FEDERAL TIRES SPEEDSF CHALLENGE @ WEATHERTECH RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA - SEPTEMBER 2, 2018 - ROUND 10

Round 10 of the Federal Tires SpeedSF Challenge was one of the best in recent memory, not only with a McLaren Senna entering the competition, but there were 5 entries in Group X with 2 being McLarens, a 720 and Senna. A total of 29 entries across all the groups joined the competition, ready to put down their best lap times.

With that said, we shall begin with Group X’s results!

GROUP X

The star of the weekend was none other than the 2019 McLaren Senna driven by Philip Kadoorie who piloted it to a 1st place class win with a 1:32.536. Having barely broken the sound limit imposed by the track, it goes to show what lap time could have been made possible if Philip had just another 2 laps to really plant his foot down. As a matter of fact, the Senna only blew a 92.5 dB, barely above even CA legal limit. Impressive for a street-legal race car! Nevertheless, the current Laguna Seca record held by Darius in his ACR (1:31.576) still stands. We will have to wait until another 105 dB day. 2nd place honors went to the 2018 McLaren 720 piloted by Nady with his 1:37.086 lap time. 3rd place, who was just barely under Nady’s lap time with a 1:37.086, went to Kanishk Parashar who drove the hell out of his 2007 Corvette Z06. Great driving by everyone in Group X!

GROUP S1

Group S1’s 8 entrants really battled it out for their respective places, with 2nd-5th place being within tenths of each other. Starting with Jason Fries in his Porsche 997 Turbo, his 1st place came as a result of a 1:38.207 lap time, while 2nd place winner Bruce Lee in a 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE just beat out 3rd place winner Gordon Peng by a mere .088 seconds! Bruce put down a 1:39.105 while Gordon put a very respectable 1:39.193 lap time to his name. These two surely have a score to settle during Round 11’s Thunderhill event SpeedSF Challenge on September 23!

GROUP S2

Let’s face it: Gary Yeung and the Dirty Mango S2000 own Group S2. While he is only in 2nd place after being bumped up from S3 midway through the season, he’s only 33 points behind leader Steven Chiu. This round’s victory marks his 4th since his move and it’s been consecutive victories throughout. For this round, Gary pulled off a 1:39.429 lap time, besting some drivers even in S1. Can he be stopped?

The 2nd place win was taken by Scott Smith in a Porsche 911 991 thanks to his 1:42.852 lap time, while Steven Chiu managed to settle into 3rd place with a 1:43.239, barely beating out Brian Thornton’s Nissan 350Z by seven-tenths of a second. While there was great driving displayed by all drivers in this group, someone in this group has to do something about Gary!

GROUP S3

This group was an interesting one. Group S3’s drivers were pretty spread out in terms of lap times, but it could be a function of the cars more so than the capable drivers themselves. 1st place was taken home by Christopher Lee in a BMW Z4 thanks to a very fast 1:42.871 lap time. Chris, are you trying to get bumped up into S2 or something?

2nd place winner Mike Shapiro really deserved the place for driving the heck out of his 2006 Honda Civic Si. It’s not common to see FWD cars really holding their own during a SpeedSF Challenge, but Mike proved the haters wrong this time around. 3rd place winner and all-around good guy Adam Fulton laid down a respectable 1:49.037 lap time in his 1995 BMW M3. Again, with a variety of cars in this class, it made for an interesting battle between chassis choices.

GROUP S4

The 4 drivers in this class didn’t pull back any punches with their cars. 1st place winner Seigo Ma and 2nd place winner Nathan Hackman were in a battle of showing who was the better S2k of the two. However, Seigo erased all doubt as he piloted his S2000 to a 1:45.419 lap time while Nathan had a 1:46.216 lap time, both great lap times from this chassis, given the class. 3rd place winner in a not-S2000, Charles Shultz, happily putted his Miata around Laguna with a 1:52.863 lap time. Very nice!

GROUP S5

With two drivers in this class, there could only be two winners! This legendary Miata class featured two really good drivers! 1st place winner George Kibilov put down a 1:46.699 lap time in his NC Miata while Eric Fernandez threw his hat in the ring with a 2nd place-worthy 1:49.781 lap time in an NB Miata! Can we get a couple more Miatas in the mix just for fun? Maybe some E30s?

CONCLUSION

A great job to the drivers who won their places and THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the SpeedSF Challenge! 

As we look forward to Round 11 of the SpeedSF Challenge at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA, we want to say that we truly appreciate our sponsors and participants as it would not be possible without them! 

We thank our Challenge sponsor Federal Tires, as well as SpeedSF Track events sponsors Wine Country Motorsports, G-Loc brakes, DBA USA, and Necksgen.

Our next SpeedSF Challenge will be held at Thunderhill Raceway on September 23, 2018. Again, please check out the event website by clicking here. We will see you at our next event!