ADVAN World Time Attack Summary / Wrap Up
Normally when a press release is written, I have this overwhelming feeling that it was put together by a committee. In other words, all the information is there, it just doesn’t seem to communicate the same excitement and passion as your best mate telling you the same thing while waving his arms about and raising his voice.
Sure, I could go on about how all categories were won on Yokohama ADVAN rubber, and how the Cyber Evo’s aerodynamic setup worked perfectly with a 265/35R18 A050 R-Spec tyre. But that’s just not as interesting as having Tarzan Yamada passing out in my backseat on the way to Martin Place. I should probably take a few steps back at this point and start from the beginning.
Tuesday, the day before the Martin Place media launch, quickly went from optimistic to a chaotic panic. It started to rain, one of our easy-up marquees was delivered without a roof, the race transporter had broken down, and ALL of our flags for the media launch and World Time Attack were held back in customs.
Drugs? Insects? Ticking sound? If only it were that exciting. Apparently there was some confusion as to what ADVAN streamers were (Engrish rocks). After a 2 hour drive through traffic, several hundred phone calls, and many hours of preparation, everything was now ready and it was time for some sleep (even if it was 1am).
After picking up Tomei, Tarzan and Pan Speed, we quickly rushed off to Eastern creek to make sure all the cars were loaded on without complication and left on time. After months of promoting these cars, and finally seeing them in the flesh carbon fibre was an exciting moment. However, only a few minutes later, we were off again, this time to Martin Place, where both Tarzan Yamada, and a Member of Pan Speed passed out on the way. Early morning? More like late night. Apparently they had only had 40 mins of ‘sleep’ after spending the night out with Ian Baker from Hi Octane.
Martin Place is a fairly popular location for promotions by companies. People that walk through aren’t unfamiliar with the regular hand outs of free breakfast bars, gym sessions, or even strange dancing people running around in green lycra (if only I were joking). So understandably you can imagine the mass attention that was received by the 2 bright Cars. I’m sure we caused a fair few late arrivals that we should apologise for...but that would assume we were trying to be discreet. Despite the on-off rain, the Martin place press launch went rather well. National and International media seemed to love the opportunity to shoot these impressive cars in a fairly unusual setting. Check out the gallery if you’d like to see more.
At this point you’d probably expect the recap of the practice days, WTA Day 1 & 2, but to be honest you’re probably better hitting up Google and searching for, Speedhunters, The Circuit Club, countless forums or any other media group that was there to specifically report on the event. As said in the beginning of the article, nothing beats your mate waving his arms about and raising his voice. But just to give you an indication how the event made us feel...we’re still grinning.