skatebrian624

Hey dudes I figured this was long overdue. I've been meaning to make one of these threads for a while now, but what can I say, procrastination and ADHD are a bitch. Its the worst combo ever because I always feel like I need to do something, but then I just shrug and say, 'I'll get it done some other time.', and proceed to finish my beer instead. Still feeling iffy about making one of these threads. I don't really fit into the #stancenation, //slammed\\, or hellaflush crowd; nor do I really give a shit about how clean my car looks or how sick my mods are. I'm not trying to win hard parker trophies, 'I just want to go fast.' -Rick Bobby. So what the hell, if this thread fails like an asthmatic fat kid trying to sprint away from a donut shop, I'll just delete it. f@#k it, here it goes.

So a little about me and my credentials before I proceed with the cars. I'm originally from Tx but moved to the east coast when I joined the navy. I lived in VA and SC for awhile but now I reside in PA. I've always been into cars and engineering thanks to my stepdad, who is an aeronautical engineer and pilot. My first car was my stepmom's old shitty saturn, which I thoroughly destroyed. I did a bunch of stupid teenage stuff like e-brake turns and railroad crossing jumps. I think that car lasted about 10 months until it was totally dead. Plus, I had a lot of sex in the backseat of that car because you know back in high school if you had a car, any car, you were by definition, awesome; but the seats were disgusting and the saturn had to go. Which is a great segue to my next point...By then I already had my first kid and it was time to get a real job and enlist. My mom sold me her shitty Mazda B2500 truck before I left so I wasn't completely screwed without a vehicle. I did two years in Charleston, SC for training until I moved to Norfolk, VA for my sea duty tour. I was stationed on the USS Enterprise so if any of you are prior sailors on that fine piece of shit boat, hit me up!

I didn't actively participate in motorsports until I moved to VA. I started with autocross (typical) with my '00 integra GSR which I had picked up while in SC. It was the first car I had really modified. I ruined it of course. It was completely riced out but give me break, I was only like 19 or 20, everyone does stupid shit when they're young. I sucked ass when I first started autocrossing, but I was hooked and I wanted to go faster. So one day I got to test drive one of my buddies s2000s and I was floored by the performance and feel of the car. It blew me away how fast the steering was and how responsive the car was overall. I immediately knew that I needed an s2000.

So like a typical dumb kid in the navy I went and bought a brand new sportscar, an '08 apex blue CR. Within the first month I put a hard dog rollbar in it and went to Virginia International Raceway with Trackdaze. I was a super slow noob but the track heroin had set in, and like a crackhead locked up in rehab, I needed more, much more. Luckily, I didn't kill myself like Amy Winehouse. Here's some pics from that fateful day:


















Although I had caught the track bug I couldn't really afford to do it regularly since I was a lowly enlisted peon. I did do a LOT of autocross though and an occasional trackday every once in awhile.








(terrible photo. I still had that sweet military bro haircut, please don"t hate )

I finally won overall in my region's STR class in 2013. After that I decided I wanted to focus all of my attention on full time tracking. By that time I had moved back to Charleston to become an instructor and I had enough income to where I could occasionally burn some cash for a track weekend every month. I did a few weekends in the beginning of '14 and then in April I went all in and got a bunch of mods.


In the CR I put in a sparco evo seat and harnesses, brake ducts, sway bars, and some kw v3s. And so, like a teenage girl realizing the sexual prowess of her genitalia, I eagerly went to the track to see what my new goodies could get me. I'm talking about lap times, assholes. I made some new friends along the way too and we all rapidly shot up the HPDE ranks together. These are some photos from that time. I swear I will get to my current car; this is just the prologue.



















So by the end 2014 I had my Time Trial license and was ready to kick ass, but the season was over. That was such a downer, its like showing a heroin addict a fresh hit, but then smashing the needle into the ground right in front of them and spitting in their face. I've never done hard drugs but I'm pretty sure my description was accurate. During the inter-season lull I installed a new exhaust on the CR and bought some Maxxis RC-1 semi-slicks. I figured if I'm going to f@#k up this time trial shit, might as well do it right.

So start of the new season and we're at Roebling Road Raceway, one of my favorite tracks and one I had driven at least half a dozen times by this point. Needless to say I was thoroughly familiar with the track and it's nuances, but not so much my new semi-slick tires. The thing with the Maxxis is they don't like to slide much. They very much like to stay in their small operating temperature band. So if you treat them wrong too much they will punish you with great vengeance and furious anger. That was unfortunate for me because I slid around that track so much it felt weird NOT sliding around on anywhere but the straight. So the tires overheated and gave up the good fight, and they couldn't have chosen a worse turn to do in. It was T9 at Roebling. This is a single apex, constant radius turn taken at about 100 mph with a nice concrete wall, which forms the pit lane, on the exit of the turn. My rear tires gave out somewhere after the apex and I slid into the wall doing a good 90 mph. It was a really good hit, like getting kicked in the face by Anderson Silva, no one is coming back from that. The car was completely totaled. I feel like this emoticon is appropriate .

Luckily at the time my insurance policy covered track days so I wasn't completely f@#ked. I called my agent to verify all of this before I even did my first track day. Even though I was completely honest to my agent about my claim, I do not want to disclose who I had in order to avoid any complications. Besides, I'm pretty sure they don't cover track days anymore so don't bother asking me.





So that was the demise of my CR and it sucked. It felt like I was kicked in the nuts by a muay thai kick boxer, I'm talking about full testicle ascension with accompanying nausea. It took me awhile to get over it, like a week or two, but I had to get back on the prowl and secure another s2000. At the time I knew my buddy was trying to sell his car. It was a custom yellow AP1 with some nice parts and only light track duty. I jumped on the deal and he was gracious enough to sell me his car.










So I had a car with strong potential, and what was a track addict supposed to do other than track the shit out of their new-to-them car. So it was back to Roebling. I had to show that bitch track that I wasn't scared of it, and like Ricky Bobby, I needed to start going fast again. Which I did, I set a new personal best and as far as I know, the fastest n/a s2000 time at that track, it's like a Buster Douglas comeback!







I later went on to get five 1st place finishes and a 3rd place finish throughout the rest of the season. I also got 1st place at NASA's East Coast championship, but that was more dumb luck than anything. I wouldn't even have been able to compete if it wasn't for the generosity of my fellow competitor and friend, Wynn.
















So that was pretty much 2015. It started out shitty, but then turned around and became a pretty awesome season. Hopefully 2016 goes the same (with less crashing though), fingers crossed! So another inter-season lull and there is work to be done the car. I was never really happy with the suspension on the car. It had some shitty BC coilovers which *spoiler alert* are not the greatest coilovers ever. So I bit the bullet and installed Ohlins R&T coilovers. Yes, they're f@#king awesome. Worth every bit of overpriced goodness. Shoutout to Patrick at Urge for getting them to me expediently. I urge all of you (see what I did there?) to do away with your financial responsibility with reckless abandon and buy a set immediately. Like yesterday. Do it now.
Hey sponsors look at how good I am at advertising! Lots of space on my car for more decals....

anyways,




I also put a J's racing 70rs single on my car too. The car now sounds like a really loud, pissed off bee. its ggrrreat!









crappy video:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_1OLbHt1i0[/media]


Well this pretty much the end of the first installment of this thing. I guess it started as more of a blog, but now its sort of a build thread. f@#k, it took forever to write this too. Like all day. Admittedly, I did go go-karting while in the middle of writing this and I had a great time too by the way. But now that I've finally finished this I'm going to congratulate myself with another beer and some X-Files episodes. Dude I love Scully she's so hot. If you actually read all of this I thank you and congratulate you. You should also reward yourself with some beer and X-files. Anyways leave a remark and hit me up. If my ADHD isn't being a bitch maybe I'll comment too. I plan on throwing some track vids up later on so stay tuned for those and if you are really bored, I have a link to my old videos in my sig. Laters.

tama05

Glad you made a thread and I enjoyed reading through it. Didn't realize you had that CR either. Sucks about that car's fate, but it looks like you're killing it in the new Ap2! How often are you planning on going out this year? Also what have you been running for tires/pads on the new car?

freq

Dude, how old is that shirt you had on last night? Do you own any other shirts? Who was your insurance carrier when you wrecked the CR?

Good last night, on 78 / 309 ricer.


#BILD

clarkster009

The word "slut" offends me. You should treat all cars like the princesses they are.

Kidding...now I see why you are so fast! You started young when you didnt gove a fuk and before you lost that youthful air of invinciblity

sillyboybmxer

Funny write up.
I enjoyed.

skatebrian624

Hey thanks for reading it and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah it sucks the CR is dead, but at least it died in a blaze of glory. I don't think you can give a car a better send off than smashing its face into wall at ludicrous speed. At least its better than getting rear ended by some college girl while she was texting in a corolla.

I plan on doing an event every two or three weeks for the rest of the season. I would be in poverty if I tried to maintain this schedule without my instructor license. Being an instructor I get to drive for free woot woot! I've already done two TT events and one HPDE. I won both TT events, and maybbbee the hpde event too, if thats possible? I mainly do NASA mid-atlantic and northeast events so if you plan on doing any of those hit me up.

For tires and pads I will break it down for each car:

CR- mix of carbotech xp8,10,12 for the front and xp8,10 for the rear. I had the oem bridgestones, multiple sets of star specs, toyo r888s, and then finally the RC-1s.

AP1 - 225 hoosier R7s, pretty much the TTC spec tire. This car has a stoptech bbk in the front so I run xp8 for the front, and xp10 in the rear.

haha dude I got this shirt when I went to the Austin grand prix in 2013. It is my only shirt that I own, and It smells worse than a bum's asshole after eating Taco Bell. Dude I was certain I was going to get arrested last night while we speeding around. Those giant numbers and wing are like cop magnets. But in any case, we should really get a steady go-kart thing going because that was badass.

haha yeah plus being half retarded I don't fully realize the implications and risk. I guess that's why I went back on track after totaling my cr.


Thanks for reading man glad you enjoyed it!

SlowTeg

Haha nice thread Brian! It's definitely nice seeing track folks with build threads rather than quasi show cars. Funny thing is I thought you might've been someone else I met a couple years ago with a blue CR, but obviously that was someone else (forgot his name).



I never thought about it like that but that's very true. Makes me feel better about "scars" from the track.

SlowTeg

What's that..? Smells an awful lot like excuses to me..

Ricky_Flowers_

sluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuts

skatebrian624

...they make the world go round.