This year’s SEMA show was as  electrifying as ever.  AST Suspension – USA had its hands in some of the awesomeness.

Ford Racing ST-R Focus GRAND AM race car

Ford Racing debuted the Focus ST-R, their latest turn key race car.  The looks like the road going (forthcoming) Ford Focus ST, but is all race car underneath with a roll cage, beefier brakes, a powerful 2.0L EcoBoost engine and a “tuned” suspension.  The “tuned” suspension are 2 way adjustable AST 5200 series dampers, one of the spec shocks for the GRAND AM Continental Tire Challenge series.  You can read the rest of Ford’s press release or “Road & Track” magazine’s coverage for the full details.

Capaldi Racing Ford Focus Street Tuner

Capaldi Racing is known around the road racing community as a top notch race shop the builds and campaigns race cars in several different US race series such as NASA, GRAND-AM and the SCCA.  At SEMA this year, Capaldi decided to do something a little different by building a Ford Focus street tuner.  AST 4100 series single adjustable dampers can be found on the car.  The specs of the car can be found on Capaldiracing.com.

LS3 Powered E30 M3

Lurking in the Heatshield Products booth was a 480 hp, fire-breathing Chevy LS3 powered V8 built by Kevin Byrd.   Kevin’s “E30 M(LS)3″ utilizes AST 3 way adjustable 5300 series dampers to make it stick on the street or track.  Check out Autoguide.com‘s coverage of the car.

Kia Rio 5-Door B-Spec race car

The B-Spec series is a low budget racing class featuring compact hatchbacks with little to no engine modifications.  The B-Spec series is currently supported by Kia, Mazda, Fiat and Honda.  This Kia Rio 5-door is set up with AST 3000 series dampers (non-adjustable).  Check out autoguide.com‘s coverage.

Plano, TX – AST Suspension is proud to announce the acquisition of all Moton Suspension Technology B.V. assets.  AST Suspension and Moton Suspension Technology will continue to be produced as two separate brands using two different design philosophies.

“Combining the strength of AST’s street/track business with Moton’s premium racing business creates a range of products unequaled in the performance shock industry,” says Brian Hanchey, President of AST Suspension – USA.

Since 2000, Moton has been a powerhouse brand for performance dampers in the racing business.  “We believe Moton is one of the most recognized brands in professional motorsports and we plan to keep it this way,” said Hanchey.  “Moton is, and will continue to be, an exclusive brand for customers that demand the best.”

AST will keep Moton headquarters in Uden, Netherlands.  North American service and sales will move from Cumming, GA to AST USA’s headquarters in Plano, TX over the next few weeks.  Production will ramp up immediately with Moton inventory coming stateside in six to eight weeks.

Further information about the acquisition of Moton assets will be made available in the near future.  Information will be made available on the AST – USA website located at www.ast-usa.com and the soon to be created www.moton-usa.com website.

Earlier this year we talked with Edmunds.com about an interesting concept. Can you make an Evo X still streetable yet fast enough to beat a Nissan GTR on the track? Since one of our test cars is an Evo X that drives to AST every day AND we race it in NASA Time Trial, we thought we had the right combination.

Edmunds.com has had the suspension on their Evo X GSR for almost a year now. The final installment was this test at Streets of Willow. Check out the video!

AST Suspension has been testing a new 911 coilover kit with Toyo Tires and Lammertink Racing. Initial testing proved the car was a winner besting lap records at various tracks for the class. Last weekend the team finished 4th in class. Look for more information on Porsche 5000 series kits soon!

Ian traveled up to Road Atlanta last weekend to run with NASA in his TTC Mini Cooper. You might recall that Ian shattered the track record at Sebring by 3 seconds. Well, he did it again at Road Atlanta running a 1:39.4 in 98 degree heat. Ian is using the AST 5100 off the shelf kit with Vorshlag camber plates. Ride along with him here.

Aaron headed to the track again with his “almost stock” Honda S2000. Aaron is our first tester for Honda S2000 shocks running an off the shelf AST 4100 set. Aaron beat his nearest competitor by 2.4 seconds. Congrats Aaron!

Results here.

Turn In Concepts, a Subaru shop selling AST shocks, won the Street AWD class this weekend at Redline’s visit to Autobahn Country Club. TiC’s customer car had a blown shock from another shock company and replaced the set with a test set of AST 4100s which were over two years old. Needless to say, the ASTs aren’t coming back off the car after this win! TiC will be competing in several Redline Events this year. We hope to meet up with them at Nashville.

For the full details go here.

Test driver, Jeff Wirtz, pulls off another winning weekend at Texas World Speedway in College Station, TX. Here’s some video of the inverted start and Jeff passing the entire field during the 20 minute race. Jeff won the previous race which means the next one has an inverted start where 1st place is last, etc.

Way to go, Jeff!

In his debut event on AST 4100s, Jeff Wirtz of Round Rock, TX pulled off a sweep at the NASA event at Motorsport Ranch.  Jeff was always a top finisher last year, but with ASTs on the car Jeff put multiple seconds on the field in 4 of 4 races.  This included inverted starts where he passed the whole field in the opening laps!  The only car faster than Wirtz’s 3rd Gen Camaro was a fully prepped Mustang AIX classed car (a much faster class). 

Camaro Mustang Challenge is a popular class in NASA that is growing especially in the Texas Region.  Wirtz was able to drive a competitor’s car in practice, a car having twin tube shocks.  “I felt bumps on the track with the twin tubes that I didn’t even know were there with the ASTs,” said Wirtz.  AST’s monotube technology can provide forces greater than many lower end shocks without the harshness most drivers experience.

Congrats to Jeff in his first event with the shocks.  Stay tuned for the April event at TWS in College Station!

RRT Suspension recently made their debut event with their "do it all" BMW E36 running AST 4200s with Vorshlag camber plates. The 325i was built specifically to compete in NASA GTS 2, SCCA ITR, and BMW Club Racing Prepared class. The "do it all" car came out fighting last weekend at VIR. Due to an issue with qualifying run groups, RRT’s Barry Battle was forced to start in the back. Their forum has a video of the 10 lap race where Barry passes the entire field in the first 3 laps and then puts 40 seconds on 2nd place by the checkered flag. The car looks hooked up once he gets through the crowd. We think that must be a combination of driver and suspension since the car has the originally 200k mile motor in it! Great run Barry!

http://www.rrtracing.com/forum/viewt…345&p=738#p738