AMS brought the Alpha Omega back to Lonestar Motorsports Park this past weekend for the annual TX2K event (TX2K.com). This has always been a big event for AMS giving us the first major opportunity of the year to meet with our customers, fans and dealers alike.
Since traction was a major issue for Omega last year, our goal this year was to focus on the traction control system and the new Syvecs 4wd Controller to help hook the tires to the track better. This was our first time testing the new 4wd controller and it wasn’t quite a plug and play operation. Additionally, the absence of all the high horsepower RWD cars they had last year laying down sticky rubber made for some slick conditions at this year’s TX2K event.
Saturday
On Saturday, Omega made a series of three low boost passes in an effort to nail down the effectiveness of the new 4wd Controller and dial in the traction control system. Despite still having major traction issues on the third pass, Ivan was able to take Omega on an [email protected] pass down the track to secure the number one spot in qualifying for the GT3 Unlimited class. Chris Black and Ivan worked on troubleshooting the traction control system after the drag event closed for the day and felt that had things figured out for Sunday’s race. The goal for Sunday was to run a little more boost in order to best the current R35 record of 8.62 set by Ivan in Omega at this same event last year.
Sunday
The track once again was very slick and we continued to fight traction on Sunday. Chris had the TCS working but the system is based on front vs rear wheel speeds. At a marginally higher boost level than Saturday this was causing all 4 wheels to spin almost the same speed, making the traction control ineffective on such a slick surface. With a 30mph crosswind kicking up again, Omega was proving difficult to handle while still not even running near its full power potential. The 1/8th mile time and speed needed to break our previous record was not a possibility because we could not apply any more power in the first half of the track. Ivan launched hard on all four passes for the day in hopes to hook up cleanly out of the hole. Traction still wasn’t there and he had to counter steer hard to keep the car from running into the wall or opposite lane on each pass.
Beating our current world record of 8.62 @ 173.81mph was still the foremost objective. Each time Omega got loose during the launch, Ivan hoped to ease off a little and still pull off a record time by making it up on the back half. By the 4th pass, it was determined that the track was just not going to provide enough grip to break last year’s record. On that pass, the tires spun from the launch to almost the 1/8th mile where the wheel speed finally dropped from 140+ MPH back down to 117 MPH when the tires finally hooked up. Since the times were not improving and after some serious consideration, the crew made the decision to bow out of the event for a better opportunity to beat our existing GT-R record.
All in all, AMS was happy to take home the trophy for fastest trap speed of the weekend at 172.9 MPH and also click off the quickest ET for a GT-R with an 8.78. It was also a pleasure to see Andrew Sweet take home the GT3 Unlimited Class trophy with his Top Speed Motorsports built Alpha 12 GT-R. AMS would also like to congratulate ALPHA Dealer Top Speed Motorsports Doug Wilks, Nathan Cicio and the rest of their crew for also having the fastest GT-R of the weekend on the road course.
A special thanks to Peter Blach and his team for putting on another great event. TX2K is always our favorite event of the year and we certainly look forward to returning to Houston next year.
AMS would also like to thank our sponsors for their generous support:
Dodson Motorsport
The Driveshaft Shop
Exedy
Sheptrans
SPL Parts
