Recently a 3 car race team based in Bangkok requested our Track Support service for this seasons 1.5L circuit race series. The team consists of 3 EG civics running D15 engines tuned on Motec M4 engine managment systems. All 3 cars suspension systems have been completely over hauled with Buddy Club control arms, ball joints, and adjustable camber links. 2 of the cars also recently picked up a sponsorship from XYZ (suspension/coilover manufacture in Taiwan) and are using the dual adjustable (32 way compression and 32 way rebound) full track spec coils with a whopping 16k spring rate in the front and 13.5k in the rear.
The first race of the season was held in Pattaya Thailand at Bira circuit.
While most the events allow the use of R compound tires and/or full slicks this event was sponsored by Kuhmo tires and all cars were required to run a 205/50/15 ecsta zx tire with a 180 tread wear rating. While these are some damn fine street tires they simply did not provide enough grip to work with the high spring rates these cars were fitted with. For future events that require the use of a street tires XYZ thailand has agreed to provide us with the spring rates we request, depending on track and tires to be used. Not to worry though, after dialing in tire pressure and adjusting the alignment specs we made the best of what we had to work with for the weekend of racing.
(2 great Thai technicians that have worked with the team for the last 3+ seasons)
Both qualifying and the main event ran 15 min sessions of open track hot laps, best lap time counted for each driver, all cars did have to start on the grid but could run as few or as many laps as desired by the driver in the allotted 15min. I did not notice any cars come in before the 15 min were up and if you check out the youtube video below i think you'll see why. Saturday was a busy day with qualifying (top 32 drivers move on) fallowed up 3 hours later by the main event. After qualifying 4th and 8th everyone was feeling good and the drivers were just starting to get used to the new suspension. During Saturdays main event one of the cars cracked a wheel after being squeezed off the track causing a drastic loss in tire pressure and putting the car off the pace after only 2 laps. The other car held strong with no mechanical issues and finished 4th over all.
Currently we are working with the team to set up a private track day to do some fine tuning and testing on both street tires as well as R compounds before the next event. Very much looking forward to having more time with these cars and drivers at the track in the new future.
