Pakistan Express Racing Team

Our first race of 2010 is upon us and we’re ready for some action at Mid-Ohio this weekend for the first race in the NASA Great Lakes calendar. Schedules are permitting us to race one car, so we’re pulling out trusty ol’ 787, who last saw duty at Road Atlanta in December.

Everyone is welcome to drop by, just listen for the ear-piercingly loud Honda Civic or look for our traditional white, green and silver colour scheme.

This photo is the last time I saw these two fine machines, quietly waiting in the paddock at Road Atlanta.

An oldie, but a goodie!

Decisions have been made about the Performance Touring race on Saturday, August 15, 2009 and updated results posted.

Details are in this report.

Breaking News Update For August 15, 2009 from b makse on Vimeo.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Here’s thirty minutes worth of video from car #787. Faisal drives the wheels off that car to finish first.

Full Race Video From Car #787 Saturday August 15, 2009 from brianmakse on Vimeo.

PakExp Post Race Report August 2009 from brianmakse on Vimeo.

We have seats available in our race-winning and track-record-holding Honda Civics at the upcoming NASA Mid-Ohio event, July 10-12, 2009.

Seats are available for the 3-hour enduro on July 10 and also for the sprint races on July 11 and 12.

Both cars have won races this season and hold track records at Mid-Ohio, Putnam Park and Grattan. This is a complete arrive-and-drive weekend, from help with membership/licence through to vehicle prep, we look after it all.

Enquire with fahmad ~at~ pakexp ~dot~ com.

It’s time to give a shout out to Old Faithful, 787.

787 started life as TC Kline’s #12 Firestone Firehawk series race car and has been driven by some famous sports car names like Randy Pobst and Andy Pilgrim.

Last year, this car was purchased to form the basis of the Pakistan Express team as car #786 and debuted at Putnam Park with a limited amount of preparation.  That weekend, we led the first race to finish second on the first day, then suffered mechanical issues that we chased all season.  Here’s a pic from that debut weekend:

From there, 786 was repaired, painted, developed, raced, crashed, repaired again and developed further. In the off season, an all-new 786 was built, so the car was renumbered to 787 and, we thought, relegated to B-car status.

Little did we know that all the development work that went into 787 over the last year really was the ticket. Straight out of the shop, 787 won all three races at Mid-Ohio in April and finished first and second at the May Putnam Park event.

As we recently discovered, 787 also earned track records at both Mid-Ohio and Putnam Park.  We expect those records won’t be broken until next year at the earliest.

So, it’s time for some 787 love.  Here’s 787 in action at Putnam Park, en route to another race win:

Photo Credit: Dave Everest

The next event in the NASA Great Lakes series is almost here. We’re rolling in to Putnam Park road course early in the morning this coming Friday for a full day of testing with 786 and 787.  We’re excited because we have a full complement of talent joining us this weekend, including the best crew chief in the business, Sam Myers, the best fabricator and talented shoe, Tinman, and the PakExp team court jester, Rob D.  We’ll also be doing some driver coaching and data analysis to ensure we’re getting the most out of each car.

Thanks to Hoosier Tire and their contingency program, we have some new tires to heat cycle in our first session Friday morning.  Following that heat cycle run, there remains some development work to be done with 786.  Since the last event at Mid-Ohio, we’ve updated the chassis (sorry, competitors, we’re not revealing those changes here) and need to find our race set up.

787, on the other hand, is rock steady, refreshed and ready to roll in that same multiple-race winning shape that we saw at Mid-Ohio.  For fun and excitement, we anticipate filming this weekend’s activities with multiple cameras in both cars.

With some luck, we hope to see the periwinkle Plymouth Neon from Green Baron Motorsports, piloted by the no-longer-welcome-on-FerrariChat.com Jack Baruth, take the green flag with us this weekend.

Watch for race updates here at PakExp.com, on our Facebook Page and on Twitter.

Here’s a quick video from the Mid-Ohio race on Sunday, April 12, 2009. This is the view out the back of 787, which went on to win this race. It starts out really boring and gets interesting well before the first corner.

PakExp MidOhio April 2009 from Faisal Ahmad on Vimeo.

NASA just issued their race report following this weekend’s racing. They called us “a force to reckon with“. We couldn’t agree more.