European Car Magazine Presents the 2004 1.8t Challenge – California!

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California Speedway is a state of the art raceway facility located in Southern California. This was the venue for the 2004 European Car 1.8t Challenge. ABD Racing was on hand with their latest 1.8t GTI, complete with the all-new ABD Racing GT-30R turbo conversion built by Strictly German. There was very little test time, so everybody was putting the finishing touches on the car until the day before the event started. Thursday August 5th was the dyno competition at the GIAC facility in Irvine, California. After several strong pulls from other competitors, it was the ABD Racing entry's turn. Two pulls were all we needed to put down 353 wheel horsepower with 328 ft-lb of torque!!! As soon as staff members Chad & Tim called with the great news, our sales office exploded with excitement...

That evening, still on cloud nine from the dyno, all competitors and participants were invited to a catered dinner and presentation at the Eibach springs facility. What a great evening, filled with mingling among all the competitors and story swapping. There was a little "showing off" with the nearly completed ABD Racing project Audi R6 on display in front of the ABD rig (next to Jason Reich's daily driver 2004 Passat wagon- very nice as well).

Friday was race day, and boy was it hot – really hot. With the temps pushing 100°F, our water coolers were emptying quickly, keeping tech assistant Geoff Hallmark busy along with his many other duties. After a quick test run on the 1.5 mile road course, we knew our GTI would do well. After all, we have set this car up to be a competitive off-the-shelf parts sports car. That is correct, this ABD Racing GTI was built with complete off-the-shelf parts from Autobahn Designs / ABD Racing and fine tuning by Eibach Springs.

Road course time – we finished first place with a 1min. 19.53 sec. run around the course.  After all the road course was done, it was off to the drag strip and a little bit of retro going on. ABD Racing busted out the 10 year old Drag Pickup for the event. Dave Anderson piloted the pickup as Tim Weatherwax got behind the wheel of the GTI. As the green light hit, the pickup left so hard Tim was quoted saying "I thought my GTI stalled". Actually, the truck launched so hard it left the 13.8 et GTI in the dust. By the way, the ABD Racing GTI did a 13.8 @ 107 mph- tire spin is a real issue with over 350 ponies at the wheels with only 2wd.

In the end, it was a great day for all. All entries worked hard to get to the event and with companies like ABD Racing, Bahn Brenner, Del Rio Tuning, 034 EFI, TJM Motorsport and all of the efforts in the enthusiast class – what a great event and we can't wait for next year.