FXMD Overcomes disaster to pull off last minute victory at Auto Club Speedway

FXMDBilly · 17 November 2009

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Coming from an Unlimited RWD class victory and record at the 2009 Super Lap Battle Time Attack event at Buttonwillow the previous Wednesday, FXMD came to the Redline Season Finale at Auto Club Speedway with high hopes. With new untested changes made to the FX750 NSX before Buttonwillow, FXMD was looking to further shake down the car on Saturday in preparation for Sunday’s Time Attack.
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</o> Saturday’s testing proved to be successful despite losing the right rear tire on the banking at 150mph. Driver Billy Johnson stated “I simply set the tire pressures too low for how cold the track conditions were and I didn’t let the tires get up to temp before the banking. It was not a tire failure by any means but rather a misjudgment in pressures. Thankfully I was able to keep the car off the wall and in one piece”. Unfortunately the down tire took out the canister of the KW 3-way motorsport dampers along with it. Thankfully KW North America was there and helped get the situation under control with a replacement.
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As Sunday rolled around, testing couldn’t have gone better with the new Performance Friction “Z-Rated” Forged Monoblock Calipers with multi-pad technology (1 brake pad per piston) and 2pc floating rotors. “These brakes are amazing” Johnson said, “The pedal remained rock-solid and consistent lap after lap with zero signs of fade. The combined stiffness of the caliper and multiple pads per caliper make modulating the brakes almost telepathic, you have to truly experience it yourself to believe brakes can be this responsive and communicative”.

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Despite the good start, the day was not going to be easy for the FXMD team. A snapped input shaft in the transmission looked to end their chances of competing and clinching the Unlimited RWD Championship. Crew Chief Radomir Banda said “Failures happen when making this kind of power. While we have made steps to increase the strength of the transmission, we have never seen a failure like this before. The fracture was so perfect it looked like it was cut on a lathe”. The team had three hours to swap transmissions before the last timed session of the day. “These guys are amazing” said Johnson, “Whenever we are thrown a curveball that would make other teams pack up and go home, the whole team comes together. Against overwhelming odds they put the car together in time to give me one last shot.”
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For the final run, the team installed a bone stock transmission that had a less than ideal gear ratio and final drive, and no limited slip differential. They increased spring rates and raised the ride height to prevent the right front tire from bottoming out into the fender on the banking. They re-aligned the car, put on new tires, upped the boost, and fixed a cracked header. With all these changes and no practice time, the team wasn’t sure what the result was going to be.
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As the sun started to set over the <st1>Southern California</st1> mountains, the last run group was the Unlimited class. With a best lap of 1:37.7 during testing, Billy had to shave off nearly 2 seconds to beat the current record set by the AMS EVO X which turned a 1:36.230 in the first timed session. On his second lap, Billy was able to edge AMS out with a record-setting lap of 1:36.103, just a tenth quicker than the EVO.
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</o> This result marks the 5<sup>th</sup> Overall Victory and 5<sup>th</sup> Track Record for the team out of 5 races attended this year. An undefeated record clinched the 2009 Unlimited RWD Championship for the FX Motorsports Development team. We would like to thank Redline for a great year and special thanks to Sierra Sierra Enterprises for welding our header back together, they are a class-act.
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</o> We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their superior track proven products and unwavering support throughout the entire year. Without their support this undefeated season would not have been possible. Special thanks to Sam Kwa from Yokohama Tire for providing us with valuable advice via phone throughout the entire weekend and Chris Marion from KW Automotive for the on-site product support.

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<st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Yokohama</st1></st1:city> Tire
Performance Friction Brakes
KW Suspension
NEO Synthetics
Brian Crower
WPC Metal Treatment Co.
Uehara Motowerks
Downforce.biz
RC Fuel Injectors
Race Engine Development
Applied Motorsports
Tial Sport
STMPO
FIX & STACK Restaraunt in Las Vegas
Back in Balance Chiropractic
GoPro Motorsports Hero
Daliracing
Autovation
Darton International
Findly Acura
RPS Clutches
OS Giken
CP Pistons
Grafikimpact

Celebrating the victory:

Full Results:

Unlimited RWD
1. Billy Johnson FX Motorsports Development Acura NSX 1:36.103

Unlimited All Wheel Drive
1. Paul Gerrard AMS Performance/NOS Energy Drink Evo X1:36.230
2. David Empringham Sierra Sierra Evo 1:38.028
3. Brian Lock GOTO Racing/Dell Equallogic Nissan GT-R 1:38.677
4. Tarzan Yamada Crawford Performance Subaru STi 1:40.505
5. Mike Cronin Jr. Fontana Nissan Nissan GT-R 1:44.026

Unlimited Front Wheel Drive
1. Chris Rado World Racing Scion tC 1:39.381
2. Katsuyuki Hiranaka Team 5Zigen Honda Civic 1:44.693
3. Jason Saini Tripoint Engineering Mazda 6 1:46.558
4. Andrew Gillis AIT Racing Ford Focus 1:53.549
5. Frank Yeung HPS Yokahama GP 1:56.300
6. Ryan Lapp 2:04.910

Modified All Wheel Drive
1. Ryan Gates RyanGates311.com/AMS Performance Evo X 1:43.497
2. Mike Cronin Jr. Fontana Nissan 1:44.730
3. Sharif Abdelbaset Forged Performance 1:44.943
4. Russ Warr LIC Performance/Crawford/Toyo 1:45.772
5. Dieter Heniz C-Spec Tuning/RobiSpec/RRE Time Attack Evo 1:45.904
6. James Elterman Takata 1:47.862
7. Jared Stoops Forged Performance 1:48.469
8. Carl Rydquist Citytireonline Porsche 911 1:50.004
9. Dez Ballard Gruppe-S/Hankook Tires 1:51.056
10. Ken Xu K&W Autobody/APM Racing/AIT Racing 1:53.425
11. Joel Miller Sparco USA/Designcraft 1:56.396
12. Dusty Nabor NNI Racing/101 Pipe/sparco 1:57.555
13. Kevin Welker Rally Innovations 2:01.064

Modified Front Wheel Drive
1. Tom Liang Racelikebunnies.com 1:58.991
2. John Lindeman Gear-X/Toyo Tire 2:02.176
3. Ross Miller PTuning 2:11.543
4. Jeremy Hugee 2:13.839

Modified Rear Wheel Drive
1. JC Meynet 1:45.462
2. Matt Andrews Nitto 1:45.541
3. Richard Taylor AE Performance/Hankook/JIC/Etnies 1:48.381
4. Alex Latteri 1:49.186
5. Stephen Ruiz 1:49.458
6. Jeremy Renshaw AFI Turbo/Kenney Ent/Willwood/Competition Clutch 1:49.706
7. Isaac Schumacher 1:50.343
8. Dave Lemon Mazdatrix Mazda RX-7 1:50.750
9. Jacob Tanaka NittoTires/Sams Autoland/Technosquare/SCT/XXR Wheels 1:51.746
10. Stu Hayner 1:51.895
11. Steve Butscher 1:52.785
12. Billy Brooks 1:57.214
13. James King 1:58.461
14. Ryan Rush 1:59.171
15. Ed Bergenholtz Nitto/Mazda No Time

Drift
1. Rhys Millen RMR/Hyundai/Red Bull Hyundai Genesis 1:48.004
2. Kyle Mohan Mazdatrix/Exedy/Turbonetics Mazda RX-7 1:54.025
3. Henry Schelley HPS/Baker/Driftspeed Nissan S14 1:57.497
4. Sasha Radojovic 2:01.621

Buddy Club Street All Wheel Drive
1. Jeremy Toye Reese Tuning 1:47.678
2. Stephen Ruiz Stoptech 1:49.050
3. Russ Warr M1FD/Tuning Tech/Octane Report 1:49.144
4. Tony Wiesenhahn Turn In Concepts 1:49.290
5. Erik Islas Robispec/Tuning Technologies 1:49.697
6. Tony Fuentes Island Motorsports/US Army/Spec Clutches/TITEK 1:55.452
7. Mauricio Calderon Massimo Power/AE Performance/Domospeed 1:58.729
8. Strothuer Jones 2:07.576

Buddy Club Street Front Wheel Drive
1. Clint Boisdeau FocusSport Ford Focus 1:56.844
2. Chris Stout Stout Performance 1:57.440
3. Jason Nathan 1:59.349
4. Brian Alvarez Tripoint/CP-E/Yokohama/HKS/Recaro 2:02.000
5. Alan Bowers 2:03.774
6. Charles Tran PlanB Motorsports/Special Projects MS 2:06.895
7. Sean Davies ExoSpeed 2:13.862
8. Danny Martinez Project Import No Time

Buddy Club Street Rear Wheel Drive
1. Jeremy Croiset MCS Motorsports/Berk Tek/KW Toyota MR2 1:50.692
2. Robert Choo DSPORT/Hankook/Vorte 1:51.617
3. Jeff Tyler HP Autowerks 1:52.811
4. Manly Kao TrackHQ/Buddyclub/Toyo/APR 1:53.640
5. Mike Bonanni Berk Technology BMW 135i 1:54.909
6. Kenny Chieu Konod 1:56.451
7. Mike Bonanni DoubleDownMotorsport.com Nissan 370Z 1:56.852
8. Eddie Lim KW 2:00.000
9. Mike Haddad Haddad Motorsports 2:05.179
10. Matt Johnson 2:05.180
11. Gregory Haye 2:05.348

Stock AWD
1. Matt Dennison TuningTech/RobiSpec/Mil.spec
2. Thomas Smith Zenkai Motorsports/Crawford/Duratec/Motul 1:53.884
3. Jon Drenas 1:55.173
4. Roger Hocking 1:55.753
5. Rigo Lafontaina Southcoast Mitsibushi 1:56.224
6. Chris Reber 2:00.296
7. Michele Abbate 2:00.411
8. Istvan Kiang 2:02.577
9. Verena Mei Southcoast Mitsubishi 2:07.118

Buddy Club Stock Front Wheel Drive
1. Dez Ballard ABF Performance / Gruppe-S 1:59.595
2. Eric Emerson E&A Motorsports 2:03.404
3. Adrian Torres Racelikebunnies.com 2:07.742

Buddy Club Stock Rear Wheel Drive
1. Paul Dentice AE Performance/Hankook/JIC/Etnies 1:55.534
2. Robi Fuller RobiSpec 1:55.670
3. Jim Tway 1:56.201
4. Ed Lee 1:58.166
5. Jairo Jaramillo Track HQ/Gableitfilms 2:02.063
6. Thomas Barrett Corvette Specialties 2:02.119
7. Christian Burke Circuit Motorsports/FSR/Hellfish Racing 2:05.104
8. Paul Paniagua Circuit Motorsports/FSR/Hellfish Racing 2:06.390
9. Christopher Chen VT Engineering 2:07.420

Super Session
1. Billy Johnson U-RWD 1:38.881 FXMD
2. David Empringham U-AWD 1:39.208 Sierra Sierra
3. Brian Lock U-AWD 1:39.359 GOTO Racing/Dell Equallogic
4. Mike Cronin Jr. U-AWD 1:43.087 Fontana Nissan
5. JC Meynet M-RWD 1:47.261
6. Sharif Abdelbaset M-QWD 1:49.321 Forged Performance
7. James Elterman M-AWD 1:49.418 Takta

Ponyboy · 17 November 2009

Holy crap! Losing a tire at 150mph is not something I ever want to encounter. Props for keeping the car in one piece and for doing so well.

striker525 · 17 November 2009

Push it to the limit Billy! Keep it up!

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.More pics are a go!!

Here are the pics in hi-res (http://www.flickr.com/photos/rondungca/sets/72157622699237681/)

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Billy Johnson (spot colored)

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MORE MORE MORE!

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After the battle...

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I will upload the HD videos I captured from the event within this week...keep an eye out for those!!:tongue:

:biggrin:

SFDreamer · 17 November 2009

The FXMD Team definitely kicks butt. They were hard at work the whole time and Billy rewarded them with an awesome drive. I was very impressed.

ediddynsx · 17 November 2009

I'm sorry you said something about a race going on? :biggrin::tongue:

Congrats to the team and Billy.....its awesome to see our old ass car still kicking butt 18 years later!

striker525 · 17 November 2009

FXMD NSX starring Billy Johnson...

<EMBED src=http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377 width=400 height=225 type=application/x-shockwave-flash flashvars="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=8f776c822a&photo_id=4113179260&hd_default=false" allowfullscreen="true" bgcolor="#000000"></EMBED>

nsxalot · 18 November 2009

150 MPH!!! Fixed and back on the track. It takes a village.

If I saw this in a movie I would not believe it. What a team.

Next year?

Lance

TURBO2GO · 18 November 2009

Billy you've got some big Cojones my friend...

Vega$ NSX · 18 November 2009

Great job again. Seriously all this record breaking is becoming quite boring. :tongue: Now what I'm most interested in is when are you going to get a FXMD car model(s)???

And when are you going to hook me up with one of them???

striker525 · 18 November 2009

striker525 · 18 November 2009

And for the win....can we all guess who it is? haha

FXMDKen · 19 November 2009

Thanks fellas, it was one hell of a weekend and a total team effort to pull this one off!

M-P · 20 November 2009

I read this over at MotoIQ a few days ago...just wanted to say congrats on a great weekend.

EK@ASU · 20 November 2009

That's amazing a stock transmission was swapped in with stock gear ratios plus all the last minute repairs your team did, and somehow you still got the quickest lap time with no test on top of it

. Simply amazing, congrats.

FXMDBilly · 21 November 2009

delete post

FXMDBilly · 21 November 2009

In-Car Footage is now up!!

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k55D-OO7L0E&feature=player_embedded

FXMD+and+Billy+Johnson+-+ACS+09+Overall+Win+1.36.1

Billy

FXMD Overcomes disaster to pull off last minute victory at Auto Club Speedway

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