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Picture courtesy of Ed Fahey
To comply with the rules and regulations of the massively popular Time Attack series The Bullet had to undergo some major changes including full roll cage, plumbed in fire extinguisher system, electrical cut out devices to name a few.
The start of the year and the pre season opener at Donnington was a fantastic outing and the new suspension installed on the car made it handle like a dream.
The Do-Luck Wide body kit was added to the car as it only had the basic 3 piece kit before, the wide overfenders at the rear and the replacement front fenders meant that the car was now 40mm wider each side allowing us to run 9.5J rims and 285 rubber! what a difference this small change made and it was evident through the tighter corners and more intricate sections of the track. All timings can be found at www.msttiming.com
Read on to find out how the Time Attack series for Sumo has progressed in 2006!
With some serious machinery in the pits we knew that this newly formed Time Attack series was going to be huge!
We were allocated a large amount of open practise throughout the day and the 'Bullet' ran faultlessly, Also on track at this session was 'Ichiban' our R34 Drag weapon converted back to road, yes road trim giving the rest of the field a target to aim for.
Today was only supposed to be a promotional event but most of the other drivers soon began to get faster and faster and we had our own mini race going on, although no times were taken at this event it was certainly one to remember!
Pictures courtesy of Ed Fahey
A cloudy dry day set the scene for the first round of the Time Attack Series at Rockingham, there were most of the household names from the UK's tuning scene in attendance and it looks like it was going to be a scorching event.
The track used was 1.85 miles in length with some pretty hairy corners to boot, the 'Bullet' was performing brilliantly as it had done at Donnington but was lacking the power to keep up with the big guns even though there were not that many long straights for the larger powered cars to stretch their legs!
On our hot lap, driver Rob Barnes managed to set a time of 1:37.089 and a ninth place overall.
Pictures courtesy of Jason long, Victoria Rusell &
Andrzej Gesiarz
Silverstone saw a maximum capacity grid for Round 2 of Time Attack and the 'Bullet' was amongst the heavy machinery in the tuner/pro class of the event. We knew that the long back straight and start finish straight would be a hinder our times but still we rolled out with the best of them.
RC Developments & Simon Norris we on spectacular form posting times of 1:02, with over 200bhp more than the 'Bullet' we struggled to get near those times and finished in ninth place again with a time of 1:08.58.
Pictures courtesy of Ross I'anson & Victoria Russell
A long journey for the Sumo Power Time Attack team as we set off from Kent to Scotland covering over 500 miles to get to the track only to be greeted by torrential rain the day before the event, we set up our garage area in the pits and put the wet tyres from Toyo (T1R) on the Do-Luck rims.
Next morning the sun shone as if we had been time warped to another part of the country and back on went the R888 Toyos ready to attack the challenging Knockhill circuit.
What a fantastic venue, the circuit certainly made our driver Rob Barnes work as he managed to get quicker as the day went on, at one point a brief trip into the gravel looked like it would be the end for the 'Bullet' for the day but Rob managed to get straight back out onto circuit to carry on his assault.
A final position in this round of seventh place and a time of 58.824, 1 second slower than the sixth place monster of Zen performance, things are looking up as Rob settles into driving the car.
Pictures courtesy of Ross I'anson
With 6 weeks in between this and the previous round the Sumo team had a chance to get the 'Bullet' up on the ramp, remove the engine and have it refreshed by HKS, The engine was in perfect condition and a new turbo was bolted to it a GT3240 allowing us to raise the horsepower to 590bhp! A HKS drysump kit was also added whilst the engine was out and the team were buzzing.
The day before the race we finally managed to get it all back in place with the help of RG Motorsports & our Greek partners Autoergonomics (Thanks to Leon) and the key was turnt for the first time since the rebuild/remap.... The 'Bullet' sounded awesome.
Race day and the first time the car had been driven in anger since the work had been finished, inital feedback from Rob was that the car could now be pushed to its full potential and hoepfully allow us to climb up the points table nearer the top teams.
The car went out in practise and pulled strong until just before the session finished we managed to blow off the boost pipe from the turbo unit, back into the pits the pipe was sorted ready for the next warm up session, this time Rob gave the car some serious hammering and the boost managed to find the next weakest link and blew another pipe further down the line, back into the pits, back on the jacks to sor it once and for all!
Now it was the finals, the hot lap, one one shot chance, this was it! With more jubilee clips than you would think physically possible to fit on the pipes the car managed the warm up lap with no problems and Rob passed over the start/finish line in a blur, through copse corner with his foot planted into the floor things were going well, down the gears into maggots where the pipes had blown before and still the car performed perfectly, the back straight and Brooklands corners came and went until disaster struck as just after the exit from Brooklands the pipe decided to blow again, this time in a totally different place, Rob kept his foot in but with no boost his efforts were in vain, his time a 1:09, not bad considering earlier in the season with a faultless run we managed a 1:08!
The car has since had new boost pipes made and our hopes are high for a top 5 place in the finals at Donnington 30.09.06, Watch this space to see how he gets on!
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