Apex Performance WIN in Sweden!

Not strictly GTiR related, but its a Nissan and Apex know a few things about getting the most from your car.

I was lucky enough to be funded to go racing in Sweden last week Apex Performance were invited over to an event run by The Nissan 200SX Owners Group of Sweden (www.200sx.nu). To both of these thank you for the oportunity and hospitality :thumbs:
Myself and Yak got a 26 hour ferry Wednesday night from Hull to Gothenburg arriving at 7 in the morning. A 200mile drive faced us at the other side to an airfeild in south Sweden.

We did manage a tourist visit to the circuit where F1 once raced - Anderstorp, on the way. I'll have some pictures and footago of this at a later date.
http://www.scandinavianraceway.info/en/index.htm

Friday night were treated to a meal by the 200SX OGS, while we tried to remember everyones name :wave:

Early start Saturday, breakfast at 06:30 and then straight to the airfeild. We were soon practising the "SuperStage". This course is laid out exactly as to a standard, so that times from other events at other venues can be comapred. Even F1 cars have set times on it!
Here is a map of the course, the gates are marked in red.


Before we went we had watched a couple of you-tube vids to see what we were up against.

This 944 took the course record in 2005, in 1:24:84
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0doDdJyDGg8

We had been set 1:30 as a target by the Swedish, and we had this in the bag at the end of the first half-day.


This afternoon would see us do some drag racing.

Some even more crazy cars turned up, including a sequential-turbo S13 with no room under the bonnet it was just left sticking out of the bonnet :wack:


There was also an ex-endless Skyline that ran a 8.9 pass in Japan


Nice to see a classic too, a 260 IIRC



I ran a personal best of 13.04@112mph!

While Yak, having never drag raced did a 5 or so runs before letting his LUK clutch have the afternoon off

VID - CLICKY BELOW

http://www.youtube.com/v/I2cOLVEbXrE


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Another Early start on Sunday, 06:30 breakfast, and back to the airfeild.

Today would be "SuperStage" all day.
I got a ride in this Ethanol (E85) powered Beast. 500+rwhp

I have some more video of this car, and the massive amount of custom fabriction on the car. I'll sort this at a later date.
As we had all day on the SuperStage Yak and I thought we should have a go in each others cars. I managed to wipe a cone out and crack Yaks big gay splitter (sorry) but I also beat his current best time with only 2 attempts and heres the 10mB vid of it.

Yak has never really driven my car, and its a lot easier to get in a slower car and drive fast than get into a faster car and go flat out. Yak is a very capable driver, so other than warning him that the brakes are lots lots better so he doesnt flat-spot my expensive track tyres, and asking him to be more careful than I was in his He got to play, I think he was a little shocked by the differance between the cars :wack:

***Insert Vid here - Yak is uploading***

By this time in the day the 200SX OGS were having their AGM in the airfeild hanger and that left only 3 of us lapping the Superstage - Time for some serious practise.
At this point my best time was a 1:26:50, which I had done twice, but this soon tumbled and soon I had bettered the fastest time of the day set by Niclas, our host and chairman of the 200SX OGS. He had run a 1:24.82 in his GT3071 equipped S13, and I'd done a 1:24.81 again I had recorded this time twice!

With the meeting over Niclas was back on the superstage determined to beat my time.... and he did. A 1:24.60 was posted while some extra cone-marks were added to his bumper.

I wasnt sure where I could gain time, but I hadnt hit a marker cone all weekend in my car (only in Yaks), so I went out determined to get closer to the gates and see if I could find the 0.2+ seconds I needed.
I did!! I found 1.2 seconds and posted the fastest time of the day. A 1:23.59!
Niclas did go back out but one of his engine mounts let go and that was the end of his running. However the rain came not long after, after a mainly dry weekend so soon everyones day was over. Well except Yak, he kept running in the wet, he loves it.

The vid of my fast lap is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om1bHtra-Do


There are more pictures here
(Thanks Rasmus)
http://200sx.kicks-ass.net/album/album.php?username=rasmus&cat=6829
and here
(Thanks Sultans)
http://www.numo.se/emmaboda2007.html

Once again, massive thanks to Apex for accpeting the invite to Sweden and sending me and Yak out there. Really was a very special oportunity that doesnt happen often, and I'm very grateful to the hopsitality of the 200SX OGS and the generosity of Bren and Apex to pay for the costs of the trip out there lug:

The only elk I saw were in the tourist shops and made of wood