Couple items...

Time Attack 2 is the Production Class. Only modifications are safety, open exhaust and engine calibration. Everything else must be OEM as delivered. Mirrors have to stay on, just like the stock dash, body panels, etc... No, I couldn't run any aftermarket cooling items.

Hypoxia was not an issue since I ran O2 in the car and maitained at least a 95% saturation while sitting in the pits. I carried a monitor and a bottle pretty much everywhere.

The only times to use for comparison are the final qualifying results and race day results. The other practice sections have standing starts and you can't use that as much of a base. At 13,000 ft we launch horrible compared to an AWD turbo hybrid. Just can't compete there and I wanted to save the clutch. The mid section practice I ran one pass to satisfy my Rookie requirements and basically idled through the session.

We ran both tire test weekends before race week. We knew where we were at time wise and didn't push during any race week practice sessions. Our qualifying time set the unofficial TA2 record. I say unofficial because the santioning body doesn't keep track, but everyone else does. You'll see press releases about qualifying records when they are set.

Based on our tire test weekend times we were planning for a 10:10 pass on race day. With the problems we had, that pass should have been very attainable and I still feel the car could dip into the 9 minute range if everything came together as planned.

There is still plenty more in the car and the driver. It's not a race where you can make big jumps to find the limit, it has to be methodical to avoid mistakes, which are very costly.

I'm happy we were able to finish and everyone on the team did a fantastic job. It was a ton of work and effort, it's unfortunate we ran into an issue that we just had no way to economically test for in advance. We could have rented the mountain for full passes, but there just wasn't any budget for that type of test.

Just as a side note... this was not a factory backed effort like Acura. It was a mixture of my friends, some dedicated SRT guys and some support from VP and Kumho. I think it's pretty amazing that a group of guys, really just doing this for fun, were able to put so much pressure on a factory backed effort.