Photos by Steve Mitchell.