ROCKIN’ THE CLOCKS
2017 WORLD TIME ATTACK CHALLENGE
Dude, you absolutely need to experience that weekend.” For the hordes of time-attack devotees who make the annual pilgrimage to Sydney Motorsport Park every October, explaining the weekend’s experience is surely linked with such an exhortation. The continued growth of the Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge, now in its eighth year, is a phenomenon that almost defies logic, especially when you pitch it to the traditional motorsport fan.
Unfamiliar with the concept? It’s pretty simple. Take a field of more than 80 track-focused creations, across four distinct classes, ranging from ultra-wild to near street specification. On a weekend in the middle of October, assemble this esoteric gaggle of machines — some from half a globe away — along the hot tarmac of the Sydney track. Finally, let them loose on the 3.9km GP circuit, the hypothesis being that each driver and car will push to the absolute maximum to achieve that one perfect lap.
Sceptics will simplify that as being little more than a couple of days of qualifying. But the intensity, innovation, and dedication to those couple of days epitomized by every single one of the competitors inhabiting the pit-lane garages belies the apparently simple nature of the task, and it’s at WTAC that tuner ingenuity continues to shine. In 2010, the inaugural event saw Japanese driver Tarzan Yamada take out the top spot with a 1:30.58 lap time at the wheel of the almost mythical Cyber Evo. For the following five years the top gong turned into a Mitsubishi benefit, with the radical ‘Nemo’ Evo IX slicing three full seconds from the record in 2012, before giving way to three years of dominance from Garth Walden and the Tilton Evo IX.
Last year, the MCA team, with its comparatively lowbudget S13 Onevia, took the fight to the AWD brigade and triumphed. This year, all eyes were on that team as the S13 was wheeled into pit lane to battle some fancied opposition for the top podium step. Teams such as MCA pioneered the use of drag racing–inspired technology with its billet SR20VET in Pro class, and poking through the engine bays of a cluster of Open class hardware, you saw that a handful of competitors had also embraced the prospect of strength offered by the billet option. More strength of course allows more boost and that, as well all know, permits more power.
But even the casual time-attack geek knows that power isn’t the be-all and end-all. Sure, SMSP has one hell of a long front straight, but the remainder of the circuit includes 10 chassis-challenging curves. The cars run on control Advan semi-slicks; aero plays a massive part in keeping a vehicle glued to the black stuff, and as with engine technology, advances in air management were prominent. From the freshly designed front clip on the RP Technology Porsche 968, to the behemoth rear wing protruding from the back of Scotsman Andy Forrest’s mental Subaru WRX, wings, canards, endplates, diffusers, and splitters are what truly signs off the
serious time-attack car. While their primary objective is function, the side effect is the noise created as the top cars slice through the air at near on 300kph. It’s indescribable; almost impossible to do justice to in text, but for those lining the grandstands and fences, the sensation is integral to the WTAC sensation.
While the certified tech-nerds gorge themselves with the mechanical smorgasbord on offer courtesy of immersion in performance pornography, the personalities and rivalries offer an alternative angle to the WTAC circus. From pro-level local hired guns such as Tim Slade and Barton Mawer taking on the talented amateur Japanese WTAC institution ‘Under’ Suzuki, right down to Clubsprint rivalries, 2017 offered perhaps some of the greatest diversity in terms of international competitors.
From North America, William Au Yeung brought his Civic Si to pit alongside the crazy Finnish teams, Sami Sivonen came with the thundering Audi R8 1:1 — a 969kW GT3-based creation, and Miika Toivanen’s barely-recognizable Lotus Exige packed with turbocharged Lexus power. From Scotland came Andy Forrest’s unhinged six-cylinder WRX. Japan was represented by Yoshiki ‘Fire’ Ando’s Evo IX and Tetsuhiro Kurokawa’s earsplitting Car Shop Dream FD3S RX-7. Holding down the Kiwi end of the scale was Andy Duffin, with his flame-spitting 20B RX-7, and current New Zealand Superlap champion, Team 666 Racing, with Aussie Garth Walden taking the reins of its Evo VII for the weekend.
For all the top teams, it was business from the get go. Literally. Three cars were lost to fire during Thursday testing alone, perhaps an indication of how close to the limits the current crop of time attack-builds are. But as a cloudless Friday morning dawned, attention for the remaining competitors turned towards the forecast. Would it rain on Saturday as predicted? Should we go all out on the Friday to bank a solid lap?
While temperatures soared, lap times fell. Club racing sensation Jordan Cox took a guest seat at the wheel of the unassuming Raptor Racing Evo in Clubsprint, heading out and knocking nearly two seconds off the class record. Ditto for the Pro Am Class, with Rob Nguyen’s ‘Mighty Mouse’ CR-X obliterating the record, and the MCA team following suit in Pro Class.
With animated commentary, the on-track action was anything but a day of qualifying. As the times fell, the atmosphere was electric, and rivalries became real as man and machine battled throughout an increasingly heated Friday, pushing ever harder until day gave way to night, and teams retreated to their pit garages for repairs, improvements, and perhaps even the occasional beer leading into an uncertain Saturday.
The forecast was for scattered drizzle. In the absence of moisture, the Saturday morning conditions offered recordbreaking conditions, and the teams did not disappoint. Cox again hit out in the Evo, lowering his PB and gaining a stranglehold on the Clubsprint class. Against the might of the billet blocks, Adam Casmiri utilized the conditions to the fullest, streaking to the top of the Open timesheets with a blistering 1:27 lap. In Pro Am, the Mighty Mouse continued to improve, while overseas visitors Au Yeung in the Civic and Sivonen in the Audi R8 solidified second and third respectively.
The headlines were in Pro, however, as the MCA Silvia and the RP968 Porsche traded blows, with Suzuki snapping at their heels in the Advan S15. Slade set the clocks alight with a 1:20.97 lap, ultimately claiming top honours. For perspective, the circuit record is only 1.8 seconds faster, held by an A1GP car. For a Silvia running on street-legal tyres to come this close to a wings-andslicks open wheeler speaks volumes of the pace of development thrust upon the sport of time attack.
The event culminated in the Superlap Shootout, when the top five from each class headed out in the dying light to make a last ditch attempt at glory. The status quo remained, regardless of the effort expended on that one final lap.
The event marked another weekend of smashed records and stories of automotive triumph. Daylight waned and war stories replaced the on-track combat.
This year’s Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge yet again showed that development is the name of the game. The technology. The pace. The outright spectacle. What will 2018 hold in store? We guess you’ll just have to go there to experience it.