Super GT Cup - Round 5 sonoma raceway

By: Tommy Parry

Tight competition, close confines, and time constraints kept three of the standouts from the penultimate round of the 2022 Super GT Cup Championship on their toes. Whether it be making a 1,000-mile trek hours before the event, bringing an IMSA-spec GT4 car to compete, or crashing and getting away with it, a few of the fastest at Sonoma had stories to tell. 

A Close Shave in Super Mod

Frank Pacheco’s return to Sonoma was not without incident. His weekend started off on a worrying note, running a set of tires that really weren’t suited to the situation, then there was a major redemption—but not before kissing the wall. 

The first set of tires—Toyo RRs with about three weekends of wear—were retained so that he could stay within Super Mod. If points didn’t matter, he’d be on his Hoosiers with a similar number of heat cycles. At least the Toyos were easy to read. “Sure, they were predictable. Every time I stepped on the gas, the car would go sideways,” Frank joked. 

Despite the lack of confidence, he snuck a 1:46 in during the second session with his eyelids peeled back—fast enough to secure the win in Super Mod, but far from what he felt he and the car were capable of. Every corner required three or four serious corrections, and a big snap in the middle of Turn 10 made him wonder whether it was worth pushing on the RRs. 

His instincts were right. “The car’s breakaway got worse and worse. The rear would come around on entry and at corner exit. I could keep it together, but I did not have much faith in the Camaro,” he recalled. The pressure was building, and Frank, being the hard charger that he is, wasn’t about to back off when success seemed so close. 

There’s a certain sort of risk-taking that spurs all of us on, despite our better judgment. Pushing on worn tires, gathering up a few big drifts, and dancing the car in every corner makes us feel superhuman. It can, at times, get the better of us.

Though the junkyard motor makes only 520 horsepower, the tires were so thrashed from his aggressive driving that getting on the throttle leaving Turn 7 threw the car into a huge slide—the kind that is near-impossible to slide. Frank threw as much lock as he could at the problem, but the inside wall was approaching rapidly—and he realized he was mostly along for the ride.

The heavyweight smacked the unyielding cement wall and shook Frank to the core. This was the first crash he’d had in a while and it drained him of more confidence than he thought it might. He screamed something unmentionable, dislodged the Camaro from the wall, and trudged back to the pits, hiding a long face under his Bell. 

Word had traveled quickly, and he found a few folks waiting in his pit stall to check on their friend. Their compassion helped lift his spirits momentarily, though the pain of a crash—both the shock and the fact that he was out of the running—was nearly unbearable.

A quick walk-around and subsequent inspection revealed that he’d done the right thing before the crash. He’d straightened the car enough so that the collision wasn’t head-on; it’d been more of a graze than a smack. The damage was largely cosmetic—he could breathe a sigh of relief. 

Thanks to a few supportive friends, suddenly Frank felt some wind behind his sails. Alessandro Sensoli, Brian Navarra, and Omar Kaayal all got to work sorting out the sticken Chevy. Fortunately, the bolt at the end of the toe arm had taken the brunt of the impact, and as his friends were figuring out a way to pry it out, Frank got the part number and took the tow rig to the local Chevy dealership for a replacement.

With the clock ticking away, they knew that they had to hurry if Frank was to get back on track. The whole car felt right as rain, and Frank, convinced he’d seen exactly how far he could push the car, wasn’t too eager to try any more heroics. They threw on a set of used Hoosier A7s and breathed his second sigh of relief. “This is a car I know,” he hummed. He was back in his happy place, and the subsequent performance reflected that. 

Within two tries, he’d cut four seconds off his previous best on the Toyos. “If I’d been out on sticker Hoosiers, I think I could’ve put in a :40,” he remarked—an incredible time for a car with a junkyard motor and a few bolt-ons. Though the time that counted was a 1:46, even one with some heroic slides, the performance on the slicks showed him he stood a chance to make big waves come the following event. At this stage, he’s over points—he’s after peak performance. 

Cutting it Close in Mod

When Brian Navarra wasn’t helping mend Frank’s wounded Camaro, he was putting in fast laps of his own. He’d arrived at Sonoma a little spent and less than confident, but over the course of the day, the track and his car came to meet him. 

He’d made a concerted effort in the Mod class last year, but this year’s effort was far from consistent. He attended the Buttonwillow event and won Mod, but when driving Big Willow a few weeks later, the Coyote popped. Thankfully, his 2018 Mustang GT was riding on an extended warranty, so he was able to deliver the car to a Ford dealer for a new motor. 

Unfortunately, the nearest willing dealer was all the way down in the San Fernando Valley. To make matters worse, it ended up sitting in a dusty corner for several months. Brian had his eye on the November event, Sonoma being his home track, so he called the dealership the second week of November with the clock ticking loudly in the background. He made sure to use the word “urgent” a few times. They got the message. 

The window was still narrow. At ten in the morning the day before Thanksgiving, he threw down a couple cups of Brazilian Bold and fired down to LA to pick up his car. Beary-eyed but happy, he arrived home at two in the morning, snuck in a few hours of sleep, and daydreamed through dinner—it wasn’t until after his second plate that he was able to reacquaint with his long-lost love by a few faultless laps around the block. Life was good.

The temperatures Saturday morning were low and all the familiar sensations were taking their time returning. To complicate matters, an intermittently operating fan had him worried. To err on the side of caution, he jumped the relay to keep his fan on full-time. No sense in risking another six months without a motor. 

Though he didn’t have much confidence, the Mustang’s setup did enough to help him bolster what little he had. Getting the car to turn nicely took only a short list of aftermarket items: Ford Performance shocks, Whiteline bars front and rear, Vorschlag camber and castor plates, and a set of Girodisc two-piece rotors with Hawk DTC pads—DTC-70s up front and DTC-30s in the rear—he had a capable, reassuring car underneath him. Though some might prefer a more aggressive pad at the rear axle, the Mustang’s factory ABS works best with something a little milder. 

WIth a Sabelt fixed seat, a Racequip six-point harness, and Brian’s homemade rollbar, he made the Mustang’s interior a comfortable place to be. The alignment worked well enough—so after three or so laps on the Goodyear 3Rs, he finally felt reacquainted with his old friend.

Confidence took a momentary dive when the check engine light had come halfway through the first session, so he cautiously aborted his lap and trudged back into the pits for an inspection.  

A quick test with an OBD scanner revealed that the fan’s unusual operation was what had triggered the light. His relief lasted a few minutes. Traffic made it difficult to find an opening once back out on track, so he backed off, conserved his tires, and retired a little early. The fastest time from the first session, a 1:50.2, was enough to prove he still had it.

During his second session, he made the finer touches—all of which were helped with a friend breathing down his neck. Alessandro Sensoli, driving his wife’s GT500, provided another motivation to Brian, whose confidence was suddenly flooding back. 

While Alessandro’s car had a few hundred horsepower more than Brian’s, his tires were not up to the task. Trying to put 760 horsepower through a set of used Pilot Sport 4S was never going to be easy. “Spinning wheels on the straights doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence,” Alessandro said. 

Still, the image of that big GT500 filling Brian’s mirrors was the push that he needed. With growing confidence in the car, Brian pushed harder, revealing one notable flaw in the setup. “I found that the rear was too stiff, and it would lift the inside rear wheel in Turns 2, 3A, and even out of 8A. The wheelspin was definitely costing him some time, but he managed to chop a half-second off his previous best and secure the spot at the front of the Mod pack with a 1:49.3.

He plans to attend the series finale with a slightly softer rear setup, but that’s about it. Then, provided the motor doesn’t pop, he should have brushed away enough of the rust to show us precisely what he and his car are capable of.

Close to Perfection in Race

Ehsan Farkhondeh made an appearance at Super GT Cup with the biggest head-turner in the paddock. His 2017 Camaro GT4.R was arguably the most exotic piece of machinery there that day. Even better, though it might’ve required a trailer, it did not require a team of engineers and mechanics. “There are specific warm-up procedures for the engine and transmission, but that’s about it, really,” he stated. 

True, it runs an exotic Xtrac gearbox that costs as much as a basic road-going Camaro, but the GT4.R is more like a mega-robust road car than one might imagine. It retains the same suspension pickup points, runs easily accessible Hankook slicks, and offers the user plenty of room for ingress and egress. The LT1 motor is dry-sumped, so Ehsan’s major concerns have been keeping the car fueled and the tires fresh, not starving a motor of oil. As mentioned before, it’s made for this sort of thing. 

After a few years of basic HPDEs and some Lemons races, Ehsan decided to try his hand at time trials.

“I was looking around for time trial events in the area, and when I saw that the Super GT Cup was muscle car-specific, I was interested. Plus, the pricing was good. After I got there, I felt pretty relaxed; the atmosphere was welcoming and the competition was strong.”

Though this was the first time he’d competed with the GT4 in a time trials setting, he had been there the prior weekend to run a couple days of casual laps. He’d been cutting his lap times down in half-second increments nearly every track day, and he had high hopes for the first Super GT Cup event in his IMSA-spec Chevy. 

Once he got his Hankooks up to temperature, he put in a respectable 1:47.3 in the first session. The second session, the track seemed to be at its best, so he gridded third and went out. The Hankook slicks took two laps to get up to temperature, so as he was struggling on slippery slicks, he let Frank Pacheco and Spencer Kimball build a gap up front. 

Those two put in their best laps and backed off by the time that Ehsan felt ready to attack. He clawed back the distance between the other two and found himself sitting right behind Frank in his Camaro after running a 1:45.2. “I was treated to a spectacle. Seeing Frank sliding all over the place definitely gave me something to push for,” Ehsan recalled. 

Frank’s lack of grip eventually allowed Ehsan to sneak past and eke out a pretty large gap. He’d put his head down, which meant he wasn’t watching his mirrors, but he was far enough ahead to not notice when Frank crashed a few corners later. 

Ehsan’s conservative approach hadn’t yielded the delta he wanted after finishing the first six corners. In fact, he was down six tenths on his previous lap, but he knew could push even harder. 

By the time he’d cleared Turn 10, he’d whittled that delta back down to a predicted 1:45.3. On the short straight leading into the final corner, he recalled something he’d stumbled upon the previous weekend. During one lap on the prior Saturday, after blowing the braking zone and turning in later in the corner, he was able to get to full throttle much quicker. 

Late on the brakes, Ehsan made one late, assertive steering input later, squaring off of the corner before stabbing the throttle. The Camaro turned that power into propulsion, his Garmin showed he’d found a half-second and finished with a personal best of 1:44.88

Varying levels of confidence, car prep, and luck gave every driver at Sonoma a new hurdle to cover. Their intelligence, resilience, and daring helped them all achieve a buzz they can float on for the next few days, and maybe even won them a new friend or two. 

Perhaps things won’t be as cordial during the season’s final event, but if that’s the case, at least the drivers will get all their kicks from heightened competition. There’s still a place for friendship after the champagne is sprayed.