I-spy TEIN

While make my daily rounds through car industry blogs, I came across this sexy beast. Spoon Sports NSX-R featured on Speedhunters blog.

Photo from www.speedhunters.com
Coming from mainly a Honda background, of course anything Spoon catches my attention. This high revving, naturally aspirated and track ready NA2 looks like a blast to drive.

Photo from www.speedhunters.com
Whats this?! Yep this vehicle is running our Aluminum N1 Coilovers. This full length, mono tube suspension offers separate 20 x 20 way compression and rebound adjustment (available in either aluminum or steel construction). The stroke and valving have been specifically designed for circuit racing conditions to provide maximum grip. *For Race Use Only

Photo from www.speedhunters.com
For this full feature and many more, please follow the Speed Hunters Blog

Tradin paint and fiberglass plus Big Air

Rd. 2 of the Global Rallycross took place this past weekend at the Old Mill Adventure Park in Snoqualmie, WA (also home of the DirtFish rally school). The 2 day event is broken into two style of races. The first, held on Friday is SuperRally. Basically one on one battles with a bracket system finishing with an overall winner. In SuperRally, Stephan finished 3 overall but had an awesome battle with Dave Mirra in one of the rounds. Check out the video.

In case your wondering, Stephan went on to win a third and deciding race against Dave to advance.

In the Saturday RallyCross, Stephan qualified first and finished the AWD final in 4th due to a punctured tire. You can see the recap below.

The mixture of surfaces including wet tarmac, mud and gravel make for exciting racing where all competitors have a chance to take home a win. You can watch a rebroadcast of all the action on ESPN. Check you local listing for exact time and dates or check, www.global-rallycross.com

Image courtesy of Mr. Sean McDonough.

ATTENTION 06-07 LANCER S.Tech Springs

Attention to all 06-07 Lancer ES owners.

The S.Tech Lowering Springs (Part #: SKE06-AUB00) that are marketed for 02-07 Lancers will NOT work on your vehicles.

During recent testing we have found that the OEM Strut/Shock Absorber design has changed on the 06-07 Lancer ES models.

When purchasing S.Tech Lowering Springs for your vehicle, purchase Part #: SKR66-AUB00 which are originally meant for 02-07 OZ Rally & Ralliart Lancers.

The ride height drop for 06-07 Lancer ES: Front -40mm and Rear -25mm
The actual drop may vary by vehicle due to the weight of different components (e.g. Transmission, Packages, etc.)

Formula D Rd.1

Only our engineer attended Friday’s practice and qualify. A few of us here in the office watched qualifying from live stream on various websites. We were disappointed that not all our sponsored vehicles qualified for the event but I guess that is how it goes. Part of what makes it exciting to watch. “Any Given Sunday.”

After Friday’s Qualify
DMac qualified the highest amongst TEIN users in 6th position.

Tyler McQuarrie qualified two spots behind in 8th.

JTP got the 11th spot.

Charles Ng qualified 20th.

2010 Champion Vaughn Gittin Jr unfortunately did not qualify. Hopefully JR tears it up at Rd. 2 in Atlanta.

Found another competitor, Guthrie on TEIN Super Racing coilovers. Guthrie unfortunately did not qualify but his FD3S looks pretty buff. Might remember this car from HERE.

Saturday’s Main Event
The weather was awesome with clear skies and a nice cool ocean breeze. Spectators filled all the stands around the track and between rounds there was plenty to see. Full vendor area, race pits, car show and of course food.

The stands were packed with spectators.

The vendor area had both products and vehicles on display.

Found a twin turbo Mustang from HESS Motorsports which we sponsor in the Exedy booth.

Lots of high quality cars on display for the FATLACE show.

Cruising through the car show area I found Abe K.’s Lexus on display. He is rocking FLEX Sedan coilovers and a Platnium VIP cup kit.

I was fortunate to get a VIP wristband from a friend at NOS who had a hospitality tent and their own section of bleachers. Here is the view from their bleachers.

CONGRATULATIONS to JTP, Falken Tire and ASD. TEIN Coilovers for the WIN!

Some photos taken from Formula D and ASD.

Autosport Dynamics Inc.

To those of you who follow the drifting scene, particularly the Formula D series that has been receiving nationwide and international coverage, many of you may already be familiar with the Falken and Monster Energy Falken Tire livery. We are very fortunate to be the suspension suppliers for quite a few of their vehicles, such as their Saturn Sky driven Darren Macnamara, Nissan 350z driven by Tyler Mcquarrie, and the Ford Mustang’s of Justin Pawlak and Vaughn Gittin Jr.

Ever since Falken’s entry into Formula D, they’ve been placing themselves quite high among most contenders in this series, claiming many 1st place victories, as well as a championship title. But their full-fledged attack came about with the enlistment of Autosport Dynamics, Inc. (ASD) who handle all the vehicle builds for the aforementioned cars, as well as all vehicle maintenance.

Mind you, Autosport Dynamics expertise goes well beyond their experience with Formula D. They’ve also had their hands in NASCAR, SCORE, F1, SCCA, NASA, and British F3.  That’s quite a resume for a company that started in the 1980’s. And, these services aren’t limited to teams, either. Yes, they offer their services to the public!

Check them out on their site

http://www.autosportdynamics.com/about.html

They also keep a great up-to-date blog on the Formula D series, filled with pictures and videos from both races and test sessions. Pretty cool.

http://www.thejackstand.com/

Vaughn Gittin Jr. in the Monster Energy Falken Tire Mustang

Darren Macnamara in the Saturn Sky

Falken Team Video

2011 Falken Formula Drift Test from Falken Tire on Vimeo.

And, as if that wasn’t enough to keep their hands full, they operate a retail site, www.asdmotorsports.com

Geez. All work and no play makes Autosport Dynamics a,,,,, wait, their work is THEIR play! Forget it.

Disaster Relief Donations

We would like to give our greatest condolences to those who have lost love ones and family members in the horrible accident in Japan. It has been almost a month since the earth quake/tsunami, and would like to thank everyone that has donated or helped the people of Japan. It will not be an easy task for many people in Japan to get back to there normal lives but I’m sure that they will be thankful for all the help and support from around the world.

TEIN Inc has donated a total of 3,000,000 yen to the Red Cross Association

TEIN Employees and overseas fund-raising netted a donation of 874,785 yen

TEIN’s Domestic and Overseas Customers have donated 2,305,362 yen

Giving a Grand Total donation of 6,180,147 yen (approx. $74,000 USD)

If possible please continue your support and donations to the disaster relief efforts.

S. Verdier Podium Finish with Video

A big congratulations goes to Stephan Verdier and his crew for the 3rd place podium finish at Rd.1 of the Global RallyCross Championship.

Stephan finished behind Marcus Gronholm and Tanner Foust in the Saturday final which is outstanding considering many of the other competitors have HUGE budgets and some are factory backed.

From watching the in-car videos it looks like Stephan had a lot of fun on the Irwindale Speedway course which featured a 70′ gap jump and 50/50 tarmac to gravel road surface.

Our own engineer, Mr. Katsuma Nakai, was on hand for suspension support. A few minor tweaks were made to the Gr.N dampers which performed flawlessly.

Check out the in-car video from MotoIQ and Saturday’s final.

Images taken from MotoIQ, Urban Racer and Subie-Life.com. Video taken from MotoIQ and XGames.