http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmKLL...ature=youtu.be

Hello S2ki.com!

The Premier round of the 2012 Speed Ventures S2K Challenge Series was held Sunday Jan. 29 @ Buttonwillow Raceway Park's 13CW course.



The track itself was a no-go @ 8am with the corner stations unable to see each other through the dense AM fog.
The mist needed some "encouragement", so a 20 minute parade lap session was organized to stir the soup.



After the fog started to lift, conditions were cool and the track dried quickly...ideal weather for some quick laps!

The 2012 rules allow incrementally more modifications so many drivers were working with refined or completely new setups and many would be moving into new classes. A total of 24 S2000's and drivers would take part in the day's Challenge...with a few more "sidelined" S2000's spying from the paddock.



STOCK CLASS

With 2011's Stock Class Champ, Douglas Chan, moving up to STREET class, the field was wide open for anyone to take the first round.
Veterans like Albert Castro (bullwings), Travis Wong (gen2gsr), and John Reikes (The Reverend) returned, joined by newcomers Kenji Watabe, Lorenzo Tan, Ryan DelGrosso, and Michael Furst.

Travis Wong placed 3rd in last year at BW with a 2:13.416 but this year scored his premier 1st place finish with a 2:07.351 in Green 3.
Albert Castro was also picking up the pace, bringing his BW times down another 3 seconds from last September with a 2:12.949, good for 2nd place.
The Reverend rounded out the podium with a 3rd place finish with a 2:13.369 in Green 3. John was stretching the legs on his '04 acquired only a week ago...

Congratulations STOCK Class drivers!




STREET Class

Newcomers Joseph Jafry, Jason Woan, and Vince Dessero joined Challenge veterans Douglas Chan (exquattro), Anthony Schifano, Eric Boyke (Silver9k) and Jeff Ringer (Living in the redline) in the popular STREET class.

While Jeff participated in two Streets of Willows events last year, he was just learning BW at this event. He turned his quickest time later in the day Red 4 with a 2:02.784, good for 3rd place.

Douglas Chan was adjusting to his new Voltex wing and Eibach suspension setup and despite some difficulty getting the car to rotate at speed, was able to clock his quickest time in Lap 2 of Red 2, a 2:02.275, edging out Jeff Ringer by half a second.

Anthony Schifano also clocked his quickest time in Lap 2 of Red 2 with a 2:01.988 for his first ever top spot podium. Later in the day, Anthony had a bit of a scare going off at the Sweeper with a "small brake issue"...

Great times, STREET Class drivers!




MOD Class

Along with Nam Yoon (VitaRenovatio), Albert Gavieres (albertg) and Dustin Dessero (ddess) would also make the move from STREET to MOD for 2012. Other drivers came from 2011's MOD-S/MOD-R including Justin Taylor (the s2k dude), Andrew McKelvey (Shadow36), Chris Elders (f20kills), and Mike Tsay (dipstick) as well as newcomers Walter Chen (pointa-b-c) and David Lara.

With the cool AM temps, 6 of the 9 MOD drivers ran their fastest times in Red 2 or 3 and the top three podiums all pulled their FTD's in Red 2.

However, while Red 1 doesn't "count", it does set the grid order for Red 2 (which does count). With the times from Red 1, the order would be Mike, Nam, Chris, Alex and Albert.

In Lap 1 of Red 2, Nam ran an impressive 1:59.511 straight out of the box, good for 3rd place. Chris also ran his quickest in Lap 1, chasing down Nam to the tune of a 1:58.789, not bad for Chris' first day on street tires.

With the sure-footed grip of a new set of RS-3's, combined with cool temps and a certain "non-participating" S2000 gridded in front of me with "maxrev.net" on the trunk, I ran a 1:58.361 in Lap 3 of Red 2, just edging out Chris by 0.428s.

Congrats MOD class drivers!




SUPER MODIFIED

Alex Peng (momofoolio) in SUPER MOD ran into a few mechanical issues later in the day but registered his fastest time in Lap 1 of Red 2 with a 2:00.857 on ancient street tires.





Thanks to SPEEDVENTURES for the Podium Prizes which included SV Track Day gift certificates. Keep an eye out for some exciting prize announcements for the 2012 season!

Join us for ROUND 2 of the 2012 Speed Ventures S2K Challenge Series: Saturday, February 25
AUTOCLUB SPEEDWAY Roval Course, Fontana, CA.

If you'd like to participate in the Challenge, please register here (and check "TIMING" and select "S2k Challenge" when asked...)
http://www.speedventures.com/events/...il.aspx?id=370

2012 Rules here:
https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/920...allenge-rules/

There are 11 events this year, with your best 8 counting...
Check out the Driver's Points Standings here :
http://svc.speedventures.com/fly.asp...ngs&series=185

2012 Speed Ventures S2K Challenge Series Schedule
http://svc.speedventures.com/fly.asp...nts&series=185

If you have questions about the S2k Challenge, please feel free to PM us:

Aaron (desert tortoise)
Nam (VitaRenovatio)
Mike K. (psychoazn)
Mike T. (dipstick)

See you out there and keep the shiny side up!

Mike







Photos courtesy of Mr. Nam Yoon

 

buzz kill. I thought I was going to see a writeup!!!

 

^^

 

gAngstAHH pose...lol.. my buds and I are never serious..







I have more pics....will post in a bit

 

there is a nice little window to see inside of my block now...

 

Damn... that sucks. I thought I saw your car on a tow truck on my drive home last night. Did you take the wing off when they loaded it on the truck?

 

What happened Justin? How you blow the motor?

 

^Too much V-TakKK!

 

Yes, I'm going to shoot for Wed night...I have a day job you know!

 

^ dont forget family and a kitchen remodel too