Mitsubishi EVO X. Pulling the Gs. Yas Marina

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I tell you what, building a daily driven time attack car isn’t easy work, and we’re not even done yet! I say we, because there are more people involved in the development of the car than I have fingers and toes!

Sam Badawi of “Sam Performance” and his team at 1000 Dunes have worked tirelessly on the built engine, fuel system, tuning map, oil cooling system, air intake system and flat floor aerokit.  Almost everything that they have built has had to be custom made to deal with the excessive heat that we experience here in the Middle East.

Sam has also designed his very own turbo, which is making a debut appearance on the car and provides plenty of torque at sensible boost levels. Andre and John at MSW have given the car a beautiful balance, with a trick alignment setup and provided telemetry support via a Race Technology data logger.  Stu Leishman at Zafco has always been there with fresh rubber when needed and the encyclopaedic knowledge of Ra’ad Haddad has never been far away with constant feedback on tyre pressures and tips on how to get the very best out of the outstanding range of Pirelli road tyres. And of course, Monja and Tibor of Fibra Foil have always been at hand to make sure the car is always the belle of the ball!

That’s not to say that we haven’t had our challenges along the way.  The car ran a disappointing 1:20.905, to capture 3rd place in the Super Street class at the last Extreme Superlap.   When the stock fuel pump showed its inability to deal with high G-Force situations, perhaps why the JDM market EVO Xs have a modified tank as standard.

We knew the car was so much better than that, and despite the calls to remove weight, add semi slick tyres and upgrade to a bigger brake system, we have persevered with the Super Street formula and stuck with the portly 1500kg plus frame and road legal tyres.  Inspired by the great Porsche track cars of the modern era, I’ve always wanted to compete in the same car that I drive home in.

So we headed back to the Yas South Circuit this weekend to better the 1:20.9 time we set at the last Super Lap event and have a crack at the Super Street record of 1:14.562. The excellent Zlatko Mulabegovic’s Modified Class record of 1:11.646 is the current benchmark, but his fully stripped EVO X RS with a several hundred kilogram weight advantage, semi slick tyres and enormous Stop Tec brakes would surely be a step too far!

Or would it?