Miles’ BRZ: Holistic Approach

Like so many of the Gran Turismo generation, Miles Kodama got his first taste of motorsports through the Playstation console, and then later through the mediums of television. After spending his high school years watching Top Gear, he had put an idea together of what his first performance car ought to be.

Miles’ first purchase, an E46 330i, might’ve been a higher mileage example, but it introduced him to the local BMW community. Some familiar names encouraged him to sign up for his first track event, which Miles duly did, but getting sideswiped by a drunk driver on I-880 prevented him from using the BMW on his track day foray.

“I got off OK, but the other guy crashed into the wall and ran off from the scene Oakland-style.”

The problem was that the car needed some work, and as he’d already paid for a ticket to Sonoma that wasn’t refundable, he had to improvise. Thanks to the kindness of his mother and a few carefully chosen words, he borrowed her convertible Mini Cooper – then with just 8,000 miles on the odometer – and used it to turn his first laps on track. The unavoidable consequence of thrashing a front-drive car surprised both the Mini service advisor and his mother, who couldn’t understand why driving to spectate at a race event would ruin her car’s front tires. Again, picking the right words makes all the difference when making a plea.

Still being a college kid with limited funds, Miles had to put his new interest on the back burner for some time until his finances improved. Sadly, that lull lasted a few years, during which Miles had to sell the BMW and instead drove a friend’s Astro van to school and later work.

Shortly thereafter, his dedication paid off and his well-deserved pay raise put him in a position to pick up where he left off. Earning a respectable salary put him in a position to pick up a newer, quicker car to make a concerted stab at track driving and fulfill the wish he’d been holding for the better part of a decade.

The year was 2016, and the interest rates played a large part in his decision. Between buying the two cars which fit his budget, an E46 M3 or a new BRZ, the latter’s appealing APR was what helped him choose. “I had to finance the car, so the manufacturer’s interest rate was the option that was kindest to my wallet. Additionally, I wouldn’t have to worry about old car problems; I’d fixed plenty of E46s to help pay my way through city college, and I was through with replacing rod bearings.”

One fortuitous offering left Miles utterly convinced that the BRZ was the way to be. At the time, Subaru offered a Performance Package for just $1,400. This consisted of bigger Brembo brakes, 17x7.5 wheels, and special Sachs dampers. The 2017 model also had a mid-cycle update with updated styling, more power, a higher ratio differential, a reinforced engine block, and a nicer interior.

Suddenly, all was progressing with a momentum of its own. After suffering through the break-in period, Miles’ colleagues invited him to join in on a track weekend. After so many years waiting, he was able to exercise that desire to drive, and his friends gave him several rabbits to chase.

However, their cars were so unlike his, he couldn’t help but wonder how he was stacking up as a driver. To get a better basis for comparison, he enrolled in the 86 Challenge.

Encouraged by its simple rules and one accepted model (at the time), he felt he’d be able to prove his mettle as a driver in this competitive series. Not surprisingly, the standard of competition was humbling, but rather than sulk, Miles took the opportunity to better himself and his machine.

“They were just fast! To be fair, I was running in the wrong class (Street) due to my aftermarket rear control arms, but even the guys in Stock class were way quicker than me.”

Even at that stage, his commitment couldn’t be questioned. Miles ran every event in his first season 2019 and placed fourth at the end of it. Being so close to standing on the podium stuck in his craw, though, as this was the position he’d found himself finishing in past go-karting races and robot combat matches. If he had a say in this new venture, he would work harder to ensure he finished at the sharp end of the pack.

“I’d finished fourth too many times – I had to win.”

To address his vehicular shortcomings, he made sure to make better use of the points allotted to him by installing a set of 17x9” WedsSport TC105X wheels wrapped in 245-section GT Radial SX-2s, Pagid RSL29 pads, as well as a set of Annex Clubspec Pro coilovers.

These mods alone would not make the difference, however. The simulator now played a daily role in his life, as did cycling sessions. Whenever a friend or a coworker suggested a few laps at K1 Speed, Miles was in. He monitored his diet, lapped as frequently as he could, and even enrolled in a few Drift SF classes to grow more comfortable with oversteer. Driving was no longer some confusing rubric; he’d grown comfortable enough to push and simultaneously assess his performance. Well, an AiM Solo helped a little in that regard, but the mental bandwidth had been freed up from learning the basics and now, fitter than ever and nearly 30 pounds lighter than when he started, he was ready to compete.

The holistic approach paid off, and at the end of the 2021, he finished second in the standings behind Tor Anderson. Being so close was bittersweet, but the result only strengthened his resolve.

For 2022, he committed to maxing out his available points with headers, a small wing, and E85 – all mods used by Tor the year before, minus the fuel. “It started to seem easy, if I’m being honest,” he admitted,” though I couldn’t rest; Timur Iskhodshanov kept me on my toes and was usually just a few thousandths behind me.”

At the end of the season, Miles finished first in the standings with seven first-place finishes and Timur behind with six second-place finishes. After three years of trying, Miles brought home the trophy he’d coveted for so long.

The competition was tougher the following year, with Timur now trading firsts with Miles and a new entrant, Quanli Xing, keeping everyone honest. Despite that, Miles prevailed again.

For 2024, he shifted his attention to a lingering worry in the back of his mind. With so many of the second-gen BRZs’ engines failing, he had to wonder if his number would be pulled in the near future.

Although his car had then performed 63 DEs without any real issues aside from blowing out his catalytic converter, he decided to safeguard himself from an expensive and embarrassing afternoon, he pulled the motor and inspected it. Much to his relief, it showed no wear, save for a few seeping points. Nevertheless, he took the opportunity to rebuild the bottom end with forged components and raise the compression ratio to 13.5:1 for another 10-20 estimated horsepower.

For the 2025 season, Miles aims to rejoin the 86 Challenge, but this time run in Touring class, where he can mix with his old sparring partner Tor Anderson and add a real aero kit to his car.

“Taking a Subaru BRZ or Toyota GR86 to the track reminds us it isn't about having the fastest car, but mastering what you have and growing as a driver. Modifying cars is part of the fun, but when combined with being humble, learning from others, and challenging yourself to be better, competing in the 86 Challenge became one of the most rewarding things I've ever done,” Miles concluded.

To follow Miles’ progress, visit his IG here.

Steven's McLaren 675LT: Hardly Fair Anymore

Four seconds faster. A whole four seconds faster after a couple sessions. That’s the amount of time Steven Melson cut off his previous best, set in a V10-powered R8, just after getting acquainted with his new car.

It was his coach who had been gushing about the McLarens he and his clients had been driving in recent months. Steven, though he hadn’t come close to purchasing a car of that caliber before, was beginning to wonder whether he should add one to his collection.

It took him over a year of maybes, mishaps, and genuine frustration—culminating in a trip to Texas to test one at COTA to get a feel before pulling the trigger. The car he was supposed to test, a Papaya Orange 675LT, was crashed by its owner just minutes before Steven was supposed to take it for a spin. Some would’ve given up on the idea then, but Steven’s coach had convinced him that one of these cars was worth holding out for.

A week later, the listing for another 675LT, this one finished in Chicane Grey, popped up in his inbox courtesy of a supportive friend. It didn’t take long before Steven made a decision.

At just 2,950 pounds, the 675LT is nearly a half-ton lighter than his Mercedes AMG GT and four hundred pounds lighter than his Audi R8 V10. Compared to the Audi, which now wears a set of Penske racing shocks, the McLaren is much more alert. “The weight difference is obvious,” Steven began.

Thanks to the carbon tub and the active suspension, the grip and lateral support is much better than the Audi’s, if maybe coming at the cost of a slightly duller feel. To improve matters, the McLaren’s quicker steering and sharper front end, as well as a more stable rear at higher speeds bolster Steven’s confidence and encourage him to push.

And its urgency is only part of its appeal. The power is savage, relentless, and genuinely shocking—I remember the first time I drove one, and I had to let out a few expletives after the boost hit. It can spin the wheels easily in third and sometimes fourth, yet the power is somehow controllable.

There aren’t many cars which will out-accelerate this surprisingly exploitable supercar.

Despite making the sort of power that few track cars can, the delivery is fairly linear and very controllable. “I don’t get the feeling of ‘Oh God, now the boost is on!’ Really, it’s not that intimidating,” he professed.

What does surprise him is the way which the McLaren decelerates. “The stopping power is amazing—so far beyond the Audi or the Mercedes. I’d usually overstep the mark in those two cars, but I haven’t found the limit yet in this. Every time I try to push the braking point later than what feels comfortable, it just stops,” he laughed.

And despite the systems providing him some form of safety net, the McLaren is exacting—so much so that he’s started augmenting a few mistakes the plusher, less demanding Mercedes let him get away with. “My coach told me to try and get back to the throttle earlier and earlier; it just takes it. In fact, it’s helped me work on my bad habit of coasting mid-corner,” he admitted. To get the rear settled early and softly has opened his eyes up to the dynamic differences between a hard-edged car like this and his relatively plush German machines he’d gotten used to.

To get a better sense of how these three differed, he took them all to the McLaren’s inaugural track day at the Thunderhill Bypass last December. After one day of familiarizing himself with the new car, Steven put in a searing lap of 1:51.5—four seconds faster than the best he’d managed in the Audi. That’s with an indicated 154 miles an hour on the front straight and a lot of mud on several parts of the track. If that’s not an indication of accessible speed, I’m not sure what is.

Being as quick as it is, he hasn’t really considered toying with the suspension much. He has, however, decided to extract a little more power from the M838 motor with a set of catless competition downpipes from Soul Performance and a tune from M-Engineering. On 100-octane fuel, these goodies should make another hundred wheel horsepower—another hundred wheel in a car which runs 10.3 in the quarter bone stock. “It’s probably all I’m gonna do for a while—I just wanna learn to drive it better, have fun, and beat some X records,” he admitted.

Sounds like a reasonable plan of action.

Near-Win at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill: Team Tazio Ottis Racing's Day-Long Battle

Four days before Friday’s Final Practice, Team Tazio Ottis Racing was treated to a reassuring practice at Sonoma Raceway with Speed SF Track Events. It had been the cherry on the sundae after a successful season in WERC E0.

The second year of competition had given Tazio and his team to sort out their FK8 Civic Type R. Their transmission, the FK8’s weak link, had been fortified with stronger third and fourth gears, which has served them well the whole season.

Concerned for the health of the drivetrain, they decided to cap the power at a healthy and reliable 300 horsepower and seek out more speed by reducing the total wet weight to 2,850 pounds with Seibon carbon parts and a titanium Remark exhaust. Along with that car, they had a team of four strong drivers: Tazio Ottis and Daniel Wu, the team’s regulars, aided by Patrick Chio (Speed SF) and Will Wattawongkiri (WRTeknica) for the 25.

Unfortunately, they seemed to have snagged a bad part. During final practice for the 25, third gear blew. After a successful season without gearbox issues, it came as a surprise.

The team was stretched thin hustling to repair the box with a used third gear—one with eighty race hours on it. The effort took them until 11:30 that night, and the delay had kept them from attending qualifying and relegated them to the last position on the grid. Thankfully, they had a long race ahead of them.

Rolling around to take the green flag in last, Will Wattawongkiri was feeling the weight on his shoulders. All of a sudden, the car wouldn’t move. It turned out the driveshaft wasn’t seated properly, so it came out and they brought the car back in the pits and lost six laps. Clearly they weren’t off the start that they wanted.

There was something to lift their spirits, though: the speed was there. Compared to their main rivals on the DIG Motorsport team, their pace was comparable and so their fuel economy was superior. Perhaps the Mustang’s dry performance was better, but things didn’t stay dry long enough for them to benefit much.

The weather was tricky; starting wet, staying wet, and eventually drying slowly, but the Honda was well suited to these conditions. An OS Giken differential and the added weight over the driven wheels helped when the track was slippery. All this was more impressive by the fact that the hasty gearbox repair kept them from getting a good alignment. As a result, they had to swap the fronts out every two hours.

With a prediction of thirty percent rain a little before midnight, they opted for their grooved Toyo RRs—their dry tires. “The difference in lap times was as much as twenty-three seconds, but it was a little risky to go to dries. The dry line was obvious, but it was extremely cold and wet off-line. Passing off the dry line would result in a massive loss of traction, so we had to pick their passes especially carefully,” Patrick said.

Thankfully, they gambled intelligently. In the slippery conditions, the Civic enjoyed a real advantage over the DIG Mustang, which struggled to put the power down. Additionally, the team’s overall pace—very similar across all four drivers— was not limited by the equipment. “We never had to soft pedal the whole race—we all pushed really hard,” Tazio noted.

TTOR were clawing their way back to the front of their race when the fuel started dropping to a worrying level and the fog rolled across the surface. When the fog was deemed thick enough to warrant postponing the race, they had to park the car on the front straight and leave it alone until the race resumed.

“We were catching up lap by lap until three in the morning when the fog rolled in. We were only two laps down when the race was stopped,” Patrick said.

Around 7 AM, the conditions were deemed acceptable for a restart. The team gathered around their new car and stuck Patrick Chio in the seat.

Their Type R had parked on the right side of the track and DIG’s Mustang had parked on the left. A prototype ahead stalled at the restart and boxed the left lane, though that hadn’t stopped the NASA marshall from continuing to wave the right line to move, resulting in a reshuffling of the grid that didn’t sit too well with the DIG team. However, the Civic needed to refuel and had to pit as soon as the green flag dropped. (Note: During a full course yellow condition, the pit lane is closed, prohibiting any team to do any work on their vehicles).

Around that time, DIG lodged a protest about passing during the restart, which Tazio and the team chose to debate initially, but did not persist in fighting the call. They accepted the compromise presented to them: a half-penalty drive through, which they served an hour afterwards.

Thankfully, they could make up for this minor setback. The similar pace among the TTOR drivers meant none of them had to double-stint. To improve matters, they could lap fast enough to push DIG’s fastest driver into running a triple stint and driving quite defensively. The Type R was catching up lap after lap and finally when, with Will Wattawongkiri at the wheel, they eventually passed the DIG Mustang in the twenty-third hour; giving them the class lead and a ninth-place-overall standing.

The actual action in some endurance races only lasts a dozen laps, but that was not the case here. Tazio enjoyed a multi-lap battle with DIG’s Michael Whelden. “Michael was making his car very wide and I was trying to get in his head by flashing my high beams. Honestly, that whole stint felt like a sprint race!”

Roughly one hundred minutes from the end, TTOR made their final pit stop. While stuck in the pits, the DIG Mustang regained the lead of E0, though they hadn’t yet pitted for refuel and we were aiming to repass them and lead the race til the end. They planned to pass; pace was still very strong—until third and fourth gear broke . They had to back off, using fifth in most places, minding the car, and watching their delta grow and grow.

Fifty minutes from the finish, they had to make a decision. “We could have continued running in fifth gear, but the transmission was making a lot of noise. We wanted to avoid blowing up the gearbox and leaving oil all over the track, so we decided to retire the car,” Patrick explained.

“It just made sense. Plus, we wouldn’t have been able to make up the deficit. It was the right thing to do at that point,” Tazio added.

“While we spent many hours in preparation for the race, picked great endurance components, hired a lineup of strong drivers, our team executed perfect pit stops, the 25 was not guaranteed—it never is. The mechanical failures during the last hour made our hearts sink, and we still feel the pain of losing—we were so close to crossing the finish line in first place,” Patrick reflected.

“We couldn’t have done it without our excellent crew and our sponsors. We’ve learned a lot about the car and the competition, and we’ll come back stronger next year.”

Thanks to all who supported TTOR:

Aventon E-Bikes

Honda Performance Development

Toyo Tires

Greddy

Seibon

Inozetek

Titan 7 wheels

Paragon Performance Brakes

Clutch Masters

Hybrid Racing

PTP Turbo Blankets

OS Giken

APR Performance

Remark Exhaust

Student Driver

Speed SF

WRTeknica