Many people know Titan Motorsports from our history of drag racing and modifying Toyota Supras for straight line performance. While the Supra and quarter mile does play a significant role in our day to day operation, outside of work we are always looking to have additional fun driving or improving on our personal cars. Recently we have begun tuning European cars for our personal enjoyment and have been bit by the road course bug. As a result we have been enjoying DE or Drivers education events on our weekend, looking to improve on the most important aspect of a modified vehicle, the driver.

This weekend I had the pleasure of driving to Savannah, GA for a Driver’s Education event with the Porsche Club of America Citrus Region. Roebling Road is a 2.02 mile road course in Bloomingdale, Georgia. It is a great track to learn on as it has plenty of runoff and only 1 wall should a mistake occur. The PCA offers instructed driving sessions in a lead follow format that allows you to push the limits of your car, while minimizing risk of damage. It’s a great learning experience mixed with classroom education and on track driving with a qualified instructor sitting riding with you at all times, allowing you to learn the track lines and your cars limits. Once you have been signed off after a few events, Solo driving is available in a number of groups from intermediate solo to advanced solo.

I attended the event in my fiancés SMG BMW M3 (e46), which I had tracked once before in Sebring. This was my first time at Roebling and I was fortunate enough to have a great customer of ours Joshua Barnes as my instructor. Joshua has been driving Roebling for years in his Supra which we have modified to compete with Porsches. He is a great driver, and an even better instructor. From the first lap to the last lap I saw constant improvement, and by the end of the weekend I was maintaining great speed and had a great idea of the race line. I also had the pleasure of taking a few laps in the passenger seat of Joshua’s Supra. The car performs unbelievable and outperformed most of the Porsches and other prepped race cars on the track (with the exception of a Zotz prepped older RSR style race car with 14” slicks on the rear). Anyone who does not believe a Supra can handle the twisties needs to take a good look at Joshua’s car, and if you’re at the same event maybe even a ride. It’ll change the way you think about a race prepped Supra, and when you’re ready we can even build one for you.

A special thanks to Barbara for the great hospitality all weekend, Lauren and John for the great pictures and company. We are hoping to do another event at Roebling early in February, and I would love to see more of our friends and customers get involved and experience how much enjoyment and personal satisfaction a great day at the road course can bring.

Finally, after much testing, sweat, hard work and anticipation, Titan Motorsports set out for Ennis Texas for the ADRL world finals; Battle of the Belts. Team Titian had been running quite consistently in previous events and had been amongst the fastest competitors for the entire ADRL series. On October 24, Titan began qualifying for the biggest race of the year. In the first round of qualifying, Gary was able to run a 4.730 @ 172.28mph getting him safely into the 14th spot. In round 2 Gary went up against Michael Neal. White was able to get the better of Neal running a 4.235 @ 172.34mph to Michaels 4.328 @ 173.54 mph. It was a great race with close numbers. In Final Qualifying the Scion started running faster with Gary putting down a 4.208 @ 171.26 mph besting Alex Viscardi’s 4.567 @ 169.7534 mph. This put Gary and the Scion comfortably in 4th place qualifying.

Once the Eliminations round began Titan was full throttle, holding nothing back. Team Titan knew they had to lay it all out if they were going to be any competition against the racers left in the field. Gary White drew Steve Gorman in the first round. Gorman had engine trouble but Gary wasn’t looking back. He rocketed down the track with a 4.173 @ 173.54 mph. In round two, the Scion was up against Todd Moyer, one of the fastest cars in the field. Todd ran a 4.191 @ 180.45 mph resetting his own speed record and a new national record. However Team Titan was ready, dipping deep into the teens with a 4.137 @ 173.52 mph for the win. Now it’s down to the semi-finals. Titan goes up against David Janes; Janes was able to muster a 4.245 @ 175.71 mph, but the Scion, nearly busting the ET record, ran a 4.128 @ 173.63 mph with a .985 60’. So finally, it all comes down to one final round. As expected, Titan lined up against none other than Billy Glidden, Titan’s most consistent rival. Glidden got the jump on White with a .039 to White’s .099 light and snags the holes-hot victory with a 4.103 @ 175.98 mph! Ironically White actually ran a faster in the 1/8th with a 4.101 @ 174.91 mph and a .975 60′ setting the new national ET record.

It has been a great season of improvement for Titan and next year looks increasingly optimistic. The most completive year in Team Titan’s history, racing 25+ cars and ending the year with the quickest car in the field. The team is poised well for 2009 with less than 1 round out of first place in the 2009 points chase which started at Ennis.

The competition will still have to wait until next year to try to re-claim our national ET record and see what else Team Titan has in store for the ADRL!

If we’re going to have water bottled for us, we might as well have a water bottle as well. These bottles are great for bringing your favorite beverage to the gym or track. We will be throwing these in at random with new orders, if you’d like one just let us know in the comments field and we’ll include one with your next shipment.

Just got the paint in today for the Porsche project, it may not be what you think….

Standard Issue Diverter Valves where designed with the Porsche 997TT in mind, using a side vacuum pipe to allow for easy routing inside an already crammed engine bay. These units are a direct bolt-on to the factory VTG turbochargers allowing for easy installation. These valves dump charge-air back into the air intake system and keeps external noise to a minimum. Featuring a piston design which is superior to the factory rubber diaphragm, this DV allows for quicker throttle response, higher clamping load, and more reliable control of boost pressure.

The units are machined from billet aluminum and come in your choice of stealth black anodized or machined silver finish. As with all Standard Issue products we pride ourselves in function over form, with products guaranteed to perform.

Purchase them online at Titan Motorsports :

Standard Issue Diverter Valves where designed with the Porsche 996TT in mind, using a side vacuum pipe to allow for easy routing inside an already crammed engine bay. These billet diverter valves dump charge-air back into the air intake system and keeps external noise to a minimum. Featuring a piston design which is superior to the factory rubber diaphragm, this DV allows for quicker throttle response, higher clamping load, and more reliable control of boost pressure. The units are machined from billet aluminum and come only in a stealth black anodized finish. As with all Standard Issue products we pride ourselves in function over form, with products guaranteed to perform.

Purchase them online at Titan Motorsports :

**Will Also work in all VAG 1.8T engines, all VAG 2.7 Bi-Turbo engines.

Here at Titan Motorsports, Racing continues well after the Professional series go on winter break. When we’re not racing our 220+MPH Scion race cars, we’re at the local drag strip pushing the limits of our street cars. For us “Our Season Never Ends”. Support your favorite year round gear heads by purchasing this dark gray shirt from Titan Motorsports.

BUY ONLINE AT
http://www.titanmotorsports.com

It’s been a few days since we have done anything with Project 996TT, the main reason being we where waiting for our replacement differential to arrive. The stock differential decided to destroy itself on the dyno 2 weeks ago (we sent the car to a local AWD dyno and the car was run with the rollers unlocked, causing this carnage). We managed to find a replacement diff on 6speedonline.com and hope to have the car back in action later this week.

Next up: More track testing and a custom homegrown paintjob you won’t want to miss.

Titan Motorsports will be racing in the LenMar Motorsports 4^th Annual World Finals on October 24-25 at Texas Motorplex in Ennis Texas. Team Titan is currently in fourth place behind Todd Moyer, Mike Hill, and Billy Glidden. Come out and join us as we compete for the championship at ADRL’s Battle for the Belts. Need tickets for the race? Email JonS@titanmotorsports.comand I’ll hook you up with complimentary tickets to the race. We’ll see you at the races.

You may think that Titan Motorsports is only interested in drag racing.  But you’d be seriously mistaken.  Every employee here is a motorsports fan.  F1, ALMS, NHRA, NASCAR, ADRL, Grand Am, WRC, and even DTM are some of the series that come up in conversation around the office here weekly.  It has been said that even the Brothers Grim in the office have been spotted running their BMW’s at Sebring.

If you have never seen an American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race in your life you are seriously missing out.  Here in America there are plenty of series that offer good competition, and some entertaining racing but in the ALMS it’s a different story.  There are no “spec” racecars, a la NASCAR, there are no teams with one single driver for the car, there isn’t even a single race fuel used.  Anything from typical race gas to E85 and Diesel are used.  There are also 4 different classes.  So for any one race that you watch, you are actually watching four different ones, each with their own storyline and each has something different to offer.

To make it easy, I’ll classify them by speed, fastest to slowest.  LMP1 is the fastest, followed by LMP2, GT1 and GT2.  Obviously the LMP cars are prototypes, purpose built racecars.  The GT classes are filled with cars that anyone can buy (well kind of).  Corvettes, Porsche’s, Vipers, Ferrari’s, and Aston Martin’s are but a few examples and if those names don’t get your blood boiling, than you may need to turn in your man card.  BMW will also make their series premier next year with an M3 in the GT2 series.

It really is an experience to go to one of these races.  The drivers are all very open and friendly, and the pits/paddock area reminded me of an NHRA race.  Fans are able to just wonder around checking out the cars, and chatting with drivers and mechanics (provided they aren’t busy of course).  Hell about 10 minutes before the start of the race I was standing next to a couple port-a-potties and out comes Alan McNish and Johnny O’Connell.   Emanuele Pirro was out the night before the race just chit-chatting with fans for about 30 minutes.

As I alluded to earlier there is a very diverse field.  Each car looks, smells and sounds different as it goes by.  The drivers hail from several countries around the world.  Audi’s R10 and Peugeot’s 908 HDi cars are virtually silent as they pass leaving only a slight whistling sound of the diesel turbo’s and wind barreling off the wings.  Corvette’s scream by letting out a burl that makes it sound as if the engine is a 15 liter V8, and Acura’s whip by with a sound that is so unique I’m struggling to find a good analogy for it.  Day even turns to night by the end.  It truly was a 10 hour assault on the senses.

There is never a lack of action either.  There are more passes in one lap at an ALMS race than you may see in an entire race from other series.  The different classes on the track at the same time can make the race interesting as the faster cars us the slower cars as picks to gain an advantage, but of course the traffic can also be a severe disadvantage at times.  Many lap times varied as much as four seconds because of it.

We camped at the track for the weekend.  There is something going on at the track almost all the time.  Not only is there the ALMS race, but there is usually a bunch of other series running that same weekend.  There was also IMSA Lites, Star Mazda Championship, Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship, and the Volkswagen Jetta TDI cup going on this particular weekend.  Racing action galore, and we never left the track once.

The story of this race had to be Alan McNish and his LMP1 Audi R10/TDI.  No more than 40 minutes from the start, McNish gave his Audi a little too much gas (on cold tires) coming out of turn 4 on grid formation laps and lost the rear end sending the R10 into the wall.  The front end was destroyed and the rear was damaged as well.  McNish was devastated telling his team on the radio “I’m sorry lads, I’ve damaged the car badly.  But if you can rebuild it for me I WILL win this race.”  It took the Audi team 45 minutes to get the car put back together and McNish was on his way already 2 laps down.

By the end of daylight the race was running down and things were getting interesting.  McNish, Pirro, and Capello had made up their two laps and were sitting in third right behind the Peugeot 908 and their teammates Lucas Luhr and Marco Werner in the #2 Audi R10/TDI.  After a restart, Christian Klien piloting the 908 got a run on Werner down the backstretch and overtook him as they entered turn 10.  The 908 was able to pull a one second gap on Marco Werner.  McNish had pitted for fresh super soft tires at the last caution and was soon hounding Werner to get by so that he could have a crack at the Peugeot.  It seemed that Werner digressed (the team was hinting at him to let McNish go; scanners are great!) and let McNish go on the backstretch and within a lap the Audi and Peugeot were locked in a bumper to bumper duel.   Using the traffic perfectly McNish got a run on Klien coming out of turn 5 and used the traffic to his advantage perfectly picking Klien into turn 6 and passing another lapper into turn 7 to give him a 1.5 second advantage onto the back straightaway.  Klien wasn’t finished with the Audi yet though.  A few laps later he got a run on the Audi on the backstretch.  He made a fatal error however.  Due to his inexperience at the track (it was his first race there) he seemingly forgot that there was a slight kink to the right at the end of the backstretch.  McNish positioned his Audi right in the middle of the track and when they got to the kink, Klien put the left side of the 908 into the grass at 195mph.  That was all that McNish and Audi needed to seal up the victory.  Klien never got close again.

The drive that McNish put in was the stuff of legend.  You’d have to see the replays (probably available on You Tube) to see what I’m talking about.   He was driving like a man possessed in the final hour.

If you’ve never been to or seen an ALMS race I urge you to.  If you are a fan of motorsports you will love it.  The next ALMS race is October 18^th from Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, another one of America’s premier racetracks.  Unfortunately it is going to be tape delayed on NBC, but that shouldn’t stop you from watching…