The National Auto Sport Association (NASA) is one of the nation's most popular track day organizations and has slowly built its reputation using a proven combination of solid track time, proper instruction and tight organization. For the 2006 season, NASA announced its first-ever national championship, a sweeping venue that would undeniably declare a nationwide winner for each NASA class.
Competitors from all across the United States traveled to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio for the showdown. Representatives came out for the Honda Challenge, Spec Miata and SE-R Cup race series, as well as the ever-growing Time Trial series. Despite never having driven at Mid-Ohio before, the Honda Challenge H1 class win belonged to Andrie Hartanto, owner and driver of our Aug. '06 K20-powered Civic feature car. The action was tight and fierce, with every entrant eager to become the first ever NASA national champ. Plus, every race at the NASA Nationals featured live webcast audio, timing and scoring so that those that couldn't make it to the race could at least keep up on the action.
In the Time Trial class, our hopes were up that Southern California region TTU class leader Russ Warr and the wide-body Crawford Performance STi would show how it's done on the West Coast, but the mighty Subie blew its rear diff and later came up short against the power of Jon Krolewicz and the AMS Evo VIII. Not too shabby considering the Subaru came fresh off competition in Sport Compact Car's Ultimate Street Car Challenge and sported a full interior, versus AMS' 300lb lighter stripped out and caged machine. SoCal regulars Dan Gardner (Nissan NX2000) and hotshoe National Time Trial series director Greg Greenbaum (Dodge SRT-4) did bring home class wins for California though, in TTF and TTC respectively.
With provisions to run both street cars and racecars in a time attack "best lap" format, NASA's Time Trial series is one of the fastest growing competition series in the nation. The rules equalize modifications and speed through the use of allocated points and it's not uncommon to see race-prepped Civics running against street Evo's and 350Z's. Looking at the grid at this year's Nationals, it's also quite apparent that the Time Trial series is one of the fastest growing around, with purpose-built and heavily modified machinery popping up left and right.
If you think you're good enough and fast enough, now's the time to prove it. NASA offers a full schedule of events in a multitude of regions, and you can bring almost any car you want. So strap into your tuned machine and hit the track, the NASA championships are waiting.
Are you good enough? Check: Nasaproracing.com.