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2010 OneLap of America Champions!!

Today was honestly an absolute nail biter. We woke up this morning to rain, wind and cold! Obviously less than optimal circumstances for a DRY skid pad day. All throughout the morning the rain threatened and the wind blew. 46 degrees was the high for the day, so tire temps were down and the track was slippery.

This was the first event that instead of the fast cars going first we went last, so we were literally the last car to run. As the faster cars started running the track was getting faster, but the sky was not looking good. I was pacing like crazy with Doug as if there was something we could do to hurry the event along. If all the cars were to run in the dry and then it was to start raining we would have had a VERY hard time winning the overall points.

We somehow, thank God, were able to fight off the rain as the last few cars ran. The last on the track, Pepper and Leh start around the circle. After the first loop the announcer says “Oh WOW, if he keeps this pace up he will have broken the all time Tire Rack track record”. Just a few more times around, Doug and I are chomping at the bit like untamed horses, the car takes the checkered flag as they announce “We have an event winner and have broken the track record holding 1.098g!!!” Needless to say the crowd started cheering and applauding, Doug and I exchanged hugs and high fives, and ran to the car to give the good news to Leh as he drove off the course.

The guys had an absolute blast with this event, and it was such an honor for me to be a small part of history with them. I am so thankful for Leh and Doug! Everyone on the team carried their weight with excellence! Thank You to Brock Yates and all the sponsors for making this wonderful motorsports event possible. We look forward to returning in the coming years to defend our title.

I will add a few more pictures and some video to this blog when I get home and have time to go through it all, but for now I would like to thank everyone for their support and following us on this great adventure.

Till next year,

~OLOA Team TopSpeed

In-Car from Nelson Ledges

Sorry this is a little late, but here is the video from yesterday at Nelson Ledges.

Update from South Bend Indiana

Well I finally get in on some of the action :) I flew up to Indiana today to meet up with the team for the final event tomorrow. We are currently sitting in first place by 55 points. That means a top ten finish tomorrow on the dry skid is a must for the overall win.

The weather looks a little iffy for the morning so say your prayers and keep your fingers crossed for Team TopSpeed.

We just got in from eating a little dinner and meeting up with some of the other OneLappers at the local “spot”

For me it was really good to put faces with names and then cars with them as well. The guys are both pretty tired, but the excitement for the hopeful win is keeping the adrenalin pumping.

Doug is uploading some video that I will get posted as soon as I can.

More later

~Cicio

Sneaky Sneaky

After running the 1:32.0 at mid ohio and forgetting to get the incar camera running I was determined to not repeat the same mistake.

So lucky for everyone here I had time to upload a new video… we ran crazy fast lap times at NJMP lightning course. Pretty much everyone there said we were the fastest thing they had ever seen running a true street tire.. not some ultra sticky dot r comp. In any event we ran a 1:10.2 on in our second session. Also Leh has never driven the track and the car currently has a setup that is best of all worlds and not track specific. Talking with Leh he and I agree that with some more laps and a small setup change a low 1:09 here would be an east task just as the car sits.

To put this in comparison the fastest Time Attack car there is the Cobb GTR which in full unlimited class kill mode ran a 1:06.7 or about 3.5 seconds faster then us. Man am I excited for the sebring time attack coming up.

Here is the Video…

hey guys…. sorry about the video fail…. in the morning when we ran the chicane we had the view like you see in the video…. and then after the session we fell asleep in the garage on the floor for a while… we made changes to the car and hit the grid for the 2nd session… we somehow lost a piece of the go pro case and didnt have time to make it work with a zip tie… so video fail on what would have been the best video… sorry about that!!!

we ran a low 1:10 at New Jersey lightning today… but my best drive was at Mid-O.. and the car REALLY liked that track too…

we won both rounds today at lightning and we are heading for our last road course day at… ummmm…. jennings?.. i duno.. some track in ohio…. anyways.. we are going there now..

i was a little sloppy today at lightning… this sleep thing is catching up to me.. so hope to get plenty tonight… i did easier launches today and short shifted a little bit.. just to be on the safe side.. WE are SO close!…

we want a Road Course full sweep.. which we know hasn’t been done since the early 90s.. And the results history page doesn’t show event results before then…. so who knows when the last time was…..

ok.. we r making random vids with the gopro right now while driving… donnie barns style…

Here are some pictures from the last couple days….more to come, I am just too tired to edit them and post right now….teaser we will call it ……

We tried a little bit of a different angle this time, I personally like the old angle better so we are switching back.  Its fun to watch Leh wheel though!

Also a little video of the car pulling off the Grid for the warm up lap….

Enjoy

-Doug

Mid Ohio – Results are in!

Session One P1 – TopSpeed’s GT2!

Session Two – Corvette steps up!!

BACK IN ACTION!

Ok. Doug did a HELL of a job last night. He didn’t sleep a minute. I got about 3 hours of sleep on the shop floor. They fab’d up a nice new bracket And took the axle off and workd on the boot. I will let him chime in with details. But now he is getting some well deserved sleep…..

Car was great this morning and we beat the gtr by 9 seconds!

-Leh

If you watch you can absolutely see how much looser the car was when compared to the other sessions…no rear swaybar anyone? :-)

Headed to Ohio – Recap on Gateway

Ok….. so looks like the bar broke at the drag strip.  We got about 4 hours of sleep last night and just got lazy on checking out the car this morning.  The track was real dirty/dusty and low grip in the 1st session and the car felt real sloppy.  We made a shock change but the track conditions were so bad I figured it would be better on the cleaner track in the afternoon…… Anyways.  We shoulda checked the suspension out real good after the drag strip but we didn’t. So we paid for it a little. But still managed to take 1st in both sessions so I’m happy for that. We will fix the bracket tonite and looking forward to mid ohio. Its one of my fav tracks. And is the only track we run that I have real experience with.

So ‘lets get this done’ cakefarts style.

Also in the video from today. U can see how sloppy the car is. Even got loose coming out of the banking.. I think that was 130-135mph area…. grabbin 5th. Fuuuun.

Here are the standings after today!  P1!!

Well our afternoon win didn’t come without its troubles this time.  Leh and the GT2 were able to hang on to the fast time for the day but not by much.   During the race Leh said the car felt a little funny in hindsight, but he just drove through it.  When he came back into the pits a corner worker ran up to us and handed us a piece of rubber saying “This fell off your Porsche”  :-)   At first glance I knew what it was….part of the axle boot.

A quick inspection of the car revealed the source of the problem, one of the endlink perches had snapped in two pieces leaving the endlink dangling and not connected to the shock.   Leh and I are pretty confident from the looks of it that it snapped during the drag race yesterday, and we just didn’t catch it till after both of today’s sessions.  Leh was complaining about the rear grip after the first session, and honestly I should have checked over the car then.  But not thinking it was a mechanical issue and running on only 3 hours of sleep I opted to make a compression change on the rear shocks to give him more grip instead. Turns out that sloppy feel was the complete lack of a rear swaybar!  Thankfully that didn’t hinder Leh and the GT2 from pulling out P1 for both events.

After making some phone calls and with some support from back at TopSpeed we found that you can’t purchase factory mounts for the GT2 without buying the whole shock, and there are none of those on the US.   So, it’s off to a buddy’s shop in Ohio to use his welder to fix the perch.  The guys back at TopSpeed have overnighted us a care package of parts to Mid Ohio so we can do a proper axle/boot service between the morning and afternoon sessions.   For now however we have taped and zip tied the boot back together….slapped it full of grease and we are off to Ohio with the rear swaybar disconnected for now :-)

I will update in the morning with pictures of the evening’s events.  Our ETA is midnight at the shop to fix the car then head back down south to the race track….it’s gonna be a long night!  Anyone have stock in redbull? :)

Here are some bad cell phone pictures of the damage.

Morning Results from Gateway

We just won the morning session at Gateway.. but the GTR was within 2 seconds. They turned up the power on the car and the track was dusty and infield was slow/tight… So the GTR was working well in the conditions.. But managed to squeeze out the win… but unsure about the afternoon session… Hopefully the track is cleaner and we might make some adjustments.

the banking is FUN!.. video coming soon… You will be able to see the slick conditions I am talking about.

-Leh


Tue May 04 12:30:45 2010

Gateway International #1 - Time Trial      - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Time      Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB        3:24.211   340
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        3:25.936   335
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 3     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        3:31.459   330
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 4    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB        3:35.102   325
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 5    39 BMW              325is            SSGT2 SB        3:39.578   320
         Anthony Magagnoli, Kevin Kreisa
 6    55 Honda            Civic            Econo Car       3:41.380   315
         Andy Hollis, Ann Hollis
 7     8 Porsche          911 GT3 RS       SSGT1 BB        3:41.882   310
         Geoffrey Bond,
 8    17 Ultima           GTR              SSGT1 BB        3:41.897   305
         Carl Warren, sam kimberley-bryant
 9    28 BMW              335i             SSGT1 SB        3:43.259   300
         Robin Sparrow, Brian Hair
10     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB        3:43.428   295
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate
 

In-Car Video @ Mid America

Drag Race Mode!

Well overall we could have done better in the drags, but we are very happy with the end results. It could have turned out alot worse than it did. The car had some pretty bad wheel hop coming out of the hole so our time times weren’t what we had hoped. With a 2.1 60ft we ran a 11.6@128mph.

We placed 5th overall. Our closest competitor in the GT-R pulled out 2nd. If my calculations are correct that puts up tied for first in points. It could have gone better, but it also could have been a lot worse.

We are happy to be headed back to an area we are stronger in. So next stop Gateway in St. Louis!

More Tomorrow, with official times and points standings.

TopSpeed pulls into first place in the overall standings!!!!

The drag race should be interesting….stay tuned.


Cumulative Overall Points as of - Mon May 03 11:22:08 2010
 Page 1
Results sorted by position
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB         2005
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB         1995
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 3     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB         1915
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 4    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB         1880
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 5     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB         1775
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate
 6     8 Porsche          911 GT3 RS       SSGT1 BB         1775
         Geoffrey Bond,
 7    15 Mitsubishi       Evolution X      MidPri Sed       1705
         Chris Wirth, Sean Caron
 8    21 BMW              E90 M3           Luxury Sed       1645
         Dan Schaut, Ben Schaut, Nicholas Schaut
 9     6 Subaru           WRX STI          MidPri Sed       1625
         Michael Lattos, Erik Van Cleef
10    39 BMW              325is            SSGT2 SB         1615
         Anthony Magagnoli, Kevin Kreisa

Here are the official P1 results for us. Looks like we are beating the competition by aroung 5 seconds.

I will get some pictures from today up ASAP.

The guys are doing a great job! Keep it up.


Mon May 03 11:22:08 2010

Hallett #1 - Time Trial      - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Time      Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB        4:11.014   340
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        4:16.176   335
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 3     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        4:16.826   330
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 4    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB        4:17.707   325
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 5     6 Subaru           WRX STI          MidPri Sed      4:23.777   320
         Michael Lattos, Erik Van Cleef
 6     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB        4:25.080   315
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate
 7    54 Honda            Civic Si         Econo Car       4:32.829   310
         Jonathan Weir, William Chan
 8    17 Ultima           GTR              SSGT1 BB        4:35.316   305
         Carl Warren, sam kimberley-bryant
 9    21 BMW              E90 M3           Luxury Sed      4:35.741   300
         Dan Schaut, Ben Schaut, Nicholas Schaut
10     8 Porsche          911 GT3 RS       SSGT1 BB        4:36.093   295
         Geoffrey Bond,

P1 in the 1st session at Hallet!

Ok… We were over 5 seconds faster then P2 this morning… Which was Danny Popp in the Vette.. the GTR was 3rd.. we have a 10 point lead now for 1st overall!… The car is feeling great…

Ok, another day of success for the TopSpeed team. We swept both sessions at Mid America continuing our winning streak. The car is working very very well and we are very happy about that. The team is in high spirits and enjoying every minute of the event. I will have an update from Leh and Doug later.

After the morning session they did make a small ride height adjustment to the front of the car. The car was having a little issue with braking and turn-in feedback, so the small adjustment will hopefully help that. Leh said the car feels almost perfect on track! I can’t say enough about the team that put this car together.

Here are the results from Mid America, and a few pictures for you guys! Thanks for following.

Pictures & Results


Sun May 02 15:31:24 2010 

Mid-America Motorplex #1 - Time Trial      - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Time      Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB        4:54.354   340
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        5:01.400   335
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 3     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        5:04.180   330
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 4     6 Subaru           WRX STI          MidPri Sed      5:06.957   325
         Michael Lattos, Erik Van Cleef
 5    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB        5:08.167   320
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 6    39 BMW              325is            SSGT2 SB        5:11.390   315
         Anthony Magagnoli, Kevin Kreisa
 7    55 Honda            Civic            Econo Car       5:21.120   310
         Andy Hollis, Ann Hollis
 8   124 MAZDA            MAZDA 5          S U V           5:22.924   305
         RICHARD FISHER, JASON SAINI
 9     8 Porsche          911 GT3 RS       SSGT1 BB        5:23.691   300
         Geoffrey Bond,
10    15 Mitsubishi       Evolution X      MidPri Sed      5:24.029   295
         Chris Wirth, Sean Caron
 

Sun May 02 15:31:24 2010

Mid-America Motorplex #2 - Time Trial      - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Time      Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB        4:54.905   340
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        4:58.590   335
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 3     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        5:00.654   330
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 4    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB        5:02.548   325
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 5     6 Subaru           WRX STI          MidPri Sed      5:07.236   320
         Michael Lattos, Erik Van Cleef
 6    39 BMW              325is            SSGT2 SB        5:10.522   315
         Anthony Magagnoli, Kevin Kreisa
 7    15 Mitsubishi       Evolution X      MidPri Sed      5:15.789   310
         Chris Wirth, Sean Caron
 8    55 Honda            Civic            Econo Car       5:17.423   305
         Andy Hollis, Ann Hollis
 9    17 Ultima           GTR              SSGT1 BB        5:19.122   300
         Carl Warren, sam kimberley-bryant
10     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB        5:19.965   295
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate

Well after today we are very excited.  After a few small changes to the car Leh says its feeling very good.  We still have a few things to sort out to make her really fast, but she seems to be doing pretty well aside from that.   I am sure Leh and Doug will have updates when they hit the hotel tonight, but for now here are the final results for the day.

Tune in tomorrow as we try to take the lead from the GT-Rs!

Pictures & Results

Road America Session#1 Results



Sat May 01 15:33:54 2010

Road America #1 - Time Trial      - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Time      Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB        7:49.824   340
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     1 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        7:52.457   335
         William Taylor, Steven Rankins, Jon Krolewicz
 3    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB        7:55.226   330
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 4     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        7:55.987   325
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 5     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        7:58.602   320
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 6     2 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        8:02.443   315
         Ronald Adee, Patrick Adee
 7    39 BMW              325is            SSGT2 SB        8:15.133   310
         Anthony Magagnoli, Kevin Kreisa
 8     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB        8:16.969   305
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate
 9     6 Subaru           WRX STI          MidPri Sed      8:18.388   300
         Michael Lattos, Erik Van Cleef
10    21 BMW              E90 M3           Luxury Sed      8:33.060   295
         Dan Schaut, Ben Schaut, Nicholas Schaut

Road America Session#2 Results

 
Sat May 01 15:33:54 2010

Road America #2 - Time Trial      - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Time      Points

 1     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB        4:56.563   340
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        4:59.720   335
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 3     5 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        5:00.032   330
         Jeremy Herzberg, Danny Popp, Todd Rumpke
 4    25 Chevrolet        Z06 Corvette     SSGT1 BB        5:04.618   325
         Dan Corcoran, Kyle Corcoran
 5     1 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB        5:05.702   320
         William Taylor, Steven Rankins, Jon Krolewicz
 6     2 Chevrolet        Corvette         SSGT1 BB        5:06.675   315
         Ronald Adee, Patrick Adee
 7    39 BMW              325is            SSGT2 SB        5:16.681   310
         Anthony Magagnoli, Kevin Kreisa
 8     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB        5:24.060   305
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate
 9     8 Porsche          911 GT3 RS       SSGT1 BB        5:24.664   300
         Geoffrey Bond,
10    15 Mitsubishi       Evolution X      MidPri Sed      5:28.305   295
         Chris Wirth, Sean Caron

In car video from Road America! Leh Keen wheels the TopSpeed GT2!!

Enjoy!

They say a picture is worth 1000 words :-D

Off to a medium start.. We finished 8th in the skid pad today… top 10 is good.. esp for a car with a setup like ours… the 2 HOTROD Vettes with Onelap veterans in them finished 15th and 29th…. the only prob is the 2 GTRs finished 1 and 2…. Damn those GTRs.. they have no weakness…

I forgot how tough this event is.. we drove from Southbend straight into rush hour traffic in Chicago.. and then into a Tornado Warning storm right above… So the first day has already been semi eventfull….

Tom it really starts with Road America.. we all are interested to see what everyone has.. There is 5 strong cars.. 2 vettes. 2 GTRs and us…..

I will update after the event today.

-Leh

here are some pics i took..

Here are the top ten results from the first event at TireRack. We are sitting 8th which we are very happy with.

We feel that the wet skid is going to be one of our worst events. Can’t wait to see what happens at Road America tomorrow.

STAY TUNED!

Fri Apr 30 19:55:51 2010

Tire Rack - Wet Skid Pad - Results sorted by position Page 1
Pos Car # Vehicle                          Class            Gs        Points

 1     1 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB          0.962 G   340
         William Taylor, Steven Rankins, Jon Krolewicz
 2     4 Nissan           GT-R             SSGT1 BB          0.911 G   335
         Catesby Jones, Jose Collado
 3    54 Honda            Civic Si         Econo Car         0.885 G   330
         Jonathan Weir, William Chan
 4   124 MAZDA            MAZDA 5          S U V             0.861 G   325
         RICHARD FISHER, JASON SAINI
 5    20 Porsche          Panamera         Luxury Sed        0.860 G   320
         Bill Treffert, Todd Treffert

 6     9 Porsche           997 Turbo       SSGT1 BB          0.856 G   315
         Rene von Richthofen, Hugh D. Bate
 7    12 Cheverolet Corv  ZO6              SSGT1 BB          0.854 G   310
         Carmine Dell Aquila, John Sigismondi
 8     3 Porsche          GT2              SSGT1 BB          0.853 G   305
         Douglas Wilks, Leh Keen
 9    14 Mitsubishi       Galant VR4       MidPri Sed        0.847 G   300
         Timothy Harper, Steve Burke
10     8 Porsche          911 GT3 RS       SSGT1 BB          0.845 G   295
         Geoffrey Bond,

Well the boys are at TireRack as I type this, getting the car all stickered up and ready to race!  They don’t have any internet, so I will get lots more pictures up once they do.  Here are a few pictures of the car as it sat 10 min ago!  Please say a prayer and wish them luck on their 3400 mile journey around the country.   I will get some pictures of the car loaded on the trailer and headed up there as soon as they send them to me.

The excitement begins!

Ok, well we ran into a little bit of a bump in the road.  When we got the car on the dyno for the final tune, one of the turbos started pushing just a little bit of oil.  Although it might last the event with no problem, we felt it just wasn’t worth the risk.  So we gave Todd from Protomotive a call to get a set of his billet upgraded turbos overnighted.

The car responded great to the new turbos making really clean usable power at safe, low boost levels!   Doug did a great job with the tune!  Power band is smoother than any custom tuned Porsche I have ever seen.   The actual numbers we are going to keep on the down low until after the event.   :-D

Thanks again Todd!

Wanted to fill you guys in with some of the fabrication work that is going into the last minute details before the big race.  Finishing up the custom TopSpeed front splitter as well as the one off in house designed and build exhaust system.  Final suspension adjustments, roll bar, seat, harness, wheel….she is almost ready to hit the road for the 11 day adventure!

Competition beware! :)

As we progress with the GT2 we are getting more and more excited to see what she can do. Today we had a test day at Roebling Road in GA, and are very happy with the progress we made. The car has picked up almost 4 seconds from where it was at first! With Leh Keen behind the wheel and our race bred tech Adam in the pits along with suspension engineer Bryan Hise from JRZ.. let’s just say we feel we have a winning team.

Here are a few pictures from the day at Roebling.

Everyone here at TopSpeed is very excited to announce the entry of our 996 GT2 in this year’s OneLap of America. The car will be driven by Leh Keen along with co-driver Douglas Wilks, owner and founder of TopSpeed.

Our launch into the Porsche community in the last year has been a very fun and exciting addition to TopSpeed. We have spent hundreds of hours dissecting the factory DME in order to create flawless recalibrations for any Porsche application. We also have spent countless days at the track performing R&D on different suspension setups, tires, power and aero configurations to ensure our customers are getting the very best!

That being said, Team TopSpeed decided the perfect venue to put our innovation and quality to the test was OneLap of America! Between the multiple styles of racing involved in this particular race and the 3400 mile road trip that the car must endure in order to be victorious, there isn’t a race more fitting to prove that TopSpeed has what it takes to build a street driven race car.

We have spent the last several months designing, fabricating and testing several custom pieces for the GT2 that will be implemented during this event. Doug took the lead on most of our fabrication and tuning, while our lead technician Adam Murawski was the point man on the suspension and setup. We brought Adam in from the FarnbacherLoles race team after their championship winning ‘09 season with the #87 Porsche. He has been a great addition to the team with lots of knowledge in every aspect of the Porsche chassis.

We are confident that with our quest for excellence in everything we do, coupled with Leh as a wheel, we will be very competitive. Keep an eye on our blog for the latest as the race goes on. Leh, Doug  and I will be updating our TopSpeed OLA blog with pictures, news and I’m sure some complete randomness as they drive around the country!

Here are a few pictures of the car and our GT2 OLA build.

TopSpeed Porsche 996 GT2

Year: 2002
Make: Porsche
Model:GT2
Color: Grey

The newest addition to the TopSpeed line of cars is the Porsche 996 GT2. Our goal with this car is to first build and test the limits of what can be done with the car while maintaining the ability to keep it street legal. Drive it to the track, race it, and drive it home.

Overseeing the entire project is our lead Porsche engineer, who comes from years of working as the lead mechanic on the #87 Farnbacher’s Rolex winning car.

Our tuner Doug Wilks has spent countless hours developing and testing a rock solid tune for the factory setup which is a must with this car. Spending no less than two months in development, countless track days and road trips we have got it all dialed in to the sum of 505whp 565tq still on the factory K24’s and 93oct.

This car will be running One Lap of America this year, so the next couple months are going to be very exciting. Check back in the weeks to come to see pictures, videos and updates as we begin the transformation. For more info on this race click HERE

Please check back later as we start to push the power and aero envelope with new turbos, larger injectors, bigger intercoolers, Porsche Motorsports suspension, JRZ shocks, some RSR aero goodies and more in our next blog

Thanks,

TopSpeed Inc

TopSpeed 2008 BMW 135i

Year: 2008
Make: BMW
Model:135i
Color: White
1ner1

We here at TopSpeed sat back and watched for a year while people started to mod the 135s. Piggyback units have pretty much dominated the market in aftermarket tuning for the cars since there aren’t alot of shops with the technology or the knowledge to reprogram the factory BMW DME. Seeing the potential that the N54 inline 3.0 liter 6 cylinder had, we decided it was time to start development. We started by just adding some aesthetic parts to make the car ours, and set apart from the stock look. Next we dove right in and went to work on recalibrating the factory BMW DME to find some power. After months of development and rigorous street and track testing we have dialed in the baseline Stg0 TopSpeed reflash. Unlike the piggyback units we have full control over timing, fuel, limiters, boost and all other aspects of this very complex DME. We have been able to achive outstanding hp/tq numbers along with uncompromised reliability with our flash, and better fuel mileage just to put the icing on the cake.
TopSpeed currently has full exhaust systems being developed and produced for the 135 and 335s that we have tested, and will release our Stg1 numbers and flash when the products are ready for shipping.

We are very excited about the advancement into the BMW market, and plan to have alot of fun with our 135 this year. Future plans consist of a full set of JRZ shocks, custom made wheels, upgraded rear diff, and of course more power! Keep checking back to watch the bar continue to be raised for the 135s by TopSpeed’s team!

TopSpeed wins 2008 Redline Time Attack Unlimited AWD Championship

Atlanta, GA – October 6, 2008 – TopSpeed and driver Luke Russell clinched the 2008 Redline Time Attack Unlimited-class all wheel drive championship this past weekend at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virgina.

Russell drove the TopSpeed Subaru Brighton to a winning lap time of 1:58.5 beating the Crawford Subaru STI driven by Japanese time attack star Tarzan Yamada by a half-second.

The win extended TopSpeed’s season-dominating event Grand Champion total to four and was the third consecutive – an impressive task considering international and factory-backed competition participating in the series. The Grand Champion’s trophy is given to the team with the fastest lap time of all competitors at each event.

Russell and TopSpeed also clinched Grand Champion honors at St. Louis, Nashville and Summit Point, West Virginia.

After early season performance driver Russell was unsure of their chances for a championship, but he was proud of how the team pulled together to bring home the title.

“The crew at TopSpeed came back with a vengeance,” he said. “This is all due to their hard work. All I did was turn the wheel and push some pedals.”
Russell may be shy about his accomplishment, but car-owner Doug Wilks isn’t as modest about his driver.
“Luke has never let me down,” he said. “He has always held up his end of the deal when push comes to shove.”
Wilks is also quick to point out that it wouldn’t be possible to do without teamwork, including sponsor JRZ Suspension.
“Without Bryan from JRZ our car would not be nearly as quick as it was today,” Wilks said.
The TopSpeed team also had some help from their competitor at the event – Crawford Performance, who got them an air-oil separator.
“They made sure we had the right part,” Wilks said, “and it performed flawlessly.”
Despite the tough competition, teams often help each other when it comes down to it.
“Everyone is there to win, but at the end of the day we can all sit around a table and still drink a beer with friends,” Wilks said.
The TopSpeed team is looking to repeat their championship in 2009, but that may be tough without sponsorship.
“I know our car has a lot left in it,” Wilks said, “and I won’t really be happy until it’s done.”

TopSpeed is an Atlanta tuner specializing in tuning, turn key builds, chassis setup and parts sales.

Supporting sponsors of the TopSpeed Time Attack car are Brian Crower, GSC PowerDivision, Cobb Tuning, Whiteline, Urban8designs, Carbonetics, Traqmate and Nasioc.

-Doug Wilks

TopSpeed WINS Again @ Summit Point!

Thanks to our sponsors, Cobb Tuning, Whiteline, Brian Crower, JRZ, GSC Power-Division and Playmoreonline.

Wow,
This last race has been an emotional roller coster for Topspeed. With so many cars hitting the walls or breaking we decide to play it easy on Saturday’s practice. Making only a few laps and not being able to get one clean lap we decided to throw in the towel and wait for Sunday.

Sunday’s first morning practice we go out and the front splitters mount breaks off. Only thing we could attribute it was coming down off the harsh jump. We have run this splitter for two seasons now and have not had a single problem untill today. In a huge effort to get the car ready for the first timed session we missed the second practice on Sunday.

So after making only a few laps in practice we were lined up on the grid for our first timed session with high hope’s of breaking the one minute 30 barrier. Those hope’s would soon be crushed as Luke would call over the radio to let me know that the front splitter was again draging the ground. I gave him to ok to contiue as we needed to atleast get one run on the books. After completing one lap he pulls in the pits. The annoucer came over the loud speaker telling the crowd we ran a 1:31.8. Feeling a bit discuraged we pulled the front bumper apart and removed the splitter. It was destroyed, noway we could break the record now.

With no option but to run our car without the splitter in place we set out for the last practice time of the day. This practice was also a huge let down, as the car was now extremely pushy. Guess the front splitter was working more than we had anticipated as the quickest time Luke was able to turn was a 1:33.7 in the last practice. Almost two seconds slower than the first time runs. Crap!!! with our car now handicapped almost two seconds our only hope was to turn the boost to the moon and go for broke.

With a little inspiration from Chris Rado’s team called VPimport we cranked it up. The result ended up in us running a 1:30.5 in the final session. Some 3 seconds faster than our previous practice without the splitter, but a second and half off the track record.

With the overall victory sealed Luke brings the car in after his second lap to try and save the car for the next event. Thanks to everyone there hope to see you all at VIR.

-Doug

First off TopSpeed would like to thank all the companies that have supported us this season.

JRZ, Cobb Tuning, Whiteline, Brian Crower, Playmoreonline, and Urban8designs

Onto our weekend of many emotions.

Thursday started out pretty tough, after searching high and low for our tires we usually run we kept getting the same answer.. “Sorry sir, those tires are on backorder”. Crap…. well after a long search we finally found a set in Knoxville, Tn. So I told the guy to hold them for me as I would be driving up first thing Friday morning.

So Friday morning I wake up at 5am and hop in my car, destination Knoxville, Tn. After driving 3 1/2hrs through some of the most amazing twisties and mountain roads I arrive at the Hoosier south distribution center. Spending a total of about 10mins there, to relieve the 3 redbulls, sign a few papers and load the car up with a fresh set of stickys I am back on my way to Atlanta. Back at the shop we mount the 4 new tires, and load up the rig.

At 8pm we leave TopSpeed and make the 4 1/2 hr drive to Nashville Super Speedway. Once we arrive at the track we are greeted by Todd, and Nick from redline. Chat with them for a few and then call it a night.

Saturday comes and we have the car ready to go but no driver.. Luke isn’t scheduled to arrive till later Saturday night. So while sitting around I get bored and decide to take the car out for a spin to check a few things. Saturday’s fast practice times are around 1.07’s to 1.10’s for all the teams.

Sunday, finally our driver has arrived, but not without issues. Luke’s flight that was supposed to arrive Saturday night was canceled. With his only option to fly out first thing Sunday morning he loaded up.

Luke finally got to see the track for the first time about 10am Sunday morning. In our third lap out in Luke’s first practice session we set FTD with a 1.05.6. Not bad for our first outing. After a few more practice laps we decide to sit and wait for the timed session to get one on the books. First session, we leave the car on our low boost mapping since we felt confident that we could secure the overall and then go for lap record on second session. The plan worked as we ran a 1.04.5 first session out securing the Overall.

Knowing the car had alot more in it we felt confident we could break the overall track record. So with the car set on our high boost map we headed out. On Luke’s first flying lap it happened, A 1.03.7 the new track record for any bodied car there even faster than the GT1 times. Second lap around looked to be an even faster lap, however on the back straight the clutch decided it had enough and gave out. Pulling the data from the second lap it looks like we should have run a low 03 or even possible a high 02.

This wraps up TopSpeed’s second Overall Grand Champion win and first Track Record. Not to mention back to back GC wins We should have some wicked video up in a few days after the editing is done.

Summit Point and VIR here we come, hope to see everyone out there.

Doug

TopSpeed Wins Overall Champion

What an exciting weekend, we couldn’t be happier with the Overall Win. After months of preperation we have something to show for it.

The weekend started off running the entire Friday and Saturday practice without one single issue. With two days of testing in the bag we were feeling pretty confident, as we didn’t have one single issue. We were sitting 1st overall with a healthy margin.

So on Sunday with the Buschur Magnum out of the running due to an unfortunate wreck, we decided to take it easy for our first timed session on Sunday and just seal the overall win. Running a meek 20psi of boost we set the winning time of 1:04:6

We figured we would then push it on the final timed session to break the track record, and take home all the glory.

But as luck would have it right after the first timed session while I was checking tire pressures on pit lane the cars fuel surge tank somehow got a small pin hole leak causing a fire. The fire was quickly put out causing no damage other than a huge mess of powder to clean. With our spirits broke the search began to find a tig welder to fix our surge tank. With no welder to be found at track or within driving distance we settled for a temporary fix.

Or only option without a tig welder close by was to try and JB Weld the hole closed. With 4 hours to our last timed session we hoped we had enough time for it to dry.

With ten minutes to go we put her back together and fired her up. Great… it looks like its holding, so I load up our “KILL” map which bumps the boost from 20psi to 28psi giving us a huge jump in power.

Sitting on pit out it would seem again our luck ran out. The car started leaking fuel so we shut her down and called it a weekend, ending our attempt at breaking the track record.

All in all we had a great weekend and are very happy for the Overall Win but wish we had gotten our chance to break the track record. Oh well… there is always next year.

-TopSpeed Team

Well we fired Lucy up tonight for the first time since all of the new parts went on.  She sounds amazing and revs like a crotch rocket now with the new intake.   We can’t wait for tomorrow’s dyno session.  Doug and the team have completely re-done the entire car’s intercooler setup, intake manifold, and build a custom one off turbo kit as well.

The car is making amazing power now.  We put it on the dyno today and let our tuner Doug Wilks work his magic.  After a couple of pulls at ONLY 20psi she made an amazing 520 whp!  I think the graph will speak for itself.

Updated pictures and dyno graph.

Year: 2008
Make: Subaru
Model: STI
Doug's STI TopSpeed 08 STI “BabySeat to RaceTrack”

The purpose of this project is to show how the new 5 door STI can be transformed with minimal parts into a great looking, awesome  handling, daily driven STI with gobs of power!

Starting with Subaru’s new GR chassis we at TopSpeed are going to dive into addressing the key performance additions needed for the new GR STI to make it the ultimate daily driver for our customers. Initial upgrades will be with suspension, wheels & tires, brakes and then finally power.  All of these would need to work in perfect harmony if we want to obtain the “Ultimate Daily”.   Many cars do one thing really well, but not only is ‘really well’ something we at TopSpeed won’t settle for, doing  just one thing would never satisfy us.  Instead we wanted to design and build this car to do everything perfectly.

Some initial goals include: 10 sec quarter mile,  500whp on pumpgas, Track ready and daily driven,  and to put the icing on the cake the ability to strap the kids in the back and take the wife to dinner!

With our initial plan set, the parts breakdown looks like this:

Suspension

BC COILOVERS 8K/10K
WHITELINE SWAYS
WHITELINE BUSHING KIT
WHITELINE ROLL CENTER KIT
WHITELINE FRT BRACE
WHITELINE CAMBER KIT

Brakes

STOPTECH 355MM 6POT FRONT
STOPTECH 343MM 4POT REAR
PFC01 PADS
ENDLESS BRAKE FLUID
STAINLESS BRAIDED LINES

Wheels & Tires

ENKIE 18X10 +38
285/35/18 YOKO ADO7′S

Power

TOPSPEED SS1 SHORT BLOCK
GSC S2 CAMS
COSWORTH FMIC
TSI 4-1 HEADER
AMS GT35R TURBO KIT
DW 900CC INJ
COBB V2 AP
CRAWFORD AOS
TOPSPEED BOOST ACTIVATED CUTOUT

We decided that for the ‘08 season we needed to come out swinging.  With the custom headwork we have done and the customer GSC cams, the factory intake manifold was slowing us down.   Things are very much in the development stages, but we wanted to fill you guys in.

We are very excited about building this manifold as we have yet to see one that we feel was built right or impressed us much.

FWIW we have 14inch runner length from valve to end of velocity stack, and a 5.2 liter plenum volume. The velocity stacks run a 7 degree taper to a final 2″ id runner size.  Also, to allow the cylinders to pull an even amount of air, the opening of the velocity stacks sit about an inch away from the walls on all sides. Throttle body will be mounted where the A/C compressor used to sit and feed the middle of the plenum from the underside.

Enjoy some of the pictures as we start the fabrication.

Just wanted to fill you guys in. We have spent the last few weeks tearing Lucy down for some updates in preparation for 2008 domination!  Not a whole lot has been done quite yet, but we wanted to post a few pictures.   We have been very busy here trying to knock out customer’s cars first,  the team is going to take some off over the holiday and work on the car.  Our fabricator has most of the cage done,  we are just waiting on the seats so he can mount them and put the diagonal and harness bar in the main hoop.  That and some extra bracing here and there it should be done.   We also mounted the new Enkei RPF1’s 18×10 +38 mm offset sitting on 285/35/18s

A few pics of the updates

Just wanted to update from the race this weekend. Speed Vision was at the track and decided to follow us around. We are not sure what may come out of all the press and interviews, but we had a good time with those guys. This is the first race that the car has really run in that the car was setup and ready to go. We placed 2nd overall which we are very happy with. Enjoy the pictures.

~TopSpeed Team

We got a new front bumper and sideskirts fitted. We still need to do some small tweaking to get it all aligned right and mount the front splitter. Then it’s off to the paint shop. I think we are going to paint the hood, front bumper, side skirts, and flares all red to match the rest of the car. Should look like a new car then.

Until then… enjoy the new pics.

Here is a video from our Saturday practice session at the Gateway Redline Time Attack. This was done on wastegate pressure which is about 15psi(417hp). It looks slow in the video but down the straight we were shifting into 6th gear hitting about 146mph on wastegate pressure. On Sunday the actual day of the race we were running 26psi and about 3 seconds faster lap times.

Gateway Redline Time Attack TopSpeed Subaru

Well we hit the track for the first time with Lucy, and let me tell you did we have fun. The car definitely needs some tweaking here and there, but overall we were extremely impressed. Here are just a few pictures from the event. Sorry we didn’t get more, but we had our hands fully trying to make adjustments and play around with the car.

Enjoy

We just got Lucy off the dyno for the second time… now @ 22psi, conservative timing and 11.8 afr’s. Still on 104oct unleaded, Doug is thinking there may be a boost leak so he is going to stop and check for leaks, then put her back on the dyno to finish it up.

Here is the final graph @22psi, and a couple more pictures after we rolled her out of the shop.

464hp 427tq @ 22psi

Well we got Lucy fired up, and put her straight on the dyno today!, after trying a few different turbine setups and swapping headers we was able to make three pulls, before the radiator sprung a leak so we had to stop. Oh well, guess that gives me a good excuse to put the PWR radiator I have here in her now. Doug was however able to tune the car at wastegate pressure @ 15psi. This run was made on 104oct 15psi. Doug was extremely happy with how much power the car is making so far. Tomorrow he will put her back on the dyno and tune it to 23psi. Hoping for high 400’s, maybe 5 (keeping fingers crossed).

Note the insane quick spool up for a GT35r, our customer turbo kit is hitting full boost by 4k. Not to shabby.

Here is a picture of the graph, and how she sits right now.

We have continued to work diligently trying to bring Lucy all together. Just figured we would put some more pictures of the progress up. The goal is to have her ready for track by spring so that we can start shakedown runs for the season.

Stay tuned, and enjoy the pictures.

We have just finished completely swapping over an 06 sti suspension, drivetrain, and front and rear crossmembers. Here are a few more pics for your viewing pleasure.

Just figured we would share some pictures of the fresh in house built cage! Enjoy!

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