Speed SF Challenge Laguna Seca: New Surface, New Records

Ideal weather and a massive turnout of thirty competitors at the last round of the Speed SF Challenge guaranteed some action. Sure enough, we saw new records in several categories. Though some of the newfound speed was due to the recent repave, our Challenge drivers were in stellar form that weekend, and their onboards prove that.

In S1, Steve Melson and his Audi R8 broke the S1 record that had been standing for five years, set back in 2018 by Andrie Hartanto in a C6 Z06. Steve took advantage of the stellar weather and logged a 1:34.081 — a new record that any driver should be proud of—in a car that looks nearly stock. Such is the performance of the second-generation R8.

In S2, Kai Anderson reset Peter Hsu’s Chevy Corvette record by seven tenths. Anderson ran a 1:34.8 to Hsu’s 1:35.7, but not before suffering through a few frustrating sessions. By the end of the day, he cooled his jets long enough to find a gap and avoid slower cars. “My main challenge was recovering from a poor qualifying. There was a good turnout for this event which was great, but it meant the morning sessions were a little crowded, so I ended up only qualifying 7th fastest overall. I recovered to 4th fastest overall in the Challenge session, so mission accomplished, but my fastest lap didn't come until lap 5 because I kept having to abort laps due to catching traffic.

I didn't really have any specific goals for the weekend; mostly just evaluating what is still a relatively new car to me on a newly resurfaced racetrack. Overall, I was impressed with both. I think the changes to Laguna really inspire confidence to push for that optimal lap without creating a different line that requires total abuse of track limits.

The Camaro is perfect for Laguna, with prodigious power, cooling, and brakes to match. There is definitely still some laptime to come from this pair. Crossing my fingers December is dry!”

In S3, Spencer Kimball put in a serious effort to try and beat Kevin Schweigert’s S3 record of 1:36.0.

“I went into this event with some reservations knowing that my M3, with limited torque, was not at its best on Laguna’s straights. Laguna is also the one local track that I drive the least, but I made sure to try and get some practice in before the Challenge weekend. I lucked out and a friend lent me his pass for an event the weekend before, where I ran a low 1:37 after a year-long Laguna hiatus. I looked over my data and saw that a mid-35.xx would be possible, but I went into the Challenge event with the goal of breaking into the 36s. 

I knew that I had my work cut out for me as my main competition, Legend Brandenburg in his A90 Supra, benefits from ~200 more ft/lbs more than my E92 has. Luckily I was able to run a mid 1:36 during sessions 1 and 2, which put giving me a good spot for the challenge session. I studied my data to figure out where I needed to commit, and it was clear that the faster corners were where I could push harder to find somet time. I ended up running a 1:36.5 in the Challenge by carrying more speed through T5, T6, and T8, which was enough to make me the fastest in S3.”

In the end, Kimball was just 1/2s off of Schweigert’s lap, which Schweigert set in a car weighing 500 pounds less with comparable power levels. Not too shabby.

Gary Wong still has a little bit of work to do in the Supra to find the second between him and Dave Colbert’s 1:31.5 Group X record. The infamous purple Supra had its engine tweaked slightly to reduce power cuts, but heat is still an issue which Wong has to deal with. Thankfully, the team has a solution—though they won’t be able to use it until the next weekend.

“It was a fun weekend. I mainly wanted to sample the new track surface and see where I could push more than before. Because of how bad the stupid bump at T1 is, I wasn’t able to hit our sub-30 target times, although that had something to do with to traffic and some electrical gremlins. Because of some overheating issues, we had to lower the power level to complete the full lap. Thankfully, we know the issues and the solutions and we’ll come back stronger.”

Gunning for the S4 record, Nate Hackman’s put in an incredible 1:39.7, less than one-tenth off of Sean Yepez’s record, in what appears to be a very mildly modified car without any aerodynamic goodies. The primo parts are under the skin, though: his Ohlins TTX coilovers help his S2000 handle better than most. A last-minute setup change reduced some of the oversteer in the car, so Hackman could commit to the faster corners easily.

“Up until that weekend, I had only mustered high 41s at Laguna. With the repave running faster and a few changes to the car I figured I'd run a second or two faster, but tried not to overthink it with goals and just go have fun. Luckily, I was able to cook off a number of 39s with some definite room for improvement. I was still a tenth off Sean's pre-repave lap record which was a little disappointing, but I knew he'd come back and crush any record I set, and was still very happy to crack into the 39s with no aero and take home a win with an underbuilt car.”

In S5, Tony Rodriguez’s 1:45.2 record seems untouchable. Maybe we need another all-out MR2 to chase Rodriguez’s old S2000 down. In the meantime, we’ll have to tip our hats to our talented drivers taking advantage of the new pavement and pushing themselves hard enough to keep all the Speed SF Challenge competitors on their toes. When times continue to tumble like they have been, none of the Challenge competitors can coast, boast, or rest on their laurels.

Tailai's Supra: Keep it Simple, Keep it Sane

Started tracking in 2018 after moving to the States to study at UC Davis. Being an undergrad student, Tailai time was booked solid. Even so, he had an image of Sonoma Raceway, an image he’d had in his mind since playing Gran Turismo in his early teens, and he knew he’d have to find a way to experience it.

With no real knowledge of the trackday landscape, he booked a three-day advanced driving course at the Simraceway Performance Driving Center, where he was able sample the circuit and the strengths of his daily, an E92 M3. “I didn’t know anything then, so I kept the stock pads and went to drive. The only thing I added was a big wing, because it was cool.

The car was stable and forgiving, and the classes went off without a hitch. The subsequent visits to the track weren’t always failure-free, though. “Whenever I tried to push, something broke.” He endured the bills and, without much of a racing education, he started modding the car to make more power — something entirely predictable. He slapped on a VF supercharger and, after it was installed incorrectly, he blew the motor.

Disappointed, he sought out something reliable with more tuning potential. He didn’t like how American cars drove, so no Camaro. The atmospheric BMW engines weren’t all that interesting to him, but the potential of some of the turbo cars caught his eye.

“I first bought the Verus full aero, which I now see was foolish. I should’ve started with suspension, but the aero kit was too cool to ignore,” he laughed.

He didn’t exactly settle on another car from the same marque, but he wasn’t far off. After finding an impressive deal on a 2021 Supra, he pulled the trigger.

The first outing in it, he left it completely stock. Very capable already—capable of lapping Sonoma in the 1:53s. By this time, he’d started studying what would keep his ass in the seat and what would drop times the fastest.” I wanted the car to be reliable, so I didn’t touch the powerplant. There were more important things to change.”

Maybe the pleasure of seeing the car kitted out was the right move, because it wouldn’t let him down like his first set of coilovers would. The first set of KW Clubsports broke after a few days. Fortunately, his growing social media presence helped him secure a more track-oriented setup; KW reached out and offered him a set of Competition coilovers.

Then, seeing how easily he was squeezing noticeable performance from the package, he got a little smarter with his tuning approach. He hit the books hard and called on his years of building soccer robots for RoboCup Junior. With his analytical mind whirring away, Tailai could not ignore the way Supra’s weight was working against him. “Weight savings starts out cheap, but it gets pricey pretty quickly,” he admitted. Just by pulling the carpets, seats, adding a cheap Chinese fiberglass hood, and changing the battery, he trimmed an impressive 200 pounds from the car, and only spent an afternoon a few hundred dollars.

Less mass saves some strain on the binders, which don’t need too much help. Pads from CSG, stock rotors and calipers, a basic ducting kit, and even with Goodyear Supercar 3Rs and the aero loading, the brakes last an entire session without fade.

Mods were kept minimal. A set of SPL control arms for more camber and toe adjustment, a Sparco bucket seat, and a chopped exhaust rounded out the short list. Fortunately, the A90 just doesn’t need much help from the factory — just a sportier alignment:

With Jackie Ding’s advice, he increased front camber to -3 degrees, increased the rear to -2.8, set the front toe at 0, and, to minimize some of the bump steering, a smidge of rear toe-in. About 0.3 degrees, actually.

Tuning took some time to understand, but like his choice in modifications, he fumbled his way through it until he could learn enough to make the right decisions. “At first, I had the rear wing angle turned up to the max before adding the splitter, so at 8 at Thunderhill East, the car just went straight. That scared me. After that, I started to read up on aero balance.”

After adding a splitter and trimming out the rear wing, he found a sweet spot that gives him some reassuring push in faster corners. Combine that with a car that is easily rotated on throttle in the slower corners, and it’s not hard to see why he’s gone so much faster in the span of a year.

“As soon as I touch the throttle, I like it to rotate a little,” he explained.

And with that, he had a platform he could take to the track and run lap after lap. It’s super reliable. After forty-minute sessions at Thunderhill in 100F weather, the brakes and the engine remain cool. The Supra is happy to take the abuse.

His dedication to the craft, complemented by his studious approach and background in robotics helped him go from a total novice to someone fighting at the front of Speed SF Challenge’s S2 class in just two years. You don’t make that progress without cracking the books and being a little ingenious. Now pursuing his PHD in electrical engineering, he is confident he took the right path. “If you don’t have a budget to hire an engineer, you have to learn to do it yourself.”

Tailai has done most of the work in his garage. “From chassis tuning, I gained probably two seconds.”

And although he sees the importance in building a dependable, approachable, reliable car, he knows that racing is not just an engineering exercise. It takes practice, physical fitness, and coordination. So, after he adds the new Spage aero, the rest will come down to him. “There’s still a lot more potential there that I’m not getting. Honestly, I’m still a pretty bad driver,” he said.

For someone who’s currently lapping Sonoma in the 1:45s, but had no idea what an apex was a few years ago, that is a masterpiece of self-effacement. Not everyone advances this quickly in the sport, but Tailai’s taken the sensible approach and put track time first. If that isn’t a compelling case for reliability, I don’t know what is.

Showdown at Sonoma: Battle Between the Fastest Stateside A90 Supras

They’d known each other from the forums and hours on the phone, but they hadn’t met in person. For the last few years, both Jackie Ding and Will Kwok have developing some of the fastest A90 Supras in the country, and only recently were about to partake in some friendly competition.

Jackie’s PhD Racing Supra, now famous online thanks to his growing YouTube channel, caught the attention of Will in 2019. “Will quickly became a huge supporter of PhD Racing Lab and is now our biggest customer. He’s always a great guy to talk to, so he was one of the first people I told I was coming out to the West Coast. Naturally, we started talking about a little battle when I was there,” Jackie told us.

It was Gary Wong, Will’s hired hotshoe, who supplied Jackie with Speed SF’s schedule. Jackie picked the dates that interested him, and the two decided to have themselves a duel. If Jackie couldn’t finish more than a half second ahead of Gary at Gary’s home track, he’d have to buy dinner.

Footwork

Since Will got most of his pointers from Jackie, perhaps first real time attack driver to develop the A90 Supra in the U.S., the parts used on the two cars aren’t that different. Both share most of the SPL catalog available for the A90, including the SPL front lower control arms, SPL adjustable front caster rods, SPL rear toe links and eccentric lockouts, SPL bumpsteer correction kit, SPL rear traction links, SPL rear upper lateral links, and SPL front swaybar endlinks. There are a few notable differences, though; Jackie’s car sports the Reinharte two-ways coilovers while Will’s is on MCS three-ways.

Powerplants

Supras have a certain reputation to live up to, and both these cars do that with over 1,200 combined horsepower. Jackie’s B58 is improved with VP MS109 direct injection and a Garrett GTX3076R Gen 2 as part of the AMS Alpha 6 turbo kit. The total output: somewhere in the 650-horsepower range.

Will has explored a little more of his motor’s potential. His sports the Pure800 turbo, flex fuel, and port injection,—enough for 700 horsepower at the real wheels, depending on power map. The power outputs are similar, but Jackie has to leave a little on the table as his gearbox hasn’t been built, unlike Will’s.

Though slightly heavier, Will’s car is a little faster on the straights due to a stronger gearbox and another fifty horsepower.

For both Sonoma and Laguna, both cars sported the same tires: 275/40/18 CSR. However, the grip levels provided varied due to weight and aerodynamics. Jackie’s car-driver combination is somewhere around 150-200 pounds lighter than Gary and the purple car, and the configuration of wings and splitters are different enough to provide very different characters. While Will’s car has the Spage V1 front splitter, Jackie’s has the V2. Both running the Spage SP012 68” swan neck GT wing, but Jackie’s wing is mounted slightly lower for a less understeery setup.

Similar setups, similar parts—that would be the case since Will has relied on Jackie for tuning advice. However, their design ethos differ somewhat. Jackie’s car is much more suited to the high-speed stuff, while the purple car is more compliant, more squishy, and better suited to the slower tracks on the West Coast.

Subtle Differences OVER one Lap

For the first half of Sonoma, Gary held the edge. The bumps in Turn 1 were tough, but when it came to hard braking and high-speed direction changes, as in Turns 7 and the 8/8A esses, Jackie and his slightly pointer car pushed ahead. Turn 10 obviously favored the aero grip of the red car, but it wouldn’t be fair to say it was as simple as turning the wheel and matting it. As we can see in the footage below at 8:53, a little braking too late and adding a little too much throttle after the speed change prior to Turn 10 caused a moment which might’ve given Jackie a little heart palpitation. Without a doubt, Sonoma is a driver’s track that Jackie had to learn in a hurry.

“Their car handled the bumps better, so in sector 1 at Sonoma, Gary definitely had an edge on us. Our car, being more stiffly sprung and heavy on compression, is a really high-speed focused aero car. While we lost a little in Sector 1, we gained that back in Sector 3’s high-speed esses,” Jackie elaborated.

“I was surprised with the braking performances. We were both running the same CSG pads, but I think I had more confidence in my brakes, even though I’ve only got a Stoptech Trophys on the front axle. Will’s car has APs 9660s front and rear. I think the big reason for that was our more advanced front splitter; having that extra downforce gives us extra front grip under braking,” he added.

At the end of the day, the main difference was in downforce. Both cars produce comparable grunt and share the same footprint, but subtle changes in aero balance and perhaps a slightly svelter shape gave Jackie a slight edge around Sonoma, though it’s only fair to mention he’s been developing this car longer and driving it a lot more. Still, nobody felt shortchanged at the end of that glorious day. Sonoma’s not the easiest of tracks, and it definitely doesn’t suffer fools, and to put that much power to the road through moderately sized tires and not crash is an accomplishment in itself. Dinner looks cheap after the cost of a smashed carbon clamshell.