World Time Attack 2013: The best yet

Records were not the only thing smashed at the fourth -- and by far the largest -- running of the Yokohama World Time Attack at Sydney Motorsport Park on the weekend.

After the threat of bushfires on Thursday and spectacular drifting events on Friday and Saturday nights, followed by the Flying 500, all eyes were on V8 Supercar driver Warren Luff and the Nemo Racing Evo Lancer he was piloting.

The competition came from far and wide. From Japan came entrants such Scorch Racing with its Nissan 200SX, Top Fuel with its Honda S2000, RE Amemyia with its Mazda RX-7 and Esprit with its Honda NSX.

Greece sent a duo of Evo Lancers entered by Simply Racing and from the US came AMB Aero with its Mitsubishi Eclipse.

And then there was local competition such as Pulse Racing, Dominator and Tilton Interiors, all running the proven Evo Lancer platform, MCA Suspension in a Nissan S13 Silvia and Prep’d Motorsports in a heavily modified Lotus Exige -- just to name a few.

But could anyone dethrone the monstrous time set the year before by the local, and would any of the international drivers exact revenge this year?

Those questions were answered a lot sooner than expected. In Friday’s first official practice, Tilton Interiors’ local entrant Garth Walden managed to set a blistering time in the second session of 1:24.855, which nobody saw coming.

Clearly all the pre-season development put into the Tilton Interiors' car -- including being shipped to Japan for wind tunnel testing and a new aero package -- had paid off.

To put this into perspective, despite regulations restricting all WTAC cars to street-legal semi-competition tyres such as the Yokohama AD050R, Walden’s time was better than the benchmarks set by racing machines on full slick tyres, including the Radical SR8 (1:25.703), Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 GT3 (1:28.057) and even a V8 Supercar (1:31.730).

The two-day event was not without mishap. With drivers pushing their cars to the absolute limit, the first to go was the Gorilla Motorsports Toyota Supra, which smashed into a concrete barrier. Later in the day one of the Turbo Legends, an MG Metro 6R4 World Rally Car, burst into flames and then on Saturday the RTR Evo X fell to a similar fate as the Gorilla Supra.

So this year’s World Time Attack had it all -- record crowds, great racing, daring drifting, spectacular crashes and a new record. Stand by for the 2014 event.

Images: www.worldtimeattack.com

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