AST Suspension – USA

Congrats to our drivers at the SCCA National Tour last weekend held in Mineral Wells, TX.  Jeremy Foley driving a C6 ZO6 took it to Super Stock with a 2.5s overall win for the weekend.  Mark Madarash recently added AST 4100s to his E Street Prepared Firebird to keep his winning streak continuing.  As a testimony to how well they did, Mark and Jeremy placed 1st and 2nd in PAX for the weekend.  When karts and F Mod cars are present, that really says something to have two heavy cars take 1st and 2nd in PAX.  Awesome job!

In 10 classes, AST cars took first or second place and sometimes both!  Way to go drivers!

AST Suspension – USA is sponsoring World Challenge this season with aggressive contingency offers for the drivers in all classes.

One team in particular has jumped in head first with AST and World Challenge.  Hondaworks made its debut at the St. Pete race.  While their main car is not ready to race, Hondaworks brought their well sorted Honda Civic to the race.  The results were spectacular!  The race will be broadcast on VS. April 18th.  Make sure you set your recorder for the 2nd race where Hondaworks driver, Kevin Helms, “hole shot” the big boys going into Turn 1.  He held off the pros for several laps before they were able to get by him.  Kevin’s Civic started out life as a $400 car so to run with the Acuras from RealTime is quite an accomplishment.  Great job Hondaworks!  Look for these guys to be a contender as the season heats up.

Meet Jeremiah, our first contingency winner! A regular among the Texas Region NASA crowd, Jeremiah pulled off some great wins this weekend at Motorsport Ranch – Cresson. We had several winners from this weekend including some TT drivers like Ken Orgeron in his E46 BMW M3 (already on AST 4200s). Great job guys!

Jeremiah will be one of the first to test our Ford Mustang SN95 shocks built for NASA’s CMC (CamaroMustang Challenge) class.

Check out our Part 1, 2, 3, and 4 videos explaining some of the dyno plots you see out there. Many times we get dyno plots and customers want the ASTs to match what they show us. The only problem is, what they are showing us is usually not the complete story…click on each link to find out more. Once the page refreshes, click on the image to the right of your screen to begin the videos.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Check out the writeup on Max Hayter’s SCCA Solo2 MX-5 on Road & Track’s blog. Max is prepping the car for the new STR class. Any thoughts on where STR will be as far as times? Max beat the STU National Champion during the debut of the car. Not bad!

Ride along with Jeff Wirtz as he demonstrates how to win all weekend long. It was a cold one, highs around 37 degrees, no grip on the track, but that doesn’t matter for Wirtz. He makes it look easy again with his AST 4100s.

If you’re not familiar with Camaro Mustang Challenge, there are two classes; CMC and CMC2. Wirtz leads CMC which means most of the video is him passing CMC2 cars! The first race starts with a standing start, the second race is an inverted start where Wirtz passes the entire CMC field both days again winning the race. AST CMC driver Gary Hood made his debut on ASTs as well and while his motor was down a cylinder, he hung in there with the “big boys”. Great job guys!

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!

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.