It may be called Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca now, however, a Honda made quite an impression this last weekend during the Speed World Challenge race at Laguna Seca.

Mazda has secured primary sponsorship for Laguna Seca - which is great considering the improvements to the track Mazda has dedicated funds to. Many Mazda vehicles were displayed at the race weekend, including a Miata which was outfitted for pace car dutties. Despite this, a Honda S2000 made quite an impression as the pace car for Speed's World Challenge Touring class race. The S2000 also showed as the leader for the GT class during the warm up lap, being placed in front of the pace car!

This exhibition car, prepared by Tech2 Motorsports, is being used as a platform to demonstrate to SCCA officials that Tech2 is serious about a S2000 entry into the Speed World Challenege.

While details are being worked out, the Tech2 S2000 appears to have gained acceptance, and we hope to be seeing the car on the track next year! While the S2000 will have a tough match against such cars in GT such as the Acura NSX, Porsche 996, Corvette C5, and Audi S4 among others - the slight outclassing will allow the car to run less restricted in terms of suspension (advanced multi-adjustable setup), engine (Comptech supercharged), and aerodynamics.



On other Honda news... The supercharged Acura NSX driven by Peter Cunningham of RealTime Racing had a great battle in the GT class. The RealTime NSX qualified 1st, and placed 2nd befind Pobst's Porsche 996. Despite an unusually "dirty" race from other drivers with lots of NASCAR style contact, PD was able to pull off an impressive drive with clean driving, consistency, and a solid race car. The team also did well in the Touring class in the Integras. Best of luck to both teams in upcoming races.



You can find out about future local and televised races here:
www.SpeedTV.com



Cheers,
-- Chris

 

Hot damn!

You definitely will need to share with us weekend track junkies what you find out about spring rates and suspension settings and such.

 

Sweetness....

Some more variety in GT. GT is boring, but now with the S, it will become my favorite racing league (is league the right word?). ST will then have to drop down to 2nd .

HONDA POWER!

 

Even with a comptech supercharger, I don't think it will be enough to actually compete with the NSX and S4's unless they can get it down to 2300lbs or so. Actually, near-stock (with just suspension and weight mods) it would make great competition in the Touring class. If only there weren't the backseat requirement.

 

Too bad they run the T1-S's

I have met the driver who runs in the Touring Class right now both in the paddock of laguna at this event and at the NSXCA Thill day a couple days ago.

I have some video of the start of the Speed GT Race. Chris I didn't know you were in town this weekend. The race was very fun and wild.

Especially watching D. Bell push the white porsche w/ the huge tail off in T3

 

Yeah, I forgot about that. Funny when a racing series runs a tire that is less capable than the OEM tire.

 

Hi Rylan --

Sorry I missed you, it was a really sporadic decision to fly down for the races. The one good advantage is that the teams may run much wider sizes of the spec tire that contributes to performance.

Cheers,
-- Chris