We are excited to be bringing you this update like from Pikes Peak where 034Motorsports is running their Time Attack B5 A4 on the world famous course. We wish we could be there with them!

We missed Wednesday’s practice due to transmission issues with our tow vehicle, so Randy’s first time out in the car was yesterday morning at qualifying. Times can be seen here: http://www.usacracing.com/ppihc/ts/2012 Our time is under Randy Pobst’s names.

We got two runs in, and qualified 2nd in our class and 7th overall on the bottom portion of the race. We’re very excited with the results, and Randy is having a blast in the car.

We were behind Rhys Millen’s factory-backed Hyundai Genesis (3.0L V6 Turbo) sponsored by Red Bull. In all honesty, that car should be in the Unlimited class, as it is a pro team which qualified with a time faster than Unlimited class cars.

We wanted to do some more tire testing with Randy, so we headed to the Autocross Course at Pikes Peak International Raceway. We got some good data there, and decided on which compound of tires to run from our Tire Sponsor, Pirelli.

One of the major challenges we have that we are not used to is warming up the tires on the car. In Time Attack on racetracks, we normally get a warm-up lap before the Time Attack, so that the tires are nice and sticky. At Pikes Peak, the cars are just sitting waiting to run, and the tires don’t warm up until many minutes into the race. Most of the larger teams including Rhys Millen’s are using electric tire warming blankets to heat up the tires immediately before they run. Unfortunately this is a luxury that we do not have.

We’re testing in the middle section today, which starts at approximately 12,000 feet. Elevation and the thin air continue to be obstacles to us, as well as the relatively tall gearing in the car.

Randy is a world-class driver, and his times should continue to improve on this last day of testing. The rest of the Time Attack class is pretty close behind us, so we need to continue pushing our car and perfecting the setup if we plan to hold onto our second place finish. 

We’ll have a lot more pictures and videos after the event.