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August 11 & 12, Rosemond, CA - Team GB400R (www.online-racer.com) takes its 3rd podium finish in its 3rd race out of the box! NASA's American Iron Series ran at Willow Springs International Speedway. Edward Inclan drove the GB400R to a 3rd place finish in an American Iron main event race on Saturday, the 11th. A field of over 30 cars in 6 different groups made the weekend a very tight and exciting race to watch. Team GB400R (Nick Burr, Doug Gladney, Sam Gladney and Edward Inclan), headed out early in the morning up to Willow Springs, although early, we still missed practice. Therefore, we used qualifying as our practice session and still managed to qualify in 6th position. Willow Springs is a horsepower track and our engine fell a little short in comparison to the front running cars with more cubic inch under the hood. The GB400R racing program is designed to test products that will be used in the street version of the cars, so we have been limited to using a 302 engine that produces about 375 hp at the flywheel As the race started, Ryan's blue GT Mustang #17 (powered by a 331c.i motor) and #135 black Mustang driven by Tim Gilpin battle it out for position followed by Ernesto Roccos's red SN95 Mustang. Edward followed behind driving the #87 GB400R and took third position when Ernesto made a mistake on turn 9. The GB400R is designed with aerodynamic principals that help the handling characteristics and Willow Springs is a great proving ground for this. Towards the end of the race a loud pounding noise came from the front of the car as turn 7 approached at about 130mph! All the gauges read fine but the car seemed to have a hard time accelerating. Into the pits, Nick quickly noticed that the bottom of the front splitter had broken, a little duck tape and out again. However, there is so much air pressure that it just could not handle and off it went. The car immediately felt light in the front and developed a push that was not there before. This definitely proves the splitter works. The race was over and a respectable 3rd place with consistent lap times of 1:36. After the race we were able to retrieve the bottom front splitter and re-mount it for Sunday's race. Sunday morning Nick and Doug had finished prepping the car and we went out to practice. All seemed well and we decided to make some wing adjustments and run more jetting in the carburetor in an effort to qualify well. We qualified in 2nd position in the qualifying grid...not bad! A new car in the field, a Camaro driven by Ed Rogers was on the AI pole, this car has run with SCCA ITE class and NASA CMC. As we went out on the track the water temperature fluctuated more than normal, which meant that we had an air pocket in the cooling system. The green flag went down and we all drag raced into turn 1. A close eye was kept on the water gauge and it went up and down like a roller coaster, but we were not about to back off! The GB400R felt more powerful than earlier, we were now running 1:35, a second faster than Saturday! As soon as the green flag dropped, Ed Rogers driving a defensive line managed to keep Ed Inclan, Ryan and Ernesto's Mustang's back for a few laps but we all managed to go around him. Now there were 3 Mustangs running at the front. Ryan and Ernesto over powered the GB400R on the front straight and they both had a race of their own. The water temperature in the GB400R was getting worse, the car began to loose power and I knew that our chance to catch the leaders was gone. We tried to finish but sure enough with 6 laps to go the car shut off entering turn 9 and had to coast back to the pits. Sunday did not end the way we had expected but you know what they say..."that's racing!" www.online-racer.com