Rd.1 Mid-Ohio "Heavy Hitters" Trackbattle Preview

This season, Gridlife will kick off the 2017 TrackBattle series at the legendary Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. This is a new track for Gridlife and we have a lot of returning drivers along with some new drivers who will be making their Gridlife debut this weekend.

Mid-Ohio is one of the nation's most prestigious tracks. Hosting The Pirelli World Challenge, Indy Car, Trans Am, and Nascar, Mid-Ohio is named as a favorite among competing drivers with it's challenging course along with first class facilities. 

We are going to kick things off with an interesting battle. The boosted S2000s vs the V8 monster Corvette’s in the Trackmod class. Last season we saw Dan Lewis, Devin Giles, Chris Tutell, and Chris Ballard all unleash their boosted S2000s against their Trackbattle competitors. Chris Tuttell, pictured above, will have a new turbo S2000 coming out to Mid Ohio. Unfortunately, Chris' yellow, NASA TT3 record setting S2000 was totaled on track last year. Chris competed at our Gridlife South event but was having problems with his wastegate. That issue resulted in Chris not posting the time of 1:36 which was slower than his previous time a few months before at Global Timeattack where he timed a 1:32. Chris has replaced his yellow car with a new black AP2 S2000. We spoke to Chris briefly this off-season and although he wouldn't give us a definitive answer, he did hint that his new car will make well north of 400HP. 

We caught up with Dan Lewis over the off season to discuss what they had going on. Dan will be throwing a smaller pull on his Supercharger to gain more PSI. Dan hopes that with the bump in horsepower he will drop down some of his personal bests. Last year Dan missed the podium by tenths of a second. His street car was put on a small diet this year and is looking to be roughly 100lbs lighter than last season. More power, less weight, and a year's worth of seat time should be enough to see Dan drop some more seconds off his lap times. 

Devin Giles has basically gone the same route as Dan but perhaps little more extreme. Having a rocky start to the season last year, Devin is looking to bounce back strong in 2017. We didn’t see him at the Midwest Festival and at Autobahn Round 2 he had nothing but issues during the first day. However he did manage to podium at Round 3 and Special Stage. This off-season he has added a roll cage along with reducing weight by eliminating more trunk and some front end. Sporting a new Garrett generation 2 GTX3582, Devin will be adding 150 more horsepower than last season. 

The other driver in this foursome of boosted S2000s is Chris Ballard. Chris competed last season in Street Mod where he did very well. This season Chris has decided to get some more aggressive tires and will be competing in  Track Mod. Chris has also freshened up his suspension with some re-valved Stance coilovers. 

 

Heading out the V8 drivers, we are excited to have Danny Popp competing with us. Danny dominates in most all events that he attends. His C5 Corvette is a well sorted monster and we are all anxious to get a peek under the hood to see what he has stashed in there. 

The guys in the monster v8s are guys the most people that compete have seen around the country dominating in their own way. Danny Popp or should we say The Myth, the Legend Danny Popp has been fairly dominant in any event he attends. His C5 Vette is simply a monster. We couldn’t get a hold of Danny to give a comment on what’s under the hood of that thing but it’s fast, wild, and is going to be hard to beat.
 

Steven Greene had an interesting season in 2016. He bought an automatic C7 Stingray, and proceeded to take it to Global Timeattack at Road Atlanta. Do you know what Steven did at GTA Road Atlanta? Completely dominated Enthusiast and posted a lap time that would have put him on the podium in Street and Limited class. The lap time he posted, 1:35, would have put him on podium in every class at Gridlife Round 3 at Road Atlanta. This will be his first time at Mid-Ohio and he has sold his C7 automatic for a C7 Manual. We are looking forward to seeing what kind of times he can put down in the new ride.
 

Paul Curley is an Optima Legend that will be in attendance at Mid-Ohio. If you know who Danny Popp is, you most likely know who Paul is. His menacing C5 could be seen lurking around Optima taking podiums in the Speed Stop, Road Course, and Autox Section. The only time he seemed to miss the overall podium is when the design and engineering section of the event got to him. With more seat time, Paul will be a force to be reckoned with. 
 

Last season we saw the duo of Kevin Partlet and Savanna Little make their debut with Gridlife at our Road Atlanta event. Kevin and Savanna are both regular competitors at Global Time Attack events. Savanna drives a 350Z powered by an LS engine. Word on the streets is that she has also put her car on a diet this off season. Kevin drives a very powerful G35 which is also rumored to have dropped some lbs over the winter. 

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