The CR-Z debate

  I am a liilte late on this debate but I wanted to put in my two cents. Recently Honda released the CR-Z hybrid. Honda calls it a sports hybrid. When it was released it brought a sportier version of a hybrid car complete with a manual transmission. For those looking for something in a hybrid that had a little more kick to it. This was your car. But to the Honda loyalists this was a bit of a disapointment. For the honda heads they saw visions of a new CR-X. But felt let down by it being a hybrid and only coming with a 1.5 liter motor. The CR-X is a cult car in Honda land. A liteweight two seater that paired with the right motor can make a great track car or drag car. Even the show crowd loved this car. But when you think of it the CR-X and CR-Z aren't that much diffrent. The CR-X was built as a small car to help get good gas milage. It was not built to be a sports car or to be a track car. But as people began to tune their Hondas the CR-X's lightweight helped make it a popular choice. When people first bought them it was for commuting and to save gas but have a little bit of a sporty side. Is this starting to sound familar? The CR-Z is also a small car built to save gas while being a little sporty.

  I know a lot of people are griping saying the CR-Z should have came with a K series motor. But that is not what Honda wanted. I think some of the current generation of tuners have gotten a little spoiled. The fact that there are performance cars that come straigght from the factories. The whole appeal of the CR-X was when people began to swap motors or turbo their factory motors. These guys built the legened of the CR-X on the streetsand the streets and the track. They didn't get the best motor form Honda to begin with. They made due with what they had. I see wth the CR-Z this is also starting to happen. Look out there at cars from Bisimoto, HKS, Spoon and Backyard Special. They are building some of the best versions of the CR-Z. Take Bisimoto and his 500hp turboed hybrid. Yes it is still a Hybrid. There is even a CR-Z with a swapped K series motor. Much like the the tuners with the CR-X they are finding ways to build a better CR-Z. I personaly like the looks of the CR-Z. I can see where this could make a great car to tune and track.  I think when it is said and done the CR-Z will become a great tuning platform.

  For all those that hate on Honda because the didn't build the CR-Z the way you wanted them to. Well i got a little advice for you. Go out there and build it the way you want it. Don't complain about what it is not. Instead find what is good and make it better. After all if the people that first started working on their CR-X's took the same appraoch as you. Do you think it would have become the legend it is?

Fastest Around the Clock

  It is springtime. Time for cars to come out of their winter hibernation. Also a time when racing begins again. No matter what racing series you are a fan of either he series has started or is about to. For most of us this is the time when you get that itch. You start to feel that fire inside. You want to go racing. Sadly though most of us do not have the funds to go racing. The idea of being on the track though pushing a car to the limit is the dream. But not all is lost though. There are ways to get out racing without breaking the bank. If you to the grassroots motorsports you could easily start by trying drifting, autocross or even track days. One the newer and better ways to get into racing is Time Attack. Time Attack originated in Japan as a way for tuning shops to show who was the fastest. It is a competition to see who can turn the fastest lap. Diffrent classes ensure that anyone from well know shops down to start up teams can run and be competitive. It is about pushing your car to get the fastest time you can out of it. Not only do you race the clock but also other teams to be the fastest in your class.

  For years if you wanted to competitve you had to out run the teams from Japan. If you wanted tobeat the best you would have to beat teams like Sun Auto and their Cyber Evo. OrC Cusco and their WRX STI and of course HKS and their domninate CT230R EVO. For several years HKS held the records for the fastest times in both Japan and their home track Tskuba with a time of 53.589. And in the US at Buttonwillow with a time of 1:43. Of course records are made to be broken and several team from the US wanted to get the Buttonwillow back home. After several tries finally at the Time Attack finals in 2010 the record fell and to a US team. Sierra Sierra and their Mitsubishi Evo, named Christine, ran an astonishing time of 1:41.046. Sierra Sierra hmmmm.... wonder if they were fans of the Circus Circus Hydroplane racer back in the late 80's early 90's? Sorry got off track there. Once again a US team was on top in the US. Sierra Sierra is a threat for the record at Tskuba also. They weren't the only team to best HKS's time. FXMD and their Acura NSX also better the time with a 1:41.949. They were on a hotlap which may could have set a faster time but a mechanical failure didn't allow them to finish. For both teams though this was an excellent showing. Two very diffrent apporches toward track domination. One AWD and a turbo four EVO. The other a RWD turbo six cylinder. Don't think though that just these two shops are contenders.

  GST Motorsports is a team to watch. Last year there 96 Impreza ran a 1:44.586. The team has been hard at work during the offseason making major adjustments to thier Impreza. Their goal is to get a 1:39 range lap. Some might say this is a bit of a lofty goal but I would not bet against this team.

  The next team is WORLD Racing and their AWD Scion TC. That is right and AWD TC. The goal for this team is simple. Be the fastest Time Attack car on the planet. This team is definetly equiped to do that. If you follow the import tuning scene you know what Chris Rado is capible of. Fastest FWD drag car, check. Fastest FWD Unlimited TimeAttack car, check. If Chirs Rado has his mind set on something he will find away to do it.

  Don't think though that Sierra Sierra or FXMD are just sitting back to let some beat them. Both teams are making changes and improvments to go faster. The 2011 Time Attack season should be an exciting one. The teams i listed above all run in the Unlimited class. But there are more classes, Limited and Street classes all divided into FWD, RWD and AWD. You see a lot of teams in these classes like FXMD, AMS, Evasive Motorsport, Reenspec, AQ Motorsports and many others. Ultra competitve classes many diffrent makes of cars all set out for one goal. Be the fastest. It is no wonder why Time Attack is becoming the the fastest growing series. So do you think you have what it takes to be the fastest? I know where you can prove it.

It begins again.

  As you may have gussed by now from my other blogs I am a car fanatic. The last year has been rough on me. First having my Accord let go on me and having to sell her. To some health issues and having to struggle when the economy went bad. A lot of things had to be moved to the back burner. Getting a car and working on one being one of the main things. Well it took awhile but after a lot of hard work and saving I have a car again. Much like my old one this one is also a CB7 Accord. It does need some work done to it but it will have a JDM F22A when it is back up and running. My last CB7 had a H23 swaped into it. I do have a bare H23 block ready for when more funds become avalible. The fire has been reignited in me. I will post pics up here soon and give updates on how she is coming along. Stay tuned this is my chance at doing it all again.

We are all the same

   This past weekend i was looking up the results of the IRL race. I didn't get a chance to watch the race so I wanted to see what all happened. Looking through I saw the Simona DeSilvestro finished fourth. A greqat run for her in only her second year. But as I read some of the comments one really got to me. It read something along the lines of "It was a good finish for a girl." What does her being female have to do with her great run for one of the underdog teams. This is an issue that I just don't understand. Why in the racing world and in the tuning world is the issue of gender a big deal? I personaly think it is great that there are women who are in the tuning scene and racing. If someone is passionate about building cars, racing cars or any way they express there love for cars, it should not matter their gender.

  Racing has seen an influx of female drivers. In the IRL you have several drivers in the series or on the verge of breaking in the series. Most all know Danica Patrick but also Simona, Pippa Mann and Katherine Legg. All have shown the deserve to be in the series and are very competitive. But you always hear negative remarks because of their gender. Granted it it becoming a smaller minority but they are usually the most vocal. Thankfully like i said thisis becoming more of a minority. Look at the NHRA where some the most popular drivers are women. Ashley Force Hood, Hillary Wiil, Erica Enders and Melanie Torxel (please forgive me if i spelled your name wrong) are round and event winners. You also dont hear a lot of the negative remarks you would hear form some IRL and NASCAR fans. Maybe oneday all fans can be more like the NHRA fans.

  I also remeber a few months back i saw an editorial in which the editor of a certain magazine disscused women ib the scene. His point was he did not want a girfriend that was into cars. Saying it was it his time alone in the garage and he didnt want for his girlfriend in there. I donmt understand this logic. I know people like to have alone time. But me personaly I would love to have a girlfriend that is into working on cars. I think it would be an excellent bonding time. Plus I don't get the whole macho I have to know more about cars than girls. If I meet someone that knows more about cars than me, wether it be male or female, I love to learn from them. The import cultrue also gives a great mix of females in the industry. Everthing from drag racing, road racing, drift, car show and models.

  I have been into cars and racing my whole life. I am one who knows how much time and dedication it takes to be sucessful. It should never matter on gender or color of skin how we precive someone. We should celbrate the sucess of people in the industry. I know for me personally I would love if my daugther or nieces of future girlfriend gets involved in cars or racing. I am still hopeful to find that right lady.

ALMS: Sebring

  The season opner for the ALMS was this past weeknd. The 12 Hours of Sebring is th first race of the season. This year was promised to have better racing with new regulations. The reason is to keep the cars closer together in the resective classes. This year did not disapoint. In the previous year the desiels of Audi and Puegot have dominated when racing in the ALMS. They usually run in the ILMS series in Europe and come to America for a couple of races. This year saw a surprise overall winner and winner in the LMP1 category as the OrecaP Puegot took the win. Oreca has long supplied chasis in Sportscar racing and this was a big win for the company. It was also a widely celebrated victory in the paddock area. The second place car overall and in LMP1 was the Highcroft HPD car. Highcroft has been of the most dominate teams in the ALMS, winning the last two overall championships. This was a huge step for the beating both the factory Audi and Puegot teams. This was also a huge step for Honda as they were able to run with the desiels.

  Honda also saw sucess in winning the LMP2 category. One of the stories I was most intersted in was the return of Nissan to sportscar racing. Nissan is suppling motors this year. THis is the first timein a couple of decades since Nissan raced in sportscar prototype racing. In the late 80's early 90's if you wanted to win in the IMSA series you had to beat Nissan and the prototype. A strong run in this years 12 Hours of Sebring hopefully will see more involment of Nissan in both the ALMS and the ILMS.

  The GT class saw the BMWs of Rahal Letterman racing sweep the top two spots of the podium. Followed by the Corvettes in third and fourth. Porsche and Ferrari both had off days with mecahnical problems and accidents. The GT class always has the closet racing and with strong teams from BMW, Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari and Jaguar this should be a very exciting season for GT racing. 

  I am looking forward to the rest of the ALMS season. I think this year will be a close action packed season. Can Highcroft win a third straight championship or will Muscle Milk or other teams step up and take the title? Plus the excitment that is the GT class. This could go down as one of the best seasons of the ALMS.

Your Ride Your Style

For today's lesson we will be looking at orginality in the tuning scene. You have just picked up your next project. For most of us we have allready researched every part we want to put on our car. Everything from motor, body, chasis and interior has been througlhy gone over. For alot of us though we don't have the funds to build our draem car. So what do we do? This leads you with three main options buy used parts, save until you can afford the patrs you want or buy cheaper versions "knock offs". If you go with the used part route you have to be careful. You never know what condition the parts are in. Research is your best friend here. Make sure you check on the seller's ratings. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Remeber it is buyer beware. Your next option is to save and wait to get the parts you want. With this though it might take you months or even years to save up for. What can happen is newer parts come out that you want or the parts you want become discontinued. But if you do save up and are paitent you will get the results you want. That brings us the last option buying knock offs. This can be easiest option but also carries the biggest risk. As they say you get what you pay for. The quality of the product may not be the greatest and has a lot of risk to put on your car. However you go about it you start to build the ride the way you want. Build it in your image.
After the process of building your ride you now want to show everyone the end results of all your hard work. You either begin buy posting pics of your ride on car forums or you take it to car shows and meets. You wait to see what people will say about your ride. For the most part you hear positive feed back. You will get a lot of good jobs or looking goods. But then you finally hear it or see it posted online. Someone ridicules your ride. They say it isn't JDM enough or make fun of the color, wheels or what you have done to the engine. They will nitpick every little detail to death. They will claim they are an expert and they know what it takes to build a proper ride. That if you don't listen to them your ride will always be made fun of. Mostly this will just be one indvidual. Sometimes though you will get a group of people telling you this. This will begin a mob mentality and you will be critized for everything. You begin to question why you even built the car in the first place. But then again who are you building the car for anyway? We are all guiltiy of it, we want to please the masses. We want to be praised for what we build. Remeber though this is YOUR car. You build the car the way you want. Don't just listen to everyone and how they say to build one. If you look at the most popular trends out there, they were started cause someone wanted to be diffrent. Someone dares to be diffrent. They know they will catch a lot of heat for doing it but they don't care. Then next thing you know someone will try it out. Then more people will try it. Next thing you know you have a trend. The JDM look started this way. As did wire tucks, low offset wheels, two tone engine bays and the "racecar" show look. If you really think about it that is how the whole import tuning scene started. The key to all of this is orginality. People dared to be diffrent. They did what others though was wrong. Anyone can look at a catalog and buy every part from a company. But then every car would look like a "catalog car". You would just take say a Honda and order every part from Mugen's or Spoon's catalog. Then though every Honda would look the same excpet for a diffrent color. What fun would that be? A world where every 240 is built to be a drift car, every Lexus a VIP car, every EVO a track car or every Honda a JDM, wire tucked, low off set clone. Not the world i wanna live in. To keep this from happening it is as simple as just being yourself. Do what you want and don't listen to the haters. The haters only talk cause they don't know how to be original. In the end everything comes down to you. Make the car the expression of what you want. When it is all said and done you can be proud knowing it is all yours. All the hard work will be worth it in the end.

Longest drive

I wanna take time for a personel blog. I am a car guy. I like to drive and personalize my cars. I get a lot of questions as to why. Most people don't understand why I like to fix cars up. Or why I like to drive so much. Most of it comes down to my last memories of my Dad. My Dad passed away when I was 13. I most rember watching football and racing with him. I would rember my Dad and his close friend talking about cars. I would just sit and listen to them as they would talk. My Dad worked at Nissan and I would love watching the races nissan would be in. Of course just becoming a teenager, right before his passing, I was dreaming of my first car. Surprisingly I wanted a 300zx. After he passed I struggled with life. I was down a lot and couldn't understand what to do. I had problems at school and was missing a lot. About that time I started going to school with an old classmate of mine. We would sit in class sometimes talking about car and what when wanted to do to them. Soon I started working on my car. Then I joined a car club. I started meeting new friends and for once started having a good time. Eventually  the car club scene faded but I was still fixing up my car. I always felt good as people would compliment my cars. I always loved attending car shows and meets.

Sadly I soon was facing another personel tragedy. My Mom had breast cancer and passed away ten years after my Dad. Again I was fighting depression again. my world was coming down around me again. I was trying a way to figure a way to deal with my depression. I started going out and just taking long drives. I wasn't really going anywhere just out to drive. Something about being out with the radio off just listening to the sounds of the engine calmed me down. I could just take the time and listen to my thoughts to figure out what to do. Again I started to attend meets and shows again. I was always surprised and when my Accord would get compliments. I would meet new people and talk about cars again. I even started posting pics of the Accord online. It felt good seeing the positive feedback about my car. I also got to meet several people online through car fourms.  A lot of people may still not fully undesrstand what the big deal is. To most it is only just a car. For me it has been a way of life. It is my hobby, my way to express myself and my way to keep my sanity. Soon I will begin on a new car. Soon I will start another chapter in my life. This will be another journey in my life. Soon........ Soon I will be back on the road, to continue my longest drive.