Nissan 370Z Forum - COBB Motorsports Wins BIG in New Jersey

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COBB Motorsports' 3,000 mile trek from California to New Jersey paid off big with Brian Lock taking the the Overall Win in his Nissan GT-R Modified Class car, a historic first for the Redline Time Attack series. Cameron Benner and his Street Tire Subaru STI were strong all weekend and brought home the 2nd place trophy in class. Trey Cobb and his Enthusiast Class Nissan 370Z are beginning to hit their stride and finished a strong 4th in class. With equally impressive performances in the Super Session wheel-to-wheel race, COBB Motorsports left New Jersey leading the East Coast Championship points race in both the Modified AWD and Street Tire AWD classes and 4th place in Enthusiast RWD Class.

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Success did not come easily, as the weekend certainly had its challenges. The Modified Class Nissan GT-R began developing engine hiccups in right hand corners early in the weekend that became progressively worse throughout the event. Sr. Calibrator Tim Bailey and Car Chief Dustin Harris initially suspected fuel starvation issues, but problems continued even with a full fuel tank, triggering the ECU into limp mode and forcing Brian to pit. The issue was later determined to be electrical, which can often be very difficult to find and solve quickly. The GT-R failed to complete a single full power lap in both Sunday morning practice sessions and even took the car out of the first timed session on Sunday afternoon. The team worked feverishly between Time Attack sessions, checking every electrical connection and thoroughly securing the wiring loom to prevent any movement on track. The scramble paid off in spades and Brian was able to get the GT-R to perform at its peak, delivering three flying laps in the final Time Attack session, producing a staggering laptime of 1:06.768. This turned out to be the fastest lap of the event, giving the Modified Class AWD win, Modified Class Overall win and Event Overall win to a Modified class car for the first time in the history of Redline Time Attack.

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Further complications arose mid-event with the Subaru. Cameron Benner's weekend started out very strong with the Street Tire Subaru STI nipping at the heels of cars in the higher performance Modified Class. Cameron came in to Round 2 still on a steep learning curve with the Redline Time Attack format and his limited experience learning new tracks, but his lap times and composure on track certainly didn't show it. Trouble started late in the day on Saturday with an external wastegate fitting failure which caused boost control issues. Car Chief Brian Marstellar was able to re-tap the wastegate with a larger fitting, however, damage to the wastegate was ultimately more severe than initially thought, resulting in boost levels that were 5psi lower than the targeted 24psi and really hurting power production. Tim Bailey worked some more of his AccessPORT tuning magic to coax some additional boost and power out of the STI boxer, giving Cameron just enough back to secure a strong 2nd place podium in Street Tire AWD in final Time Attack session of the day.

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Trey Cobb's Nissan 370Z proved to be trouble free throughout the weekend, giving him a stable platform to further develop his driving talent. Billy Brooks, Cobb Tuning's lead Hard Parts Engineer, tweaked the 370Z's suspension between events, and Brian Hanchey of AST Suspension helped the team dial-in the 5200 series double adjustable coilovers at the track, which helped resolve the corner exit power-down problems Trey was experiencing at Buttonwillow. Trey quickly got down to business of learning yet another new track and pushing the performance envelope of his 370Z while never putting a wheel wrong throughout all the practices. In the final Time Attack session Trey put his head down and got to business pushing the mildly modified Z to the limit, and beyond. Trey was able to put together a fastest laptime of 1:21.672, just 9/10ths of a second out of a podium position in Enthusiast RWD class and 1.5 seconds faster than the nearest Enthusiast AWD turbo EVO Xs!

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The crowd favorite Super Session wheel-to-wheel race once again provided plenty of action. Brian and the Modified GT-R sat on pole with Cameron in the Street Tire STI took the green flag from the back of the grid. Brian had a great battle with the Turn In Concepts WRX driven by Tony Wiesenhahn and ultimately prevailed, taking home the Super Session overall win and firmly putting him in first place in the Modified East Coast Championship. Cameron took home the win in the Super Session Street Tire class, and the extra points pushed him into the Street Tire East Coast Championship lead as well.

The COBB Motorsports team is back on the road again heading west for the next round of the Redline Time Attack at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The rig will stop off in Salt Lake City, UT so the cars can be treated to a much needed round of service and some additional track testing at Miller Motorsports Park before picking up where it left off in the West Coast Championship points scuffle. Brian and the Nissan GT-R sit 2nd in points in the Modified West Coast Championship, Cameron and the Subaru STI are currently leading the Street Tire West Coast Championship and Trey and the 370Z are sitting in 7th in the Enthusiast Class West Coast Championship.

Everyone at COBB Motorsports is fired up from overcoming the obstacles thrown at them in New Jersey and are looking forward to bringing that success back into the West Coast Championship. Come on out to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on April 23-25 to see all the Redline Time Attack action and be sure to stop by the COBB Motorsports rig to hang out with the crew and check out the racing hardware. See you there!

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