Another Job Well Done!

The American Iron Series is the latest up and coming class in the N.A.S.A racing organization. Race Director, Ryan Flaherty in his second year organizing this series has managed to equalize the race cars in an effort to make a better and more exciting race.

American Iron™ is a race series that calls to mind the legendary battles of the 1960's when champions competed against each other to win stoplight and drive-in bragging rights for their brand of choice. American Iron™ provides a forum where domestic "ponycars" such as Ford Mustangs, Chevrolet Camaros, and Pontiac Firebirds can challenge each other equipped with the finest performance products that aftermarket tuners and manufacturers have in their arsenals. This class was designed to showcase the massive improvements that careful suspension, brake, and chassis modifications can make to these amazingly popular cars and provide a spectator show for fans of these cars that is second to none. The Series offers competitors two classes, American Iron (AI) and American Iron Extreme (AIX). In order to control costs and encourage close competition, the AI class has a 9.5:1 power-to-weight ratio, a tire limitation, and other restrictions placed on the cars. For drivers that wish to race in less restricted format, AIX is a "sky's the limit" class, where nearly anything short of a tube frame is legal.

The California Speedway, a state of the art facility located 60 miles east of Los Angeles in the city of Fontana, was the American Iron season opener venue. This facility makes you feel like Emerson Fittipaldi. Real garages with roll-up doors and grandstands that seat thousands make you wonder what it must feel like to have thousand of people cheering for you from the grandstands.

Well...back to reality, our race would take place in the infield of the track while the tri-oval was being used by the Richard Petty Driving Experience. A tight 1.5 mile road course that can push the limits of your car quickly.

During the practice and qualifying sessions we proved to be one of the fastest cars out. Leading the way was Ross Murray driving the blue and white #40 Mustang belonging to Bruce Griggs. The GB400R followed very close qualifying only 1/2 second behind.  Putting up a good fight was the #3 Mustang driven by Vageli Karas who kept pushing his car to the extreme during the qualifying session.  To check it out on, click on the bottom movie clip from inside the GB400R.

As the race started, Ross pulled away from me on the front straight, bumper to bumper on some of the corners until my transmission gave way on lap 2. Third and second gears were gone! Only 4th gear was working...ouch! We fell back 3 seconds but managed to drive the car as if it were an automatic, keeping momentum through the turns and using a left foot technique in the slow corners. We managed to close the gap from 3 to 2 seconds and was able to defend the second position overall.

 This year Toyo became the official race tire for the series, which we unfortunately did not have for the race making our race day results null. We chose the AIX group thinking that "sky is the limit" therefore not thinking that the Toyo tires rule would apply. Well the jury is out on how much quicker or slower we would have been had we run on new Toyos like all the other cars versus our 6 heat cycled Goodyears?

I do know that these guys are serious about racing and their cars are very well prepared. The American Iron Series is really the only series in the west coast that offers close racing to highly modified pony cars I think we'll see more and more guys jumping on the band wagon if they are serious about competing in a real GT series.

After the race all cars had to report to impound were we had to push the car as the transmission was stuck in 4th gear.