Red Star Racing USTCC Campaign
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Red Star Racing USTCC Campaign
*Edit* If anyone would like to follow along on instagram, check out @nikromanoracing 
Good evening ladies and gents! I just started my account and made an intro the other night. My name is Nik and I'll be racing in USTCC in an S2000 this season, so I figured I'd document the process here. Hopefully a few of you might want to follow along as we see if we can make this car competitive in this series
So first things first, a bit about the series. USTCC (United States Touring Car Championship) is a pretty nifty series that runs as part of NASA Pro Racing. It's not nearly as big bux as Continental or PWC, but is a little more focused than standard NASA or SCCA races. The series is growing every year and has a lot of cool cars and good people involved. One of my favorite parts about it is that the way the rules are written, you can build a competitive car out of many different chassis. Engine rules are pretty open, so long as you don't exceed a certain power-to-weight. Everyone runs on NT01s, and different weight cars use different sizes to keep everything nice and close. The spec of the build is also very very similar to NASA Endurance E1 class, so should you want to head to the 25 Hours of Thunderhill it wouldn't take much to prep the car.
Front, rear, and all-wheel drive cars are all welcome, and all compete. Just glancing at the results from the final race of 2015 I see M3, Mazdaspeed3, Hyundai Genesis Coupe, 350Z, RX8, Civic, RSX, Lancer, Camaro, and Mini Cooper S. It's nice and diverse, and I think that's awesome. So far, nobody has ever run an S2000 in the touring class but Red Star Racing is about to change that. This pretty red AP1 just got homologated for competition, and we're currently finishing up prep for the first race on April 16th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
I actually wasn't planning on doing any racing this year, until I got a tip that this car was available. A few emails and phone calls later...well, I'm writing this post, soooo....
Here's the first image I received of the car:
Then I started the arduous task of getting the car supported. Luckily I live in LA, the mecca of the automotive aftermarket, and if you are in the track scene down there you end up running unto industry folks even without trying. It was a stroke of good luck that just the weekend before I had been competing in Vtec Club at Streets of Willow in this wonderful little abomination, an NA Miata powered by an F22:
It's actually a pretty sweet little car; the firewall is notched to have the engine front-mid mounted and the trans is lifted directly from an AP2 as well. We did a 1:23 in it, and won the unlimited class. As a direct result I got introduced to the guys from Ballade Sports, and after seeing the stuff they had to offer ended up coming home with a nice pile of their hardware. Hi Matt :3
And their stuff we decided to run:
More on that later as I get into the build of the car.
So today, I drove up from SoCal to get a little more intimate with the car. We have a test day scheduled for tomorrow at Sonoma, so I've spent the last few hours at Autologic fitting to the car, exploring the stuff it already has, and taking some pictures. Looking forward to getting a baseline on it tomorrow before we really go to town with all the new stuff from Ballade and Gears suspension.
KoyoRad decided to support the car, and here's their radiator totally completely installed to my own personal specifications.
But Joe decided to hide it, for whatever reason. Psh.
And that's how she sits right this very moment, which happens to be 7:23pm on Friday the 18th. We're playing around with a lap timer/shift light module now and putting the bumper back on, and that's how she's gonna run tomorrow. Just a few more shots of how the car looked when I got here today, call it the "before."
Apologies for potato-cam pics. I promise much nicer stuff at the track!
-Nik
Good evening ladies and gents! I just started my account and made an intro the other night. My name is Nik and I'll be racing in USTCC in an S2000 this season, so I figured I'd document the process here. Hopefully a few of you might want to follow along as we see if we can make this car competitive in this series
So first things first, a bit about the series. USTCC (United States Touring Car Championship) is a pretty nifty series that runs as part of NASA Pro Racing. It's not nearly as big bux as Continental or PWC, but is a little more focused than standard NASA or SCCA races. The series is growing every year and has a lot of cool cars and good people involved. One of my favorite parts about it is that the way the rules are written, you can build a competitive car out of many different chassis. Engine rules are pretty open, so long as you don't exceed a certain power-to-weight. Everyone runs on NT01s, and different weight cars use different sizes to keep everything nice and close. The spec of the build is also very very similar to NASA Endurance E1 class, so should you want to head to the 25 Hours of Thunderhill it wouldn't take much to prep the car.
Front, rear, and all-wheel drive cars are all welcome, and all compete. Just glancing at the results from the final race of 2015 I see M3, Mazdaspeed3, Hyundai Genesis Coupe, 350Z, RX8, Civic, RSX, Lancer, Camaro, and Mini Cooper S. It's nice and diverse, and I think that's awesome. So far, nobody has ever run an S2000 in the touring class but Red Star Racing is about to change that. This pretty red AP1 just got homologated for competition, and we're currently finishing up prep for the first race on April 16th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
I actually wasn't planning on doing any racing this year, until I got a tip that this car was available. A few emails and phone calls later...well, I'm writing this post, soooo....
Here's the first image I received of the car:
Then I started the arduous task of getting the car supported. Luckily I live in LA, the mecca of the automotive aftermarket, and if you are in the track scene down there you end up running unto industry folks even without trying. It was a stroke of good luck that just the weekend before I had been competing in Vtec Club at Streets of Willow in this wonderful little abomination, an NA Miata powered by an F22:
It's actually a pretty sweet little car; the firewall is notched to have the engine front-mid mounted and the trans is lifted directly from an AP2 as well. We did a 1:23 in it, and won the unlimited class. As a direct result I got introduced to the guys from Ballade Sports, and after seeing the stuff they had to offer ended up coming home with a nice pile of their hardware. Hi Matt :3
And their stuff we decided to run:
More on that later as I get into the build of the car.
So today, I drove up from SoCal to get a little more intimate with the car. We have a test day scheduled for tomorrow at Sonoma, so I've spent the last few hours at Autologic fitting to the car, exploring the stuff it already has, and taking some pictures. Looking forward to getting a baseline on it tomorrow before we really go to town with all the new stuff from Ballade and Gears suspension.
KoyoRad decided to support the car, and here's their radiator totally completely installed to my own personal specifications.
But Joe decided to hide it, for whatever reason. Psh.
And that's how she sits right this very moment, which happens to be 7:23pm on Friday the 18th. We're playing around with a lap timer/shift light module now and putting the bumper back on, and that's how she's gonna run tomorrow. Just a few more shots of how the car looked when I got here today, call it the "before."
Apologies for potato-cam pics. I promise much nicer stuff at the track!
-Nik
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 5,103
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Awesome! Goodluck.
if you can afford it, I think the mod that will give you the biggest competitive advantage is your transmission - like along the lines of a Quaife sequential transmission (See the Prima Racing and Driving Ambition builds from Hartanto and Hazelton respectively).
if you can afford it, I think the mod that will give you the biggest competitive advantage is your transmission - like along the lines of a Quaife sequential transmission (See the Prima Racing and Driving Ambition builds from Hartanto and Hazelton respectively).
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Thanks guys! More coming today.
I actually know Andrie well (he and I both coach at SpeedSF, and we both drove the car in my profile pic), I've been asking him for advice on the car for the past few weeks. When he ran in USTCC, he was in the GT class, and he was able to use a sequential trans. unfortunately in the TC class, I have to stick with the stock trans.
I actually know Andrie well (he and I both coach at SpeedSF, and we both drove the car in my profile pic), I've been asking him for advice on the car for the past few weeks. When he ran in USTCC, he was in the GT class, and he was able to use a sequential trans. unfortunately in the TC class, I have to stick with the stock trans.
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 5,103
Likes: 844
Thanks guys! More coming today.
I actually know Andrie well (he and I both coach at SpeedSF, and we both drove the car in my profile pic), I've been asking him for advice on the car for the past few weeks. When he ran in USTCC, he was in the GT class, and he was able to use a sequential trans. unfortunately in the TC class, I have to stick with the stock trans.
I actually know Andrie well (he and I both coach at SpeedSF, and we both drove the car in my profile pic), I've been asking him for advice on the car for the past few weeks. When he ran in USTCC, he was in the GT class, and he was able to use a sequential trans. unfortunately in the TC class, I have to stick with the stock trans.
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Happy Sunday, S2KI!
We had an excellent day of testing at Sonoma yesterday. The car drives very very well, which is a great feeling since it's only going to get better from this point on.
First, a bit of background on the team. If you've never heard of Red Star Racing, that's because they have never looked at a Honda before. BMWs, they know inside and out. Team owner Daniel Akhromstev is a dominant force in USTCC GT class in his E36 M3. Here he is racing with Andrie:
For this season, he wanted to compete in TC class as well, and came across the AP1 we're now running. Some red and black paint and a sticker on the hood later, and boom; it's a Red Star entry.
So the purpose of the day was to shake down the car, identify any potential issues, the car's strengths and weaknesses, anywhere the car could be easily improved, let me get acclimated to it, and see how it will stack up against the competition. It was a very very crowded event, impossible to get any clean laps, but I was still able to get a great impression of the car. So far, I think it's excellent. The downforce is just right for the amount of power the car has, and the handling balance is mostly very good. There are some little nitpicks here and there, but we have our coilovers from Gears to put on and test out, and with their engineering guys at the track with us I'm confident we will get the car working even better than before.
About 50,000 stickers will be going on the car for contingency sponsors but I must say, I do enjoy the understated look as-is. It's unassuming, but very fast.
We also brought along the Ballade Sports 70mm big bore throttle body to do some A:B testing, and see how it performed. Obviously without clean laps any data is purely empirical, but I'd like to get the car on a dyno once we install the new header and intake pipe as well to look at the overall net gain.
Easy enough to do trackside, so long as you have a drill to remove the breakaway bolts on the sensor. Looks basically OEM but adds a mechanical idle screw, which can come in handy for tuning off-throttle behavior.
Right away it was pretty clear the difference it made. Even with our stock engine, the power at and above 8000rpms was improved. I had noted earlier in the day that the entire way through turn 9, I was basically stuck around 8500, flat out, not accelerating. Now the revs freely climbed just shy of the rev limiter before the braking zone. I think if I fine-tuned my exit from the esses, I would actually hit fuel cut briefly. Overall, very happy with the result, and looking forward to throwing the other parts on and seeing how the car behaves.
Tearing down for the day, you can see the storm clouds that came in and drenched the track today. Glad we moved the test to Saturday instead. We don't have the next test scheduled yet, but I'll keep updating on the car's progress until then.
We had an excellent day of testing at Sonoma yesterday. The car drives very very well, which is a great feeling since it's only going to get better from this point on.
First, a bit of background on the team. If you've never heard of Red Star Racing, that's because they have never looked at a Honda before. BMWs, they know inside and out. Team owner Daniel Akhromstev is a dominant force in USTCC GT class in his E36 M3. Here he is racing with Andrie:
For this season, he wanted to compete in TC class as well, and came across the AP1 we're now running. Some red and black paint and a sticker on the hood later, and boom; it's a Red Star entry.
So the purpose of the day was to shake down the car, identify any potential issues, the car's strengths and weaknesses, anywhere the car could be easily improved, let me get acclimated to it, and see how it will stack up against the competition. It was a very very crowded event, impossible to get any clean laps, but I was still able to get a great impression of the car. So far, I think it's excellent. The downforce is just right for the amount of power the car has, and the handling balance is mostly very good. There are some little nitpicks here and there, but we have our coilovers from Gears to put on and test out, and with their engineering guys at the track with us I'm confident we will get the car working even better than before.
About 50,000 stickers will be going on the car for contingency sponsors but I must say, I do enjoy the understated look as-is. It's unassuming, but very fast.
We also brought along the Ballade Sports 70mm big bore throttle body to do some A:B testing, and see how it performed. Obviously without clean laps any data is purely empirical, but I'd like to get the car on a dyno once we install the new header and intake pipe as well to look at the overall net gain.
Easy enough to do trackside, so long as you have a drill to remove the breakaway bolts on the sensor. Looks basically OEM but adds a mechanical idle screw, which can come in handy for tuning off-throttle behavior.
Right away it was pretty clear the difference it made. Even with our stock engine, the power at and above 8000rpms was improved. I had noted earlier in the day that the entire way through turn 9, I was basically stuck around 8500, flat out, not accelerating. Now the revs freely climbed just shy of the rev limiter before the braking zone. I think if I fine-tuned my exit from the esses, I would actually hit fuel cut briefly. Overall, very happy with the result, and looking forward to throwing the other parts on and seeing how the car behaves.
Tearing down for the day, you can see the storm clouds that came in and drenched the track today. Glad we moved the test to Saturday instead. We don't have the next test scheduled yet, but I'll keep updating on the car's progress until then.
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Good point, I certainly don't have the excess funds for a part like that. My holy hell, would that be amazing in this car. I'm being fairly gentle with the trans, I've heard enough stories about the AP1 transmissions grenading. I'd rather sacrifice a hundredth of a second per shift than sacrifice a race. We can make up the time elsewhere.
