At last weekend’s NASA Great Lakes finale, NASA put together some video clips about some of their members. PakExp became the subject of one of those videos and here it is for your enjoyment.
NASA Awards: PakExp Human Interest Story from brianmakse on Vimeo.
Here’s what NASA had to say about our race:
“Once again, our strongest PT class was PTE. This class only promises to
increase if the rumors are true. (Another Miata and an Acura driven by a couple
of unrelated Smith’s?) We will see. For now, Honda seems to be leading the
season. Saturday’s race started behind a Spec Miata melee which spread the
field for the entire time. Green Baron Racing’s Jack Baruth came out of the pile
first and held on for the entire race. The Team Pakistan Express car, driven by
Brian Makse, followed for second. Eric Waddell, Bob Keller and Faisal Ahmad
finished in respective order after dealing with their own ”issues” during the race.
Sunday brought perfect racing weather – hot sun and cool air. Makse brought his
“A” game and took the win. The E4 Safety car, driven by Waddell, came in
second followed by Keller’s Miata. Baruth and the second Pakistan Express car,
driven by Ahmad, had to bow out early.”
Here’s a direct link to the full Performance Touring report. Take heed, it’s a PDF.
We’re introducing a new feature, Meet The Competition. Debuting here is Bob Keller, a quick and too-tall-for-a-Miata racer from Toledo, Ohio. In fact, Bob lives too close for comfort to our tuning shop, Pure Tuning, and he probably spies on our cars when they’re on the dyno.
WARNING: This is the full length race video. Watch at your peril. We’ll edit down this long clip into a highlight reel soon.
NASA Putnam Park May 17, 2009 PTE Race from brianmakse on Vimeo.
What do we do between on-track sessions? We find innovative ways to make our cars go faster, of course.
Super Secret Go Fast Switch from brianmakse on Vimeo.
Here’s a look into who really makes the magic happens with our quick little race cars.
Meet The Pak Exp Racing Team from brianmakse on Vimeo.
Performance Touring Series Director, Mark Bardes, had some kind words for Pakistan Express Racing Team in his race report, as noted in a previous post.
We took that inspiration and created a limited-edition t-shirt. Here’s our presentation to Mark:
PakExp.com Mark Bardes T-Shirt Presentation from brianmakse on Vimeo.
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.
Pakistan Express Racing Team currently has seats open in its front-running PTE Honda Civics for select NASA Great Lakes and Midwest enduros and sprint races for the upcoming 2009 season. Mid-Ohio and Bluegrass races are currently available.
In our first year, our original car was proven competitive, finished 4th at the 2008 Championships, led races and posted fast race laps. Our second chassis is a ground-up build and is expected to be just as quick. In comparison, we run 3-5 seconds off KONI ST pace at Mid-Ohio.
Atypical of many club racing teams, our cars run on Hoosiers and Cobalt brakes, with professionally-built cages, data acquisition and radio communications. Our team is experienced in KONI Challenge and is known for taking prep seriously, as well as our great camaraderie.
Interested drivers may enquire with fahmad ~ at ~ pakexp ~dot~ com.