Over the last 3 years, I’ve had the pleasure of being involved with Global Time Attack as a fan, a photographer and even lending a hand in the pits. I’ve watched the sport of time attack have a resurgence in the United States, with more and more teams traveling greater distances to compete on ever increasing stages. To me Road Atlanta with Formula Drift creates the biggest stage of them all, with thousands of fans catching a glimpse of the sport.
This year was the biggest and best year yet, with over 40 drivers, GTA drivers out numbed the amount of Formula Drift drivers. With drivers traveling all over the United States and even a few guys from Canada. This made for a packed paddock and moved from it from the main paddock to the support paddock area.
This year a practice session was opened to drivers who arrived early and wanted a look at the track. For the most part practice was quiet and I believe all teams where able to go to back up cars or make repairs. Several teams found issues early, including Miles Gunther 4AGE which suffered from rod knock and was incredibly swapped out in the paddock by a flock of rotaries.
Friday started early with Tech and Drivers Meeting going on at 8 am, the schedule was tightly packed with 2 practice sessions followed by 2 sessions to put down an official time. This ended up with packed grids and the first good look at some of the cars that arrived over night and that morning.
After a break in the action to allow drivers to recuperate and making adjustments to the cars, the afternoon sessions began. Rain threaten and with the forecast calling for scattered storms the following day, drivers behind to really push their cars. The sessions stayed rain free, but big storm came up effected Formula Drift qualifying shortly after.
Day two started super early again and we saw some interesting aero changes and backup cars come out. Element Tuning STI after having some cooling issues, went with the awesome classic trashcan cooling duct.
Rain once again threatened, but the morning sessions stayed dry. Giving teams a good chance to lay down some serious lap times, with having a full day to work out issues.
During the afternoon sessions there was some light rain in turns 3 and 4, not sure if it spread to the rest of the track but tapered off as soon as sessions started. As drivers tried to make up small gaps to podium, we saw things get pretty wild.
The checkered flag dropped on the final session, and it was time for the festivities.
Global Time Attack Overall for Road Atlanta, May 9-10, 2014:
ENTHUSIAST AWD | 1 | 01:43.113 | Daniel O’Donnell
ENTHUSIAST AWD | 2 | 01:45.596 | Aaron Byram
ENTHUSIAST RWD | 1 | 01:49.783 | Roy Narvaez
ENTHUSIAST RWD | 2 | 01:57.340 | Miles Gunther
LIMITED AWD | 1 | 01:32.289 | Joe Ascoli
LIMITED AWD | 2 | 01:33.910 | Nathan Cicio
LIMITED AWD | 3 | 01:34.349 | Ivo Mitkov
LIMITED AWD | 4 | 01:43.378 | John Denise
LIMITED FWD | 1 | 01:34.113 | Will Au-Yeung
LIMITED FWD | 2 | 01:38.690 | Joe Ippolito
LIMITED FWD | 3 | 01:43.979 | Cooper Pierce
LIMITED FWD | 4 | 01:47.963 | Andrew Meek
LIMITED RWD | 1 | 01:28.259 | Cody Kishel
LIMITED RWD | 2 | 01:30.086 | Tyler McQuarrie
LIMITED RWD | 3 | 01:30.570 | Rob Walker
LIMITED RWD | 4 | 01:37.175 | Kevin Parlett
LIMITED RWD | 5 | 01:39.031 | Michael Gardner
LIMITED RWD | 6 | 01:40.004 | Will Wattanawongkiri
LIMITED RWD | 7 | 01:44.063 | Joshua Garcia
LIMITED RWD | 8 | 01:48.071 | Josh Todd
STREET AWD | 1 | 01:33.407 | Mark Jagar
STREET AWD | 2 | 01:37.509 | Jeremiah Fox
STREET AWD | 3 | 01:38.978 | Todd Earsley
STREET AWD | 4 | 01:45.256 | Justin Semon
STREET FWD | 1 | 01:53.084 | Richard Burge
STREET FWD | 2 | 01:55.187 | Lindsay High
STREET RWD | 1 | 01:39.207 | Dan Kang
STREET RWD | 2 | 01:40.460 | Daniel Walters
STREET RWD | 3 | 01:40.613 | Rob Walker
STREET RWD | 4 | 01:41.468 | Sean Farrah
STREET RWD | 5 | 01:42.704 | Tim Kuo
STREET RWD | 6 | 01:44.857 | Devin Stiglits
STREET RWD | 7 | 01:48.906 | Matthew Brueck
STREET RWD | 8 | 01:55.300 | Christopher Knight
STREET RWD | 9 | 01:56.929 | Brandon Bailey
UNLIMITED AWD | 1 | 01:26.652 | Kyle Schick / Cole Powelson
UNLIMITED AWD | 2 | 01:27.460 | Phil Grabow
UNLIMITED AWD | 3 | 01:28.979 | Tony Szirka
UNLIMITED FWD | 1 | 01:45.773 | Doug Wind
UNLIMITED RWD | 1 | 01:24.901 | Reese Cox
UNLIMITED RWD | 2 | 01:28.078 | Sasha Anis
UNLIMITED RWD | 3 | 01:37.015 | Terry Fair
UNLIMITED RWD | 4 | 01:37.454 | Chuck Conner
Special thanks to Jason and all the Global Time Attack staff for hosting a great event, all the sponsors that make this series and driver’s cars happen and road Atlanta for an awesome track for time attack. Expect to see more of these drivers and their cars in an upcoming driver spotlight feature.
