This years track layout has changed slightly from that of years previous and somewhat resembles the D1GP course layout that has a slight bump in front of the judges stand. This forces drivers to really execute on the clip in the middle of the straight away to properly set themselves up for the transition to the inner bank. Yesterday in practice, the area in front of the judges stand sucked in a couple of cars, including the Saturn Sky of Darren MacNamara and the Lexus of Hiro Sumida. It is possible for drivers to run a lower, more conservative line, that has them coming off the wall of the inner bank earlier, but judge Andy Yen, made it clear in yesterdays drivers meeting that points will be deducted for a low line on the inner bank.
Also new this year is the diffuser that Chris Forsberg is running on his 350z convertible. It sure got Rhys Millen’s attention. Rhys has been running similar setups for a while now. From the grandstands, the diffuser has a noticeable impact on how smoke tails off the back of car, up close looks awesome. In general, the work that LS Automotive does on the Z is simple top notch.