Industry Track Day

So, this weekend KSport headed out of the dry Arizona desert towards California, for the Industry Track Day at Streets of Willow.

Less than 10 minutes after the crews first tweet, catastrophe struck. Oh, but it gets better! With the turbocharged Right-hand drive Honda Integra Type-R stranded in the Sonora Desert, things weren't looking great.

Of course, you can't keep the KSport guys down and by 8 am, Streets of Willow was about to meet its match. By the end of the day, KSport had sealed their spot as the fastest car on the track. Not bad considering it was a brand new track for us!

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported us, as well as our competitors.
Oh, and apparently, the UMS guys are a bit of exhibitionists.

Oscars BMW M3

Oscars E46 BMW M3 on KSport Kontrol Pros and KSport Big Brakes at the track. Enjoy.

KSport Rally Dampers Rule

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zueOmPu7_o

We got this video the other day from one of the many rally race teams that run the KSport Rally Spec dampers. This video was taken during filming of a Rally4Life and FeViva World Missions production. Looks like fun!

Good Movie Night

Has anyone else seen that new flick, District 9? We went and saw it last night over at Tempe Marketplace.

After being accosted by a young man who sold me tickets at half price, we found some seats (Cine Capri ftw) and settled in to enjoy this epically-long movie (1 hr 50 mins). I don't want to ruin it, but it was pretty good. Totally NOT the story I was expecting. I actually noticed a lot of similarities between the story and what's happened to cultures in the past. About halfway through the movie, I started trying to figure out why a kid who seemed really sketchy had sold me some tickets that were already torn, and had mentioned he saw it already. that's when it dawned on me. He bought tickets for the 7:00 showing, saw an earlier one with said tickets and then sold them to me for half-price. Not a bad deal for either of us.

Oh, and if MNU had been using anything other than AK's, Christopher totally woulda died. Silly Kalashnikovs and their inaccuracies. That's the second revelation I had during the movie.

Bad Movie Night

Ok, I had to try really hard not to say something about this, but a quick Google search this morning really put me over the edge. First of all, Nick Cage (that's what I call him) is a bad enough actor as it is; the premise of the movie Knowing, while promising at first, gets ruined when the space ship appears at the end and takes the kids away to a safer place, where they literally run through a golden field of flowers tall weeds as the movie fades into the credits. The picture (posted) sums up just how shitty this movie is. Almost as bad as The Rock.

I got a call from Hollywood Video a few weeks ago saying that since it was my birthday, I got a free movie rental. I went into the movie store on my way home from work and had a rather cordial conversation with the female working behind the register. Her boss (some munchkin lookin' dude) kept eying over her shoulder--as in, watching her rent out my DVD, not trying to see down her shirt like I was--and you could tell she was really tired of it. I have nothing against that line of work, for the record.. that is, working at a video store. But for a second, just fathom, or imagine the idea that someone does think it's a crappy job. I'm assuming she did, and having her dorky-looking, personality-less boss scoping her out every five seconds seemed to rub in the fact that she was working at Hollywood Video for a small wage, rather than say, heading up some Fortune 500 company, being a teacher, or playing for the Phoenix Mercury (professions that I'm not afraid to admit, are probably more notable than working at Hollywood Video.. except maybe the basketball gig. I'd rather rent DVDs all day than play for the Mercury, if I was a female that is). Our delightful encounter at the video store really started, and ended, with me the customer, reassuring her that her life wasn't miserable--her boss was just an idiot and some people get off on micromanaging their employees... it's not the end of the world.

I finally got around to watching "Knowing" last night (a month or so later), after it has accumulated a solid $15-20 in late fees and have received a few nasty phone calls from the video store, probably from that possessive store manager. For the record, make no mistake.. I love Hollywood Video. I just think that guy needs to lighten up a bit. Anyways, the movie itself is pretty bad. It has the obligatory "working hard all through the night" scene, which EVERY shitty movie has. You know what I mean, right? I'm talking about the scene where the music starts, or shows someone working hard, leaping over obstacles or pushing through a time of pain, only to come out stronger on the other side. The Karate Kid has about five of these scenes. This time is was Nick Cage, discovering what a series of numbers meant (decoding it), then he stayed up all through the night, researching hard, hitting the whiskey, the music was dramatic... Scenes like that make everyone want to have a "working hard" time, whether it's a night, or a month. It never seems that exciting and dramatic in real life, however. To end this horrible rant, the appearance of Rose Byrne saved the movie and made it bearable till the end.

Civic Destroys All. KSport owns Firebird Raceway

Listen_To_This. A month or so ago, Tage Evanson, a local/regional time attack and time trial racer called us up and wanted to talk about suspension parts for his Civic. Usually requests like this are taken lightly, and they have to be, because KSport gets hundreds of requests for sponsorships every week--seriously--and it really takes up a lot of time to determine what's worth it, what isn't, etc. Picking and choosing is tough, so often we'll just avoid the conversation all together, or set aside large chunk of time on a weekend to sift through all the proposals and decide who gets a call back and who doesn't. Tage is based out of Phoenix, just like KSport, and given that he won the 2007 Super Lap Battle and stole the track record away from HASport, who had it for years, we were more than interested in working with him and his Civic.

We'll get into more of Tage's accomplishments, later. Last weekend was the first time up for Tage and his Civic with the new KSport suspension. What that entails is literally and off the shelf Kontrol Pro kit with stiffer different spring rates. No changes to dampening, shock length, etc. Anyone could buy this kit for their EG Honda Civic. The track for the first test was Firebird Intl. Raceway's "West Course", located about 20-minutes southeast of KSport's headquarters in Phoenix.

This event was running with the National Autosports Association (NASA) under their strict, nationally-sanctioned Time Trial rulebook. Within that series there are nine classes; the Civic runs in the "TTS" Class, which is the 3rd quickest. (TTR is fastest, then TTU, then TTS).

Tage won his class on the first day out. Actually, his best lap was set in the first session of the day, first time ever on KSports. Looking deeper, Tage beat the TTS track record for Firebird Raceway, with a time of 1:01.39. It doesn't end there.

Remember how I said there are two faster classes above the Civic in the NASA Time Trial ranks? Tage beat all those guys too. The TTU record is a 1:01.56, and the unlimited TTR class record is a 1:02.41. What that simply means is, Tage set the fastest lap ever on Firebird West for a NASA event, and that is the all-out FWD lap record for Firebird West as well. We'll just say it again... The fastest FWD car to ever set foot (or, tire) on Firebird Raceway's West course, was using off the shelf KSports.

In addition to that, Brady Dohrmann in his BMW M3 set the TTC lap record of 1:05.303. Jeremy Renshaw's TTB class record from 2008 still stands as well, and he was on KSports. Of the nine NASA classes to participate on that track, three of the lap records were set on KSport suspension.

GoPro Camera, Laguna Seca, I-10 is horrible.

So I started experimenting with this GoPro camera that everyone rants and raves about. I bought one at Buttonwillow Raceway back in April, but the lens was broken right out of the box. That, and the next week when we were racing in Phoenix, someone busted out with the GoPro "Wide", which has a wide-angle lense... and of course, that's way cooler. I sent the broken one back to GoPro, then bought a wide angle version which is a lot more fun.

We've been working on perfecting the BMW kits for a while now. Looking for another venue for testing, Laguna Seca served a few purposes aside from seafood, nice weather and a break from the Phoenix and SoCal tracks we've been to a million times. First, Laguna Seca is smooth like glass, so it was a perfect opportunity to experiment with different spring rates and really check the range of adjustability with the dampers on that type of surface. Buttonwillow, Willow and the tracks in Phoenix are pretty bumpy, so we have plenty of that sort of testing under our belts. We learned a lot at Laguna Seca in 2007 with the Type R on damper tuning... before the car blew up, that is.

And as odd as this may sound to most, the 700 miles between Phoenix and Monterrey offer some of the best highway ride comfort tuning situations once can imagine. I-1o out of Phoenix is nice and smooth; I-10 into Palm Springs and LA is like washboard rough, and a perfect setting to try different adjustments in the typical customer market. I know, it's hard to believe, but more than 90% of the customers never see the track. We tune dampers for the street, then get an earful from the guys on the track.. if you tune it for the track, then the street car guys complain. Hard to win these days. :)

This was taken with our '97 BMW M3, using off the shelf Kontrol Pro dampers. 3200lb car, 240hp, Nitto NT05 street tires. Typical tuner car, but it just happens to be fast around Laguna.

Laguna Seca - The Chase from phoenixR34 on Vimeo.