Tipping off our Trans-Am Season in Thunderhill with Double Podiums for Hampton and Wright
It was cold—very cold. But we had a successful opening round of the Trans-Am West series, with two GT wins for David in his new GT4 RS and two second-place finishes for Rick in the R8 LMS in XGT. Both took positive strides over the weekend!
We took delivery of David's new 982.2 Cayman Clubsport GT4 RS the week of the race and had to solve an issue quickly. An oil level sensor failure resulted in us having to take the engine out on Wednesday to get it replaced! Needless to say it was a busy week for our crew, but it all worked out, and David loved having the chance to drive his new ride for the first time.
These new Clubsports are just crazy. Now, sharing the 4.0-liter motor from the GT3 RS street car, it makes 500hp at 9,000rpm. For GT4 competition, it gets restricted for Balance of Performance, but the car is undoubtedly the most advanced Clubsport ever produced. Porsche continues to outdo itself with every updated generation.
It's always a challenging yet rewarding experience to get a new car up to speed and sorted. David improved throughout the weekend, going faster in nearly every session as he got more comfortable in his new office working with John on the set-up. It was a perfect test weekend for him to start the season.
Meanwhile, Rick was in the thick of it all weekend with four other XGT cars he was competing against in class. Considering the wide horsepower disparity between Rick's Audi R8 LMS and the CEI (Chris Evans Inc.) cars, we were proud of Rick for his efforts with two P2 podium finishes. We loved seeing Rick have the opportunity to do some sprint racing in the R8 and look forward to taking the fight to the XGT field at Laguna.
We look forward to building on what we learned at the next round in Laguna, which is coming up on April 18-21st. Hopefully, with warmer weather! Because we’re still thawing out from the cold in Willows.
Throughout the year we will be competing in both the West and National series doing some races in both. Having the chance to support clients and race at tracks like Road America, Indy, Mid-Ohio, and Watkins Glen is pretty special for our shop that started out as just a small service center in Lake Oswego almost 18 years ago. We’re looking forward to the fun ahead!