Here we are fighting with the PTD dudes…aren’t they supposed to be faster?

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.

Our second stop was the Sparco booth and they had Charles Espenlaub’s burned-at-Thunderhill helmet, suit and gloves on display.

Espenlaub escaped this freak incident with some burns on his hands and will recover. However, this was all the Sparco folks were talking about at the show and so much that I don’t know if they did any business at all this weekend.

They were showing a new suit design, but they were too busy talking about Espenlaub’s incident to even discuss it.

Perhaps for similar reasons, Oakley is now having their racing gear manufactured by Simpson. Word is that they like the fact that it’s all made in America. Doubtless, their premium pricing strategy will continue This is their latest suit design.

Wrapping up the latest in racing suit technology is this personalized suit from Taylor Motorsports. They take their business so seriously, that they made this custom suit for their sponsored driver, Haywood Jablome.

We dropped by Stop Tech and we’ll need these rotors for next year.

We ran into many Canadians, including Ken Wilden, 2009 KONI Challenge GS champion and driver for Rehagen Racing.

Ken was on hand with 986, a company that has re-engineered driver cooling solutions, from the cooler through to the shirt. Really fantastic, innovative stuff. Check it out at 986inc.com.

We also ran into Andrew Comrie-Picard, here on stage with the Raceline Radio guys.

Also sharing the stage with Raceline was our favourite car for 2010, the Viper ACR-X.

Other sports car racing pr0n included this two-time winner of the 24 Heures du Mans.

There was an entire Japanese racing section highlighted by this Dome S102.

Classic Design Concepts had their Weekend Warrior concept on display in the main lobby.

The Weekend Warrior is intended for someone who wants a daily driver that can be tracked. It rolls on Pirelli Corsa, with a roll bar, on-board spare (and jack), fitted helmet storage, six-piston front brakes, a splitter and active aero.

Overall, there weren’t any game-changing new developments at this year’s PRI show, but it was a solid show and, surprisingly, not noticeably smaller than last year’s event.

The NASA SE organizers graciously permitted the PakExp team to continue with another entry in the race with #787 so that we could finish the race.

Details to follow.

This is Brian driving 787 at Putnam Park this October.

Photo courtesy of Tom Hitzeman, F-51GT Motorsports Photography.

The team’s newest car, 786, was built specifically for endurance races and will be fulfilling its destiny (cue The Imperial March), racing for the E2 class win.

PakExp welcomes two new drivers to the team for this race.  We are pleased to have Karl Thomson of Toronto, Ontario, Canada with us.  Karl has earned great success in Grand Am KONI Challenge, as both a driver and team owner of C360R.  C360R won both team and driver’s championships in this year’s KONI Challenge series.  The youngster on the team, Angelo Dinkov, hails from Greenville, South Carolina and is our kind of driver.  He’s already posted a number of wins, some fast laps and track records.

Returning to PakExp for this race is Internet-famous Jack Baruth, fresh from his first KONI Challenge race at VIR in October, followed by the Cadillac CTS-V Challenge at Monticello and the inaugural Skip Barber Mazdaspeed Media Challenge.  Our fourth driver is PakExp team driver, Brian Makse, and he is, well, special, and doesn’t concern himself with such silly things like results.

This enduro effort is being supported by our fantastic crew: Sam Myers, Rob Demorest and Matt Johnston.

NASA Awards: PakExp Human Interest Story from brianmakse on Vimeo.

We will be running both of our race-winning and track record-holding E2 Honda Civics.  Our cars are safe, fast, reliable, fuel efficient and easy to drive, and our crew is experienced in KONI Challenge.

This is a complete arrive-and-drive event, from registration, help with NASA membership or licence and complete vehicle prep, we look after it all.  Both cars run on Hoosiers and Cobalt brakes, with professionally-built cages, radios and Traqmates.

About 786:

-    Ground-up, purpose-built NASA E2 / PTE car
-    race winner and track record holder at Gingerman
-    second place in E2 at July 2009 Mid-Ohio enduro

About 787:

-    developed into a NASA winner over two full seasons
-    race winner and track record holder at Mid-Ohio, Putnam Park, Grattan
-    first place in E2 at July 2009 Mid-Ohio enduro

Event information is available here.  Seats for the sprint races, time trial or HPDE for that same weekend at Road Atlanta are also available.

If you want to drive with a team serious about winning and having a great time while at the track,  enquire with bmakse ~at~ pakexp ~dot~ com.