It’s the weekend, all weekend long! And in honor of that, have yourself a brand-spankin-new wallpaper for your desk OR laptop.
But Mike! What about my phone??? I need to have an awesome wallpaper for it!
Well guy, guess what?
BAM! You know the deal, right click, save as, set as background, make co-workers (or employees at Best Buy or the Apple Store) weep with jealousy.
It took a while, but Ford brought back the 5.0. Instead of being an OHV engine, it returned as a DOHC power plant called Coyote. All was right with the world again.
It was a nice morning at Miller Motorsports Park. The paddock was buzzing with activity as drivers were preparing to go out on track, and crews were readying the cars. The first group out were the Pirelli GT3 Cup Trophy, which featured a couple of locals.
Both Desire Wilson and John Scarlett were driving out of the Air Power Racing garage, and both did well on the weekend. Desire finished first in Platinum on both days, and John took home first in Platinum Masters on Saturday and second on Sunday. For those keeping track, with their wins that makes a total of 6 wins for MMP locals! Could Vesko do some upsetting in GTS and make it 7?
Unfortunately no. Vesko did wind up in second though, behind one Mr. Michael Cooper in his Blackdog Speedshop Z/28 Camaro. With his win on Sunday, and with Andrew Aquilante’s 12th and 10th pllace finishes in the weekend’s events, pushed him to a 107 point lead in the driver’s championship standings. Seeing a black and red Camaro cross the line 1st at the Ford GP of Utah gave me a feeling of deja vu.
The two cars involved in the big incidents on Saturday, the Swisher Z4 GT3 and the iRacerCoaching.com R8 LMS Ultra of Drew Regitz, were back and ready to go for the final GT/GTA/GT Cup race of the weekend. And things were different up top!
JD Davison…
…
!
Collected his second second place finish of the weekend. Guy Smith on the other hand…
Yes, a previous winner at Miller in the Continental GT3 swooped in, and finished in third. Third!
But our guy Johnny took first. Again. See, the top spots were different because Guy… I’m not gonna spoon feed you on this one. Now, to address the fellow with the dog.
That fellow is Colin Thompson, driver of the #11 Porsche Bucks County/Penn Valley 911 GT3 Cup. The dog is his dog, which made the trip out from Pennsylvania to watch his owner claim the win in the GT Cup category, and join him in celebrating the win on pit lane. I forgot the dog’s name, but he was super chill.
GTA Shook out with a pair of SLS GT3s in the top two podium places, and a Ferrari on the last spot. Frank Montecalvo in the Bayshore Racing SLS crossed the line first, with Eric Lux’s Rembrandt Charms/Monticello Motor Club SLS following behind. Eric’s journey to second in class wasn’t easy. Martin Fuentes in the Scuderia Corsa/Hublot/Samsung Ferrari 458 GT3 Italia kept Eric in his mirrors most of the race, but Eric fought and got around Martin to take home second.
And there we have it, another amazing World Challenge event in the books. Opportunities to see cars, drivers and racing like this don’t come up too often, especially in our neck of the woods. Watching the GT, GTA, GT Cup and GTS cars stretch their legs on the massive front straight, and blast through the high speed corners, then seeing the Touring Cars bang around the track and hit the kerbing and getting air under the tires all in the same day is one of the best ways to spend any day. With the news that Miller Motorsports Park will become the Utah Motorsports Campus, and that the new ownership is just as excited to keep the racing going at the track, we’re hoping to see more Pirelli World Challenge events at our home track in the coming years. And we’re hoping to see more of you guys out there too! Seriously, where can you go from seeing this:
To this:
Then see the drivers up close:
And sometimes personal:
Before they grid up and take the green flag?:
Not a whole lot of events are this open to their fans, and feature this diverse a line up. If you get a chance to, come to the track and spend the weekend watching high caliber racing!
Some things are inevitable: death, taxes, and one rain soaked NASA Utah event. Nobody died, everyone had paid their taxes (probably), but it did rain. A lot.
But here’s the thing: it wasn’t raining all weekend. In fact, for the Saturday races, everyone qualified in the dry. Well, everyone except Madison Snow. He ran in the dry, and then the UIS Snow Racing Porsche 911 went back in the trailer. BUT! But, McKay (the younger one) was not averse to running in the rain, nor was he averse to annihilating the field.
McKay came out in an IMSA Prototype Lights class car, and proceeded to eek out a 7.4 second win over Ian Lacy in the first Super Formula race (which was dry) and ran away from Terry Biner by a staggering 1:36 in the second!
The second race was utterly drenched. Nobody was going to be able to utterly dominate, unless they’re name was Ayrton Senna, and we’re never going to see that level of genius for many years. However, there is a young Brazilian who drove extremely well in the rain. If you’ll direct you view to the right side of the picture above, you will see him lurking in the mist.
Fifteen year old phenom Bruno Carneiro took both Formula class races, an impressive feat considering that the second race might as well have been held in a swimming pool. For those keeping track, Bruno has won three of the last four Formula races.
Speaking of tin tops, let’s talk TT. Greg Valdez, pictured here on race slicks and with a completed wrap, is taking to TT1 like a fish to water. He took the overall wins on both days of the weekend, while Shawn Murphy kept it close both days, but could not out run Greg.
Alex Whetman’s Focus of Doom narrowly defeated Travis Tidball’s C5 Corvette on Saturday, and beat up on Matt Guiver on Sunday. Guiver was in the freshly completed Us Against One Clothing E36 BMW M3. Speaking of Us Against One Clothing and Alex Whetman, they put our name and logo on a shirt with a picture of the FoD on it. Head on over, pick up a shirt (or several) and support some good local dudes.
In TTB, AKA Spec 86, someone in something that is called a GT86 in places that aren’t America won the class on both days. That someone is Toby Crawford, and that something is a Subaru BRZ.
TTE was missing Ben Lamberson, and his championship winning Audi, so that opened up a path to victory for another competitor. On Saturday Joe Schubert took a stroll down that path, and on Sunday long time rival Jeb Brown took the win.
And in TTU an Audi (TW Racing) beat a couple of Hondas (the Turbo Lab NSX and Rhett Panter’s Integra) on Saturday, and on Sunday tried its hand at being an S1 Quattro. It did not go well, but it still won TTU.
And playing by himself in TT2 was Robert Rathbone in his 911 GT3.
The Lightning group is getting big. More and more Spec Zs are emerging, which means the field is growing. On Saturday there were 8 cars in the field, and 7 on Sunday.
Arthur Golebiowski took advantage of the wet conditions, which caused an untimely spin for Chad Aalders (who, according the the results sheet, only did three laps. But did he make them count!) to take the win on Saturday. On Sunday the weather was better, and the Lyfe Motorsports Spec Z (piloted by Cole Powelson) narrowly denied Arthur of a weekend sweep. The margin of victory on Sunday? .305 seconds.
In Spec Miata, David Sherman swept the weekend in the #44 Carpenter Motorsports Miata. Ignore what the windshield says! It was David I tell you!!!
GTS3, PTC, PTE, and 944 Spec had one competitor each. They were Bill Noblitt (#644, GTS3), Ed Mineau (#221, PTC), Todd Green (#58, PTE), and Otto Silva (#21, 944 Spec). I would say they need more in class competitors, but they’ve taken to making the drivers in the bigger classes really work on the track.
Saturday’s and Sunday’s Thunder races could not have been more different. Just look at it! Saturday’s affair was rain soaked, while Sunday’s could not have had more perfect weather.
The weather didn’t matter to John Scarlett, he took wins in GTSU on both days. On Sunday he had the TW Racing Audi R8 LMS breathing down his neck, his margin of victory was a mere .144 seconds. That wouldn’t be really surprising, that R8 LMS is a fast car, but it is insane considering that Derek Wolthoff started the race from the back of the grid!
ST3 was a classic Chevy vs. Ford battle. On Saturday the Mustangs dominated the podium, with Gary Free in the Towne Storage FR500S standing on the top spot and Madison Milgard in second in one of the brand new Ford Performance Racing School BOSS 302 FRS Mustangs. Sunday was all about the bowtie, with Travis Tidball in his C5 Corvette taking top honors and Joe Bogie in second in his fifth generation Camaro.
Super Unlimited was won on Saturday by Joe Sim in the Turbo Lab NSX, which as a Honda fanboi at heart, was awesome to see. On Sunday Byron Smith put his BMW on top of the podium.
Mike Mielke in the super truck that can, did win ST2 on both days of the weekend. Should the Silver Streak be detuned so it can compete in a more populous field? Should it be tuned UP to compete in ST1? Personally, I like it where it is. So long as it remains on track.
On Sunday we had Dan Worley in his Tatum Racing prepped LSx powered Porsche 944 competing in ST1, and Chris Vivolo was out and about in the #66 Porsche 911 in GTS5. Both were the lone competitors in their classes, and both were Porsches.
And that’s all she wrote. The next race weekend is fast approaching, the 16th and 17th of this month in fact. The racers will be hustling around the East course, which features Miller Motorsports Park’s signature turn and the most dramatic elevation changes on the entire track. Come, join us, there might be cookies, and there will definitely be some great racing.
Probably. Yes, today everyone at the North American International Auto Show is going nuts over the 600hp, 3.5L twin-turbo V6 Ecoboost powered Ford GT. And they should be doing just that. Look at that thing! It’s glorious! It’s what the GT40 was! Kinda…
The GT40 was a giant middle finger aimed at Enzo Ferrari and his precious cars and race program. Ferrari doesn’t do much of the factory backed GT racing anymore, because they’ve gone all in on F1.
Ok, so it isn’t EXACTLY like the GT40, but it is like it in that it is a potentially world beating super car made by a company whose headquarters are in a crumbling metropolis. Who is it going to beat, and where is it going to beat them?
Why are those two logos mashed together? Because it can, and eventually will, be seen in both! The 3.5L twin turbo mill fits nicely into the confines of the WEC’s LM GTE class. IMSA TUDOR USCC’s GTLM class ‘s rules are pretty much the same as the WEC’s LM GTE class rules. That said, we’ll probably see it storming around here at home in TUSC before it goes abroad and plants Old Glory in everything. The current rumor, according to Sportscar365, regarding that TUSC endeavor is that it will be a 2 car, factory team with Chip Ganassi Racing running it. And Chip Ganassi knows a few things about running a winning team.
Will it be successful? Maybe. The new Vipers came out of the gate with a whimper, but ended with a roar and won the GTLM class before Dodge killed the factory effort. We can speculate more on this when we get more details, but right now let’s all look at how awesome this thing looks
This was… a year or so ago I guess. I never really caught any details of this, but it was some Ferraris in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant. The lot was blocked off to traffic, but there were plenty of people wandering through. So, naturally, I wandered with them.
And it wasn’t just Ferraris hanging out. Someone brought out a Ford GT and an old Pontiac GTO rolled in as well.
After unsuccessfully talking to the people there I left. I still have no idea what this was about, or if it’s ever happening again, but it was cool to randomly stumble across it.
Words and photos by Michael Chandler
This was one of the first cars we saw when we entered the SEMA Show this year. It was also one of the most memorable. Not just for the car itself, which is amazing, but for the story. You see Mouse Prosen, the owner of this car is a disabled veteran, cancer survivor, former U.S. Marine who drove this car all the way from South Carolina to Las Vegas, Nevada for the SEMA Show. Mouse even had the gas receipts ready for anyone who doubted him. This is quite the journey, and the car’s journey is nothing short of amazing.
Mouse knew he wanted a new Mustang back in 2006, but he didn’t want just anything. No stock black Mustang was going to satisfy him. He saw the Screaming Yellow Mustang and had to have it. After buying the Mustang, he couldn’t think of what he wanted to name it, and before he could, the car was wrecked into a tree after he blacked out coming home from a car show. The car saved his life, and he swore by it and bought another one just like it 3 weeks later. This time, he knew he needed a name, and after seeing the movie “Eragon”, he knew he had his name, Saphira.
Saphira is a dragon in that movie, and the engine definitely breathes fire. It features a built 4.6L motor stroked to 5.0L with Manley Pistons, H-Beam rods, billet crank, and ported and polished heads and throttle body. To top off this motor, a Paxton Novi 2300 Supercharger was attached with an air-to-air intercooler. This brings the total power to 720WHP on 89 octane pump gas! It is put to the ground through a short-shifter and an Axle Exchange 4″ Aluminum driveshaft. In case things get serious, there is a nitrous bottle hidden away in the back, but something tells me it won’t be needed anytime soon.
Stopping this dragon is no small task, and Baer Brakes and Discount Tire were up to the challenge. The 20″ Liquid Metal Wheels shod with Bridgestone tires from a Nissan GT-R perfectly showcase the brakes. Fortunately for Mouse, Baer and Discount Tire helped him on this project. When times were really rough for Mouse, his wife Alena knew what he needed, a car he could be proud of. After 18 major surgeries she told him to make the car of his dreams. This is the second time the car saved his life, he was dedicated to the build and he had many sponsors help him create his dream along the way. There are too many parts and sponsors to list here, but many people and companies stepped up to the plate. And to pass on those dreams, Mouse bought a bear from Ford where they donate another bear to a child with cancer and the proceeds to cancer research. In exchange, they also gave Mouse a bear and it always rides shotgun with him wherever he goes. It only gets moved to the back seat when his wife rides along.
A very unique feature of this car is the pinstriping. This car was painstakingly striped by the late James Crawford. This car was the only car that he signed twice. After James passed away, his son Jimmy took hold of the reigns and pinstriped the amplifiers for Mouse. A lot of miscellaneous parts on the car were designed by Mouse like the Saphira brake light cover and antenna. The exterior also includes 3D Carbon Lower Louvers and many parts from Agent 47. The bumper and side skirts are by Roush Racing and look new despite this car being driven. Everything was thought through and the execution is immaculate.
Listening to this car’s audio system is a real treat, most systems that are built emphasize or over-emphasize the bass. The sound inside this car is clean and crisp. Using American-made TREO amplifiers and speakers and SSP subwoofers hooked to a Clarion deck, this car sounds great. But why do you need all that sound equipment when you have a 3″ Afco Headers and Magnaflow Exhaust to listen to? In the video below you get a short clip of this car driving away from the shoot, it sounds good!
The interior was re-upholstered by Roadwire in yellow and black and it perfectly compliments the exterior. But the yellow carbon-fiber dash is where the party is at, literally. Many significant individuals have signed the dash for Mouse. Carroll Shelby, Steve Saleen, Jack Roush, Chip Foose, and more.
The center console also was re-done and includes a mouse embroidered on.
The dragon painted on the radiator cover help bring the dragon theme full circle, and fittingly it is in front of this motor. Anderson Motorsports custom made the intake to help this beast breathe. And by the sound of future plans, it seems like it’ll need to breathe. Mouse hopes to take this one day to the Texas Mile and crack off a 200MPH run. This is something we can all get behind.
This car is a labor of love and passion. Mouse is a long-time Ford fan and dreamed to build this car. When going through some rough times, this car helped pull him through. Mouse would like to thank his sponsors, especially RoadWire who not only helped with the Interior, but also made the SEMA trip possible. Mouse has big plans for 2012, and we are excited to see how they unfold.
Words and Video by Trent Bray, Photos by Michael Chandler
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