February 12, 2007

(Downey, CA) The Hankook Tires / JIC USA Nissan S15 made its return to California Speedway in Fontana, CA for the first Redline Time Attack of 2007. The S15 came into the venue in its new skin and fresh paint job. Although the Nissan S15 will be use for mostly drifting this year, the Hankook Tire / JIC USA team decided to bring it back out again to show off the new improvements of the vehicle and to defend its title against top teams such as AMS, Crawford Performance, and GMG.

On Saturday, practice day, the Nissan was piloted by our very own Tyler McQuarrie made very fast laps despite having a track full of vehicles. We gauged our competition and it was clearly between AMS Racing's Evolution 8 and GMG’s Porsche 996 GT3 Cup Car. Throughout the practice laps, the other teams noticed a huge improvement of lap times of the Nissan S15 and were beginning to realize that this drift car was a real threat to their success.

Sunday proved to be less than favorable for weather. Rain soaked most of the morning with the track having a quite a few crashes and puddles. Undeterred, the team slapped on the Hankook Ventus Z207 rain race tires and went out onto the track. The tires and Tyler's confidence with driving in the rain proved to be the key combination in having the fastest laps during morning practice. So fast that we were 6 seconds ahead of GMG 996 GT3 Cup car.

The rain went away for the actual time attack sessions and we switched back to our sticky Ventus Z214 tires. With some adjustments on the suspension, the mechanics assured Tyler that the car was set up so that we can post up our lap time goal of 1:08. The cars set out on the track with the top 5 cars in the same group. It was clear that the Hankook Tires / JIC USA Nissan Silvia was on par with AMS' Evo 8 and GMG's 996 GT3 Cup Car. With all the top teams on the sidelines recording lap times, everyone was on their toes knowing that all the lap times were too close to call.

At awards, JIC USA placed second in Unlimited Rear Wheel Drive and overall 3rd fastest time in the Redline Time Attack with a personal record breaking lap time of 1:08.928. GMG's Porsche 996 GT3 Cup car came in overall fastest time by beating our team with a mere .272 of a second, it was quite satisfying for the team knowing that our purpose built drift car was able to get so close to the "out of the box" GT Cup car. This shows that the mechanics and Tyler McQuarrie knew what to do to achieve that goal.

JIC USA couldn't have pulled off this win without the support of our sponsors: Hankook Tires (www.hankooktireusa.com), Stoptech Brakes, Hawk Performance, Redline Racing Oils, Instyle Graphics, Exedy Clutches, T&E Vertex, Garrett Turbo (www.turbobygarrett.com) and Tomei Powered.