What Happened
The
Maximum Motorsports shop car (which is a street car) ran
the fastest lap time, quicker than the best of the race-equipped
cars by over two seconds.
What it was
Two
days of timed hot laps at Buttonwillow Raceway in California's
central valley on August 26 & 27, 2000. It was an excellent
opportunity for the leading suspension tuners to showcase
their products.
How it got started
Bench
racing among Mustang owners on the popular Mustang web site
Corral.net led to a run-what-you-brung open track event
to compare suspension systems.
Who hosted it
Open-Track,
the southern California chapter of NASA, hosted the WCSS
during one of their popular race weekends. Many thanks to
Open-Track for a well run and immensely enjoyable weekend.
Timing was provided by dBcom.
Who was invited
Open-Track
issued invitations to the top Mustang suspension tuners.
Who was there
Maximum
Motorsports brought the shop R&D car, and provided pit support
for customers. Two IPS-equipped cars were in attendance.
Griggs Racing was represented by customers with both road
race and street cars. Several cars with Global West components
also attended.
Heart-pounding test rides
Nearly
every lap the Maximum Motorsports car was on the track it
carried a passenger, giving many fellow Mustang owners an
intense sampling of what our suspension parts can do for
their street driven Mustangs.
Conclusion
The West Coast Suspension Shootout was a successful workshop
for comparing the top suspension systems. Our MM-equipped
shop car bested all comers with the fastest lap time of
the weekend. The closest
competition was a Griggs-equipped race car, over two seconds behind.
In-car VIDEO footage of
the Maximum Motorsports Shop car lapping Buttonwillow
in a blistering 2 minutes, 5 seconds! This early video file is very
large (35 MB), and may seem to lock up. The best method is to "right
click" and "save target as" so you download
the file first, and play it back afterwards.
| MM Shop Car - MM '87 LX/Kumho | 2:05.79 |
| Ryan Flaherty - Griggs '88 GT/Kumho | 2:08.01 |
| John Lindsey - Griggs '89 GT/Kumho | 2:08.85 |
| Dave Martis - Griggs '97 Cobra/Hoosier | 2:08.86 |
| Eric Pettersen - Griggs '68 Mustang/Hoosier | 2:09.38 |
| Ed Varon - GW '97 SS Camaro/Kumho | 2:09.39 |
| Dave Benzel - IPS '98 GT/Kumho | 2:09.98 |
| Steve Libby - IPS '99 Cobra/Yoko A032R | 2:10.46 |
| Brian Border - Mild Griggs '98 Cobra/Kumho | 2:11.05 |
| Dan Landfield - MM/GW '85 GT/A008RSII combo | 2:13.83 |
| Bob Tabor - Mixed Cobra/BFG R1 | 2:15.08 |
| Eric Christenson - Griggs '99 Cobra/Kumho | 2:15.58 |
| Rob Ainscough - Mixed '99 Cobra/Nitto streets | 2:15.68 |
| Steve Michaeson - Mixed '97 Cobra/Yoko streets | 2:16.03 |
| Jack Hidley - MM '92 LX/BFG R1 | 2:17.17 |
| Nick Crivello - MM '88 GT/Kumho | 2:19.99 |
| Mark Clancy - Griggs '96 Cobra/Firestone | 2:21.61 |
| Hal Massey - Griggs '96 Cobra/streets | 2:23.34 |
| Joe Stuart - Mixed '98 Cobra/streets | 2:23.73 |
| Doug Rupp - Vintage GT 350/R's? | 2:23.81 |
| Shaka Milby - Mixed '93 GT/Kumho | 2:31.90 |
| Eric/David Wheaton - '66 GT/Hoosier | 2:32.16 |
