TPC Racing to Supply Intercontinental Trophy Cup Racing Series

Lets go out and burn some rubber…

At TPC Racing, we have racing in our blood. It flows through our veins and is the driving force behind everything we do. After several years out of the spotlight of pro racing, TPC Racing is ready to get back to what we love most. Not only are we jumping feet first back into pro level competition in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama, but we are also very proud to announce our partnership with the newly formed Intercontinental Trophy Cup(ITC) Racing Series. Officially sanctioned by the National Auto Sport Association(NASA), this will be the organization’s first nationally touring semi-professional racing series. This is an excellent opportunity for serious club racers to experience top level door-to-door racing.

Drivers in the new ITC Race Series will be piloting Porsche Cayman prepared racecars and will be divided into two classes, P1 and P2. The P1 class will focus on the 2009MY and newer Porsche Cayman, while the P2 class will feature the 2008MY and earlier Porsche Cayman vehicles. These vehicles will be prepared according to very strict guidelines aimed at making the racecars as even as possible with a strong focus on maintaining certain power-to-weight ratios. ITC Series races will will be run at some of America’s top road racing venues. Drivers will run in two 50 minutes sprint races per weekend featuring a standing start that will definitely get the adrenaline flowing.

All racecars in the ITC Race Series will be prepared using brand specific parts. This will help ensure an even playing field for all of the competition, as well as help control costs for the race series participants. As one of the ITC Race Series Development Partners, TPC Racing will be supplying a number of our track developed and proven suspension components for racecars in both the P1 and P2 classes. The TPC supplied components will include:

• TPC Racing Pro Race Adjustable Sway Bars
• TPC Racing Pro Race Adjustable Drop-Links
• TPC Racing Pro Race Adjustable Toe Links
• TPC Racing prepared JRZ RS Pro Coilovers and camber plates

These components will help transform these fun sportscars into asphalt devouring racecars; and will provide serious racers a competitive and adrenaline filled racing experience.

Adding to the excitement in the ITC Race Series is their partnership with RaceFansTV.com. RaceFansTV.com will be broadcasting the ITC Race Series on their website. RaceFansTV.com has exploded in popularity over the past year with over 250,000 page views and 50,000+ visitors. RaceFansTV.com is packed with racing content, with nearly 1000 videos on file featuring everything from vintage road racing/rally/circle track/powerboat/motorcycle racing/automotive documentaries/current racing series; with lots of new content being added daily. Hardcore racing fans; RaceFansTV.com has you covered.

View the 2011 ITC Cayman Race Series Schedule

The OFFICIAL Intercontinental Trophy Cup Race Series Website

First off, thanks to Mike Levitas for helping me and SO many others on track this weekend. He’s incredibly generous with his time and knowledge. For two days he was jumping in and out of cars in every run group. GT3 Cup cars to Subaru wagons, Black drivers to Green drivers, didn’t matter to him, only that you wanted to learn. Congrats to Harr for his promotion! Awesome driving! We missed you Sunday.

My mistake was riding with Mike the 1st session of the 1st day. I hadn’t been to VIR before and should have gotten familar with the track before I asked him to ride with me. But it was still awesome.

JRZ’s……WOW! It’s hard to describe and I am not technical enough to explain the results, so here’s how it FELT.

One benefit of having Mike in the 1st session was having him setup a baseline for my JRZ’s. I immediately felt better control of the car. The rear end was putting down power without even a slightest hint of coming loose. I had some mild understeer so we made a couple of front rebound adjustments. The change, to my surprise, was easy to feel. It actually caused understeer in some corners that didn’t have it before; Mike predicted it before we made the change. So we changed it back but this time adjusted the compression. Understeer became very minimal but now the car was doing something I hadn’t really felt before, it was sliding (with just a slight lift), i.e. evenly sliding/rotating with little effort. It’s hard to explain but the car was super tight and planted but at the same time could be tossed around VERY controllably with throttle and brake modulation. This was huge for this track. The technical sections require you to roatate and point the car in order to keep your speed up.

This ability to slide the car was different for me. Previously I had to be somewhat aggressive to rotate the car. After just a couple of session with this setup I had awesome control with little effort. This lack of effort quickly built my confidence and reduced my fear when I pushed the edge of adhesion.

Thanks to some great instruction in Potomac PCA, rotation is something that I had been working on, so either I just figured it out or the JRZ’s made it A LOT easier. In any case, the car is extremely stable in & out of corners, stable at speed, stable over rumble, stable under braking and very controllable.

On the street? Not as bad as I thought they would be. I borrowed a trailer for the 5 1/2 hour drive to VIR, so I haven’t driven long distances with them on. But crusing around town they’re a bit harsh but not unbearable.

I had some buyer’s remorse going into this weekend thinking I wouldn’t be able to really appreciate these shocks at my experience level. Now I couldn’t be happier (of course it helps to have a pro driver on hand to setup your car). If you’re building a track car I would highly recommend these shocks.