Congratulations to Patrick Chio for his 2nd place finish in the Unlimited RWD class at the 2013 Redline Time Attack race. Besides running his awesome CityTech track day group, Patrick is a heroic Nissan 350z driver on the track:

Here he is running his personal best and Time Attack winning lap time of 1:58.517 at Buttonwillow:

He was also selected to run in the SuperSession with top drivers from each class:

He brought his Porsche orange Z to us early last year for an UPREV tune. To be more competitive he came back to ZCG last month for more engine tuning and track-spec alignment in preparation for the Redline Time Attack racing series.

We installed a new and improved Kinetix SSV intake plenum and replaced his failing MAF/intake with a JWT POP charger and stock MAF intake pipe. Rob re-tuned the engine and the Z was corner-weighted and aligned. Icing on the cake was a Z Car Garage windshield banner 🙂 Great work Patrick! You are a beast behind the wheel and ZCG looks forward to working with you and getting that 1st place trophy!

Historic Japanese Car Gathering is hosting their 2nd vintage meet on April 20, 2013 in San Leandro, CA. They were the masterminds behind the fabulously successful Bayline show last year:

To find out more details about the April show go to the HJCG website or Facebook and read their message below:

Hello everyone HJCG will be hosting a Car Show for Oldschool Japanese vehicles. This will be our version of meals, wheels and Car Show. We have also contacted some local food vendors to come out so this event should be a good one!

Registration will be $10 per car open to all Classic Japanese Cars. This event will also have a swap meet section and it will cost $15 if you would like a spot. For swap meet information and signup email hjcg_jamesv@historicj.com

This Show will be held on April 20, 2013 at the San Leandro Marina, 40 Mulford Point Drive, San Leandro, CA 94577. Start time is 10am and will end at 5pm.

Hopefully you guys/gals can attend. If your cars are currently not running, restorations in progress or fully built track cars just bring out whatever you have and come support the classic car community.

Registration will be open March 5, 2013

Interested in a fun cruise through beautiful backroads in March? ZONC fun runs are great and we have enjoyed running them many times. You can find more details on the official Cruise Flyer and also on the ZONC homepage.

Congratulations to Scott Smith for winning the SPEC Z racing series with the GreenZ!

After earning his SCCA license Scott started competing in the SPEC Z series with his silver race car and eventually prepared the GreenZ to finish the season.  Scott had a small team consisting of himself and his sidekicks Al and J. You could catch these three practicing at open track days like Thunderhill or Laguna Seca trying to dial the car in and find weak spots(see wheel bearing failure below!).

 

Here’s a video clip from a SPECZ race at Thunderhill:

Scott would like to thank Z Car Garage, William’s, CityTech, Evil Genius, NISMO and BFG. Great driving Scott, we are proud of you!

We had an enormous turnout on today’s fun run to the coast. I think we left ZCG with a caravan of 20 cars of all years and makes. A few more cars joined us in downtown Saratoga and we were all off to enjoy some twisty roads up HWY9 and Skyline. Though it was cold, the sunny sky and great visibility provided some impressive views of the Bay Area and coastline:

At our first vista point off Skyline I noticed all of the late-model machinery in our caravan including Eric’s FR-S, Meghan’s Z33, Kurt’s C5 Z06, a Z34, Michael’s Vortech Mustang, and Scott’s Z32TT

I was so happy to see how many vintage Datsuns showed up too! We had 9 Datsun roadsters, 2 510 coupes, 1 510 wagon, 2 S30s and a’77 S130. From left to right: Mike’s ’68 SR20(he drove from SoCal!), David’s 67.5 SRL, Mike B’s ‘67.5 SPL, Rob’s 67.5 SRL, my 67.5, Eddie W’s ’66 SR20, Stacey’s ’70 SRL, Ken’s blown KA SRL, Tony’s flared turbo L-series 510, Matt G’s Turbo KA 510, Matt D’s 510 wagon, Rico’s 240z, Randy M’s 240z and Lou’s RHD FairladyZ:

Whoa! Now that is alot of Datsuns! You know you are driving something special when the Ferrari and Porsche guys whip out their fancy cameras to take a picture your DATSUN 🙂

We motored on past Alice’s restaurant and headed west to the coast via 84 to Pescadero beach. 84 is one of my favorite roads with endless turns. After lunch at Duarte’s Tavern remaining drivers drove up Pescadero Rd and back to Skyline/Hw9 for one last stop and a nice photo-op:

Huge thank you to everyone that braved the chilly morning to come out and enjoy the ride today. With spring and summer around the corner you can count on more fun runs to come!