AST Suspension – USA

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!

While I was at AST in The Netherlands this week I shot a short video of the new air jack with elephant’s foot.  While a normal air jack lifts the car enough to change tires during fast pit stops, the elephant’s foot allows the race car to be raised even higher for major work. No more floor jacks, simply extend the air jacks, lock them into the elephant’s foot, extend the air jack again and place the safety stand in place!

AST Suspension – USA is proud to announce new updates to the 4000 Series line of dampers. These updates were developed directly from customer and dealer feedback on the product and enhance the performance of the 4000 Series damper on the track and street. Some updates only relate to the 4000 Series struts while other improvements will be added to struts and shocks. produced. Customers with older 4000 Series dampers are welcome to contact an AST dealer for a quote on upgrading any current generation. Click here for more information!

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

Congrats to the Castrol/Speed Trapp Team for running AST 4200s on their BMW 3 series. The team posted the 2nd fastest lap time in their class but unfortunately had unscheduled brake wear stops putting them back to 6th. Anthony Zwain states, “The AST’s worked great and lasted the entire race without an issue, thanks! There was only one other team (the class winner) faster than our car. They had another company’s triple adjustable shocks and spent about 3 times what we did in car preparation.”

We are currently testing the following new models:

• NA/NB and NC Miata MX-5 4100 coilovers
• 2005+ Mustang 4150 coilovers
• 2008+ Evo X coilovers
• C5/C6 coilovers
• VW Mark V GTI

More details here.