Tarzan driving for Japan @ Circuit Battles
Firebird International Raceway
Phoenix, AZ
04/10/11
After 3 days of planning and 4 weeks of prep time, a street driven EVO X was transformed into a competitive track car to race against America’s best at Circuit Battles. Tarzan Yamada accepted our invitation despite the unfortunate earthquake in Japan and wanted to take the opportunity to represent Japan and ask for help from the motorsports spectators in USA.
The Pro Track Challenge teams were looking impressive during practice, topping 170MHP at the end of the start/finish straight, which is actually used for drag racing. Our EVO X setup was simple and effective, but it was no match to the top teams.
Tarzan Yamada got behind the wheel of garageGT / Yokohama EVO X and got it out on the track for the practice session in the morning. But due to oil spill, the session was cancelled. The car going to driven at high pace during qualifying as shakedown. Tarzan managed a best lap of 1:08.905, placing 6th.
During lunch break, we were trying to figure out a fuel cut out issue per Tarzan’s complaint about low rpm range pick up. While Mitch was studying engine logs, Anthony got in the car and turned the traction control off! It was a fun moment 
We sent Tarzan out for Seeding race (5 lap Super session) thinking how much faster he would be after getting freed up from the electronics.
We finished 5th, and was happy with our new best time of 1:05.282. We were against 4th place finisher, the K&N Engineering twin turbo g35 for round 1 of Circuit Battles.
Driven by Paul Brown, the K&N Engineering g35 had major advantage on the main straight, but we showed good potential matching its cornering speeds.
We swapped a fresh set of Yokohama A005 slicks to the front and were ready for the next opponent; ABF Tech division Mini. 700HP monster!
Tarzan had a lot of fun battling Dez Ballard and the finish was close. Epic battle!
Overall, we were happy with the performance of the car. We know we have a good base. This car will be more competitive with more time. We would like to thank our sponsors; Yokohama, MP Tuning and Muellerized for excellent support throughout the project.
As for the final, after all the dogfights, Lou Gigliotti of LG Motorsports won the last battle against Mike Cronin Jr., driving the Fontana 350Z. It was a breathtaking fender to fender finish!!
Enjoy!
embedded by Embedded Video
For more photos and info from Garage GT:
http://garagegtlinks.blogspot.com/2011/04/tarzan-driving-for-japan-circuit.html
