JAMES HOUGTON AT GRIDLIFE TRACK BATTLE ROUND 12018 GRIDLIFE MID-OHIO | APR 14TH & 15TH
The weekend of April 14/15 saw the K-Tuned Time Attack Integra head South for the opening round of the 2018 Gridlife Track Battle series. As last year, the season opener was at the famed Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
But it was not an easy 2018 debut as James noted, “It was a very busy offseason for the K-Tuned Time Attack Integra. We always try to accomplish a lot of modifications for both speed and reliability but this winter/spring was definitely one to remember. We set many records in 2017 so we largely focused on improvements in reliability for 2018. With the many improvements were made to both our engine package, our wiring and electronics we were very excited to get out to our first event, even though it would be without the benefit of a track test beforehand.”
Mid-Ohio saw James once again compete in the Unlimited FWD class where he set the record in 2017 on his first visit to the track. Watching the weather forecast on the week leading up to the event the Kitchener, ON based team came prepared with rain tires as well as full complement of slicks just in case the called for rain did not arrive. After tech inspection, the weather radar was forecasting a dry first session and maybe the second. As this could be the session that would decide the whole event, the team discussed the options and agreed to go for it on slicks.
The slicks were mounted on the car and got in the zone for the first session. Although he didn’t beat his record from 2017 James put down a solid lap time of 1.28.9 which held up for fastest in class (Unlimited FWD) as well as Fastest Overall for the event.
Later that day the Gridlife team announced that they would start keeping track of wet track records as well as regular dry records in 2018. As the team had brought their rain tires they mounted them as the rain fell before the second session. James ran one of the fastest wet times of the weekend with a 2.00.0 and the fastest wet time in Unlimited FWD by a large margin! Houghton was excited after seeing photos of the K-Tuned Time Attack Integra in the wet, “I would never have believed the rooster tails that were coming off the car. We could see on the pit straight and from various photos taken all around the track that our aero was really working. I have to thank the guys at Professional Awesome for their input and my team for their execution of the Professional Awesome’s ideas!”
James continued by saying, “With all of our improvements to the car working well at Gridlife Track Battle 1 we can focus on more small changes leading up to the Global Time Attack event at Road Atlanta next month. To that end, we will be testing at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in a little over a week to help further dial in the suspension and aero package. Thank you very much for the support in the 2018 season, we definitely couldn’t do it without you! James”.
The team was very excited the Monday after the event when the newly announced Gridlife partnership with Autoweek published the first event report online with the team’s Acura Type R as the lead photo. View the article using the link below.
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James Houghton is running the Flow Formed Konig Dekagram in 18×10.5 front and 17×9 rear w/ et40mm offset. The Konig Dekagram is Flow Formed.
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Images provided by: MotorWerks
