So, what have we been doing to the car during the off-season? We’ve learned a lot last year and obviously we tried to implement what we learned and hope to see it bears some results in 2010 racing season.

Firstly, we made some improvements to our engine mounts. The reason is because our new header, will not clear the existing Hasport mount. With the help of Hasport, we modify a few Hasport off-the-shelf mounts so our new header fits well. In addition we were able to shed about 10 lbs.

In engine department, we changed the header, intake manifold, air intake box and lots and lots of dyno tuning trying to extract as much power as we can.

Of course we do not neglect the chassis. We went over and made improvements to our suspension and we needed to make the car lighter if we want to be competitive in Honda Challenge H1. We are way overweight with a minimum weight of 2770 lbs, compared to allowable 2450 lbs + 75 lbs (remote canister damper), + 30 lbs (cage) = 2,555 lbs. With a lot of work, we were able to lower the minimum weight to 2725 lbs.

Few days ago, the crew and I get to do final preparation and play with our newest tool, geometry plates! I saw this first used by a few ALMS teams. Obviously theirs, looks much better and much more expensive, but ours works as well. This tool enable us to do alignment more accurate and quicker. All the arms and any adjustment can be reached without crawling under the car or have to remove wheels or other parts.

All of this changes are still within the rule of Honda Challenge H1 class.  While we are able to extract more power, everyone else will be able do the same, and we are still at a disadvantage being the heaviest chassis with 170 lbs over the minimum weight. Hopefully by doing a lot of development, we can stay ahead of the curve, thus the competition.

Fast forward a few years to 2003, when Andrie and I both started to race competitively.  Andrie chose Honda Challenge while I took up Spec Miata.  In 2005, we both raced in U.S. Touring Car (Andrie in a Honda Civic and me in a BMW 328).  The highlight of that year was the exciting inaugural San Jose Grand Prix where we ran as high as 4th (Andrie) and 7th (me) before crashes late in the race claimed both our cars.

This year, I’m looking forward to teaming up with Andrie and the entire Prima Racing crew, learning more about racing and improving my skills at driving a FWD race car, and generally having a good time with the team.  If you see us at the track, we hope you’ll stop by our paddock area and say hi.

We still wasn’t sure of what the cause of the blew up in August. I do think there is a strong possibility that my 02 sensor was failing during tuning and we’ve been running lean. The pistons was sent to the lab but the result was inconclusive.

2009 has proved to be one of the most challenging year for us. We have improved tremendously since last year, which is the first year with the Acura TSX. We have great success in USTCC series, which netted us the championship title. We, however have not, been successful in our only try at Speed World Challenge. We do learned a lot throughout the year. We plan to implement what we learned to further ourselves in 2010 racing season.

It is now December, the off season, which is one of the busiest days for us. This is the time where we are doing behind the scene part in motor sport. Firstly, the car got torn apart, go over, and refresh. Then we went back to drawing board. Try to improve the car from the stuff we learned throughout the year. That means designing new parts, make changes, rid of all the stuff that don’t work, and put new parts that we think will improve the car. All in the pursue of speed.

The other part is the toughest part of motor sport, finding sponsors and partners so we can, not only continue racing next year, but progress and grow each year. Most of our sponsors and partners have been with us for a while. Redzone Performance has been a partner since 2005. Next year will mark the 6th successful year we are together. Supertech Performance, Rota Wheels and Wicked Tuning joined us in 2006. They too renew their commitments for 2010, which will be our 5th year together. Carbotech Brakes, Stitch Tech Designs and HASport had agreed in continuing our 4th year together.

We are proud to have a long term relationships with our sponsors and partners. It is a testament on our partners’ and sponsors’ products as well as our value as marketing tools for them. Together we’ve proved to be a strong entity and our success is a direct results from our collaboration together. We hope to continue and grow together year after year and to add new partners and sponsors for our 2010 season.

There are few changes in 2010 for Prima Racing. Telly Chang is joining the team and will be sharing driving duties. Telly came from racing in Spec Miata. However, this won’t be Telly first experience in front wheel drive race cars. We are excited to have Telly on board.

Finally, we want to wish you a very Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hope the season has been great and we’re looking forward to 2010 racing season.

The Prima Racing team of Hartanto/Lepper led the championship by a comfortable margin and only needed to finish in 6^th place to capture the championship.  However, being the competitive racers that they are, they were not satisfied with just sitting back and cruising to the finish to take the championship.  They went out to win the race and fought the entire weekend to take the win and capture the championship in convincing fashion.

For the final race of the season, USTCC introduced an extended race, or a short endure race.  Instead of the usual 25 minutes race, they ran a 2 hour race.  This weekend also marked the first time that Hartanto drove a Chevy Cobalt because the Acura TSX was damaged and couldn’t be repaired in time (Read our Speed World Challenge Season Finale blog).

The race was tough and the win didn’t came easy, as Andy Chittum in his BTM Motorwerks BMW jump to an early lead while Tom Lepper dropped back to 4^th place in the early stint.  A yellow flag near the end of Lepper’s stint brought the field back together.  When Hartanto got in the car, he was within striking distance of Chittum.  With a consistent drive and lightning quick pit work by the crew, Hartanto was able to take the lead and eventually the win.

We are thrilled to end the season on a high note after the disappointing Speed World Challenge weekend.  The championship wouldn’t have been possible without the support from our sponsors.  Please support our team by taking the time to check out our sponsors.

We’ve learned a lot this season and are looking forward to another successful 2010 season.

There wasn’t any expected rain during the weekend although the weather jumped from hot and cold sporadically throughout the days as the sun turned off and on like a light switch in a lamp store.

Thursday was a shake down and getting familiar with the track.  We spent most of the days just trying to maximize driver-track time and familiarizing with the track.

As the practice session for Touring Cars approached on Friday, there was a build up of nervousness in anticipation for the World Challenge race. It was just around the corner.  The first practice session of the day was strictly a test and tune session. The laps turned were not continuous because we had pitted every two laps for various reasons. First was to break in new brake pads to be used throughout the weekend. The crew swapped brake pads in the hot pit during the session, even though the brakes were extremely hot…hot enough to burn holes through our mechanic’s gloves. Second was to take tire pressures and temperatures. This data wasn’t necessarily used for tweaks but it was to show the consistency of heat distribution throughout the tire. This ensured that our camber and toe settings were in spec. The third reason for the pitting was for tweaking suspension settings given Hartanto’s driver input. The rear dampers were adjusted throughout the session to Hartanto’s liking.

Hartanto was making 1:40.xx laps around the track. As he was driving, Hartanto was tweaking break bias during the session. However, towards the end of the session, Hartanto put too much brake bias in the rear causing the car to swing out, sending the car into the dirt. This ended our practice session. We are about 2 seconds off the pace from the front runner, but it was good news that we are making progress as we were in 1:41.xx lap times yesterday.

After a few minor repairs to the suspension and a swap out of the damaged front splitter for a new one, the car was ready to go on its last practice session. With the car set-up close to where Hartanto felt he could pull quicker lap times, we were all confident that, finally, we had the car in check…….until the eighth lap. Hartanto radioed in that the car’s engine is broken, again. The Laguna Seca Curse wasn’t going to let us go THAT easily. So once again, the car’s brought back to the pits. There we find out that a few valves had broken (read about the first one in our August 26 blog). The tip had completely disconnected from the stem, but luckily it didn’t damage the engine head too much. Still the engine couldn’t be run anymore. So the rest of the day (and night) was spent taking out the old motor and replacing it with the spare. Throughout the swap, frustration fueled with disappointment, exhaustion, and an emptying tank of patience really tested the team’s ability to work together. By focusing on getting the car ready and not dwelling on the small stuff, team Prima Racing were able to get it done in six hours and everyone was back to joking around.

The next day was qualifying day. We were running a new motor and new tires. Two laps into qualifying and the crew’s morale was quickly high again as Hartanto was clocking in consistent 1:39.xx laps, only a second off from where we wanted to be and finishing 13^th with a 1:39.164. Now that we knew the car had the potential, we were quick to get it back to the pits and have it on stand-by for tomorrow. Surprise, surprise, when we get there we discover another head-scratcher. The fourth cylinder wasn’t firing, yet we were producing 15 more horsepower. Wayne, Chris and Jimmy tried to figure out what was wrong, but couldn’t finalize on anything. Best the team could do was just get the car prepped, checked, and cleaned for the race.

Race day finally arrived. We’re moved to the back of the grid due to a break in supervision the previous day when one of the officials had to be pulled aside during the troubleshooting work on the engine. Four laps in and Andrie radios to the crew that we may have lost another engine. A few moments later, he realizes the car is still running and notifies that the car engine is fine, but 4^th gear is lost. For the rest of the race, he’ll have to try to hang on to his position in the race with the handicap.

There was plenty of action happening throughout the race as well. James Clay in the No. 36 BimmerWorld/GearWrench BMW 328i makes contact with the No. 75 MAZDASPEED/Stoptech/ProParts MAZDA6 of Chip Herr on lap eight at the Andretti hairpin. Scott Webb No. 18 Scion tC/Jackson-Dawson Communications and Andrew Gillis No. 23 Ford Focus L Gillis Motorsports/AIT Racing also make contact with each other, causing Gillis’ rear axle to break and forcing him to retire halfway into the race.

Even though Hartanto wasn’t able to utilize 4^th gear, which is especially important as it is used very often, yet he still managed to remain in 13^th in front of Sage Marie driving the No. 43 Realtime Acura TSX till the finish with the fastest lap time of 1:39.847.

So after 50 minutes of the Speed World Challenge Touring car race at Monterey Raceway Laguna Seca, the No. 8 Prima Racing/Redzone Performance Acura TSX completed its debut. From technical difficulties, the test of the bonds within the team, and the ability to get back on the track after so many set backs, the weekend was by all means a reflection of the accumulated experiences and hard work gathered from all the previous races. And it all wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the team of Prima Racing, the staff at Redzone Performance, and the support of our sponsors. Please support us by supporting our sponsors. If there are any parts you would like to buy, you can either contact us or contact all our sponsors directly.

You can find pictures from this event here.

See you all next time after we return from our run at Infineon Raceway for NASA’s USTCC series.

Because of the elevation and the fact that the track’s considered a high speed track, the forced induction vehicles are favored. Pete Bovenberg of Team MBO swapped cars for this purpose and piloted a turbo Chevy Cobalt. In fact, more than half had forced induction of some sort. But even with these odds Team Prima Racing/RedZone Performance had high hopes thanks to our own secret weapon. In anticipation of the power deficiency we installed a different, more powerful engine in our Acura TSX for this weekend.

Early in practice, half the field encountered problems of some sort. The first victim is our own. Hartanto radioed in mid-way through his first practice session, reporting what’s possibly a flat rear-left tire. Ten seconds later he radioed in again saying something’s broken…and it’s serious. He clould barely keep the car straight going only 10 miles per hour. The car’s brought back to the pits and we find out that we had a suspension failure: the sleeve on the upright has pulled out, and the camber arm is no longer connected. This put a tremendous force on the shock and broke the bottom mount. To make matters worse, we don’t have a spare. However, the team was quick to locate a part and have it shipped overnight. Our day, as hopeful as it was, ended prematurely.

Problem on first session

Other teams also encountered problems. Team BTM Motorwerks managed to break all their engine and transmission mounts. Vince Parker’s Mini broke a pulley, and McColligan’s Mazda RX8 is having overheating issues.

While we could not partake on the practice, we followed it closely. The new team of Cruise America Mini Cooper S has been topping the time sheet. They are posting impressive times, and a clear 1 second ahead of the closest guy. It might have been home field advantage since they are local to Utah and the other teams were still learning the track. It’s also an interesting note that the 2^nd to 5^th were very close. They are Curt Simmons, Andy Chittum, Pete Bovenberg and Rich Peterson.

Friday morning and the parts arrived. The crew of Jimmy Chilcott and Wayne Sausa quickly got to work and replacing the broken part, putting the car on the setup pads and doing the alignment. After a flurry of tools combined with blood, sweat, and cursing here and there, we were able to make the first qualifying. All the hardwork by the team paid off when Hartanto promptly put the Acura TSX on provisional pole in first qualifying with an impressive time of 2:11.735. Over a second from second place of Pete Bovenberg in the Chevy Cobalt. Owen Trinkle with the Cruise America Mini Cooper S is third with 2:14.154 and the Andy Chittum, who is running second in championship points in 4^th with 2:14.937.

In second qualifying, Hartanto again topped the time chart with 2:12.198. Bovenberg is 2nd with 2:13.377 and Owen Trinkle is 3^rd with 2:14.093. More importantly, Andy Chittum, our closest rival in championship hunt is 6^th with 2:16.478. The grid is set. Hartanto will start on pole followed by Bovenberg, Trinkle, Chittum and Peterson.

Hartanto quickly pulled away from the start followed by Bovenberg, Trinkle and Simmons. There is, however an incident on the first lap, and the field bunched back up. At the restart Bovenberg was able to take the lead. This however was short lived as Hartanto quickly hunted him down and passed for the lead a lap later. Hartanto put on a clinic and pulled away from the field and took the checkered flag for a recorded 4^th win for the season. Bovenberg is second followed by Trinkle rounding the podium spot. Hartanto is in commanding lead, given Chittum finished 4^th.

Next round will be Buttonwillow Raceway. Unfortunately, neither Hartanto or the Acura TSX will compete there, as we will be competing in Speed World challenge at Laguna Seca. Tom Lepper will be competing on behalf of the team with his Chevy Cobalt.

Thanks to all our sponsors and partners. Please support us by supporting our sponsors. If there is any parts you would like to buy, you can contact us or contact all our sponsors directly.

]]> http://www.prima-racing.com/round-5-ustcc-at-miller-motorsports-park/feed/ http://www.prima-racing.com/andrie-blog-august-26-kablamo/ http://www.prima-racing.com/andrie-blog-august-26-kablamo/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:54:22 +0000 andrie http://www.prima-racing.com/?p=292

Cool night picture

I’m skipping the race report this month as we are not concentrating in Honda Challenge this season, and we are using it to test for World Challenge. The objective of this test, is to try several options that are presented to us and see which one is more advantageous to us. We come fully prepared and brought all our equipments, including setup pads and scales.

All that went to shit really quickly. The first lap on the warm up session the car went kablamo.   We haven’t even got to push it yet, as I was keeping the rev in check until we know for sure everything is ok.  We didn’t bring any spare engine, as this is a brand new engine.  In the effort to make the swap as quickly as we can, we split up duties among the crew.  Wayne heads the engine removal process helped by Ken and Chris.  Me, Jimmy and Jeff went back to RedZone, which is 2.5 hours away to pick up the engine.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish in time to make the day race.  Our entire plan for the weekend pretty much went down the drain.

Bits and pieces what once was a piston

Jimmy and Jeff working at night

Sunday, everything went much better.  The car ran flawlessly, as far as the engine goes.  The chassis setup, however, left a lot to be desired.  We ran with last race at Fontana for Tom setup.  It really didn’t suit my driving style.  Because of the tight schedule on Sunday, we couldn’t really do much and just tried a few minor things, but couldn’t get where I’m happy with it.  The car understeer mid corner to exit.  We have some idea to try next, but I don’t think we are doing any more testing between now and Miller.  Hopefully, we will figure it out the first few days in Miller or we might loose our championship lead in USTCC.

The engine blowing up also gives us a new problem.  First we are already cash strapped.  With the engine problem we are deeper into the hole.  I got to make a few phone calls to see if we can raise some funds, or I don’t think we will be making October World Challenge race.  If you guys have any sponsorship lead, throw it my way, will you?

I’ve always know that each driver have different style of driving and usually mean slightly different setup.  However, this weekend really opened my eyes.  We brought my car to Auto Club Speedway with my setup from last race at Infineon Raceway.  To me, the car is slightly loose in the beginning but tighten up and great halfway through the race. However, to Tom, the car is too loose that is nearly impossible for him to drive.

The changes we did to the car to have Tom comfortable with the car is very significant.  The changes works and he managed to record fastest lap of the race.   However,  I suspect, with Tom’s setup, I would complained of severe understeer.  We’ll find out the next race weekend, as I plan to leave the setup the way it is and try it for myself.  In the end it is about making the car comfortable to the driver and each driver has different prefference.

Team Eyesore Racing from 24Hr Lemons race

Last weekend I attended Lemons race at Buttonwillow Raceway.  As a driver, I fail to see the attraction of Lemons race.  You are driving a shitty car, bad setup, and with a bunch of frills that does nothing but slow the car down.  You are also sharing the track with a bunch of people that has never driven in the race track before.  No doubt for seasoned racer, it is like men among boys.  That being said, I was curious.  A few of my close friends wanted to do it.  Since I enjoy hanging out with them, I said why not.  The scene itself is pretty interesting.  People comes up with some weird idea.  It is definitely one of the things which would be fun to see for a short period of time or maybe participate once.  In the end, I didn’t even get to drive as the car broke 4 hours into the event.

Next week is Honda Challenge race for me.  I will be doing a bunch of testing in preparation for Speed World Challenge in October.  It will be a busy weekend for the team as I aniticipate that we will be trying a few things we have not tried before.  Will be fun, or can be frustrating, we’ll see.

Round 4 of Nitto tires USTCC were held at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.  This is the only roval in the schedule this year.  The weather for this weekend is sunny and hot and expected to be in 100 degrees.  Championship leader, Team Prima Racing of Hartanto and Lepper is looking for another win to maintain their unbeaten streak.  While second place, Team BTM Motorwerks and Andy Chittum is gunning for his first win in the series.  Curt Simmons, which is in distant third this weekend has a strongest chance to win, given the track favor a big HP car such as his Dodge Neon SRT Turbo.

Inside the trailer with spare engine and transmission

The past 3 races, Team Prima Racing Acura TSX had been piloted by Andrie Hartanto.  This weekend, however, it will be piloted by Thomas Lepper for the first time this season.  Tom Lepper is past champion and seasoned driver with tons of experience in various cars.  Lepper is up to the challenge and will try to make the upset by beating the heavy favorite, Simmons with his Dodge Neon SRT Turbo.

Chittum took to the top of the time sheet early in practice.  Simmons slot in second place but fighting mechanical gremlins all morning.  Lepper followed in third, progressing every minute, followed closely by McColligan in his Mazda RX8.

First Qualifying, bad luck hit Chittum, as he lost 5^th gear and was only able to post time over 2 seconds of his best in practice.  Simmons jump into provisional pole, followed by Lepper.  McColligan again slot into 4^th, while Rich Peterson rounding the top 5.

Second Qualifying showed Chittum back with a vengeance and posted fastest lap time for the weekend and snatched the pole position from Simmons, with only .05 time difference in combined qualifying time.  Lepper is comfortably in 3^rd followed by McColligan in 4^th and Rich Peterson rounding the top 5.

BTM Motorwerks BMW 328i

While lining up for the standing start, Simmons stalled and initially couldn’t get his car started.  This put other cars to take his hard earned front row and he has to start from 4^th place.  This however doesn’t matter much as the turbo power propel him to reclaim the lead before the field hit turn 1.  The top 3 quickly break away and jog for position.  Chittum was able to grab the lead a few laps later, and few moments later, Lepper was able to get passed Simmons.  Simmons fought back and was able to re-pass Lepper and Chittum to reclaim the lead.  The top 3 juggle position throughout the race, but Simmons prevailed and captured his first win for the season.  Chittum finished second, followed by Lepper rounding the top 3.

Team Prima Racing still lead the championship points.  Round 5 is at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.  Hartanto will be back piloting the car.

Thanks to all our sponsors and partners.  Please support us by supporting our sponsors.  If there is any parts you would like to buy, you can contact us or contact all our sponsors directly.

I’ll start by letting you guys know that we will loose one of our valuable team member, Charlee Xiong. He is leaving us to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma with his family to possibly do chicken farming. I couldn’t believe it when I heard about it. I have no idea he is so sick and tired to do automotive stuff! Charlee has been with us the longest, out of all our team member.  He rose to the rank and was last year crew chief.  He has a vibrant personality and always bring the team spirit up, on and off the track.  We wish him good luck and success in his future endeavor, even if it is chicken farming. He will be greatly missed by all of us.

This year has been challenging for us. With the economy downturn effecting everyone including us, our partners and sponsors. Our budget has decreased substantially and this slows our progress down. This bugs me more than anything, not being able to move as fast as we like.  I love working on cars, and love the challenges the development stage presents.  Must be the engineer and competitive nature of me.

Given all the challenges, support by our fans and sponsors are more important than ever.   I took pride that we only use products that we truly believe.  This speaks volume to our sponsors and our partners.  Risking myself to sound like a salesman, I’m urging you, our readers and fans to go out and buy their products.  Better yet, you can buy the products through us, so we get percentage that can go to the team budget.

It is no secret that our main goal is to participate in more Speed World Challenge races.   For me, it is not enough to just participate.  I want to be competitive and eventually fight for the win.  Unfortunately, we are still far away from being competitive.  The car is not yet up to speed.  We, the team, are constantly working on it and made good improvements through out the year.  However, the improvements had stalled due to budget issue.  We recently changed our schedule and was planning to abandon our plan to participate in Speed World Challenge at all this year.  I was hoping that we can raise more funds and do more races next year.  However, WC vision has been bugging me to participate in the last two races.  They too, been affected by the economy and their car counts is way down.  I’d love to help as I’ve always been a fan of the series, but I have to take care of my team first and to ensure the continuity of our program.  That being said, I’ve decided that we are going to participate in Speed World Challenge at Laguna Seca in October.  If anything, we will know where we stand and can prepare better for next year.

Moving on to improvements we make for the car. The last couple of races has been in really hot weather. I started to notice that the car been running hot. The water, oil and transmission temperature is getting where we should be worried. We can upgrade the radiators and coolers, which is probably the smart thing to do.  However, we are in budget strap, like I mentioned before so I decided to try the cheaper solution first. I fabricated some shrouding to direct air better to the radiators and coolers. Hopefully, this will help keeping the temperature down. We will find out at the next race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Speaking of the next race, I will relinquish my driving duty to my team mate, Tom Lepper.   He will have to face tough challenges.  This track favor high HP car, and we expect the Neon SRT Turbo is the favourite to win.  From my last race at Infineon, I also know that the BMW is faster than us in the straight line.  The only reason I won last race is because he screwed up and ran wide in turn 7.   If I’m a betting man, I won’t bet in our team winning the next race.  That being said,  Tom is a past champions and has abundant of experience.  I have no doubt he will do well.  The toughest part for me is not driving/missing a race.  This however will be my first role as team principal where I’m not distracted by the driving aspect.  I look forward to the challenges.