This year’s World Time Attack Challenge took place at the Sydney Motorsport Park on the 17th, 18th and 19th of October. For those not familiar this is an event that started out as an annual National Time Attack event in 2008. From there interest and participation in the format grew, organiser saw an opportunity to create an event on a scale previously unseen in time attack competition. The idea was to create a truly international event where the best time attack teams from around the world could compete directly against each other, and not just represent their respective tuning houses, but also their country; and gain the glory of being crowned World Time Attack Champion.
The Subaru’s had reasonable representation, particularly in the Clubsprint Class with 4 cars. There were only 3 in the OPEN Class and none in the PRO.
The inaugural World Time Attack Challenge was held in 2014 at Eastern Creek Raceway, and was a great success, attracting teams from USA & Japan. Each year the lap times fall and attendance grows, this has been attributed to the relative affordability of the sport, at least compared to other forms of motorsport. While creating a PRO level car is not cheap, the lower level Clubsprint & Open classes give Club level racers a chance to compete on the World Stage alongside international superstars. For anyone temped by all this bear in mind that entry fees start at $899, and a full weekend spectator pass is $100.
The winner of the event and this year’s World Time Attack Champion was Garth Walden driving the Tilton Racing EVO to a time of 1:24.8412.
David Lord from Tunehouse Racing managed second fastest in Clubsprint with a time of 1:40.604 only 0.633 seconds behind the 1st place Evo. The fastest Subaru there was the Car Mods Racing WRX, driven by Nev Scott who managed a time of 1:34.705 netting him 13th place in the OPEN Class.
For comparison the current V8 supercar lap record is 1:30.9123 set by Garth Tander in 2012. The fastest GT Sports Cars driver is Jack Le Brocq with a time of 1:27.9783 in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3. The only cars with comparable times are the likes of the Formula Threes & Formula Holden’s with lap records of 1:22.629 & 1:22.5131 respectively.