The Goodsport Racing 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer, the world's first and only road racing '08 Lancer, took 2nd place in class at this past weekend's Ultimate Track Car Challenge presented by the National Auto Sport Association, Grassroots Motorsports Magazine, and Hankook Tire. Driven by Robert Fuller, owner of Robispec, the Lancer was able to put in a solid showing in the event and gave the Goodsport team valuable test data in preparation for this year's NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill, the world's longest circuit road race.

From the UTCC web site, "On track, lap times are all that really matter. This simple concept forms the basis of the Hankook Ultimate Track Car Challenge Presented by Grassroots Motorsports where a wide variety of track cars square off in a NASA Time Trial format to determine once and for all who’s fastest."

There are only two categories in the UTCC, Shop Class for those who build and prepare cars for a living, and Independent Study for the do-it-yourself-ers. Each category is broken into two classes, Varsity and Junior Varsity. Anything with forced induction, racing slicks, a tube frame or an engine with rotors or more than four cylinders runs in Varsity. Everything that’s naturally aspirated, has four-cylinders (or less), and is a mass production-based car running DOT legal tires falls in the JV class.

The Goodsport Lancer ran Shop Junior Varsity class. While the stock engine PZEV Lancer was a bit of an underdog against the expected competition, a little hard work by Goodsport Racing, Robispec, and Road///Race Motorsports optimized the platform with a very trick suspension, more horsepower, and some good ol' race engineering.

After cleaning up the battle scars from last year's 25 Hour, Goodsport Racing set about upgrading the car to trim the eight seconds per lap that we will need to win this year's longest race. Since the new Lancer can't be lowered much at all with out negatively affecting the suspension geometry, Goodsport Racing engineered and installed a comprehensive set of components to address the changes needed to lower the Lancer over 3" from the stock ride height. Since my garage is already full of Evo, FIA/Method4 in San Francisco was kind enough to lend me the use of their garage, along with some help from master mechanic Reyes, to complete the installation.

Robert Fuller then installed a set of rear KW/Robispec Race Spec double adjustable shocks to complement the KWs that had already proven themselves well in last 25 Hour. KW was kind enough to provide complete access to their engineering and fabrication facilities in Sanger, CA, a little closer to Goodsport Racing's Northern California home base than the Robispec facilities in Apple Valley, CA. With the car slammed, aligned, bump steered, and corner weighted, we were ready for the next step...the ponies.

Robert Tallini, owner of Road///Race Motorsports, has a long history of putting Lancers on the podium, so we made him our first and only stop for quality Lancer performance parts and knowledge. With the Road///Race cold air intake, ECU upgrades, and long tube header installed, the car had punch like never before, finally bringing the car to the performance level we had been seeking. We also installed a variety of chassis strengthening products engineered by Road///Race that significantly improved the stiffness of the suspension mounting points in order to take full advantage of the sticky DOT slicks.

Due to a conflicting race event, Goodsport driver David Bongiovanni was unable to enjoy the fruits of this labor, but luckily Robert Fuller was available to put his considerable driving talent to use at the event. With only two timed sessions in one day, no mistakes could be made and the car just had to run. Unfortunately for the sake of the story, there was no drama, but that's how we like it. Fuller went out and drove two great sessions, taking 2nd place in the process and marking the first podium appearance in only the car's second time on track. Look for full results and commentary in an upcoming issue of Grassroots Motorsports.

"I'm delighted with the progress of the car and opportunity to work with both Robispec and Road///Race on this project. Bringing a new platform up to full race capability is always a challenge, but by working together we now have a well developed race car that will be a real contender in this year's 25 Hours of Thunderhill and will spawn a wealth of parts that will allow every Lancer to benefit from the lessons we are learning" says Goodsport Racing team owner David Bongiovanni.

Look for the '08 Lancer to appear at the next two NASA SoCal events competing in Time Trial class TTE, race class PTE, and endurance class E2 at the 3 Hours of Willow Springs the night of August 9, as well as the 2008 running of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill on December 2.

For more information, contact:
http://www.goodsportracing.com
http://www.robispec.com
http://www.roadracemotorsports.com
http://kw-suspension.com
http://www.methodbuilt.com
http://www.nasaproracing.com