got a call early last week from Brian Kleeman wanting me to come down to Florida this past weekend and cover his team at the Streets of St. Petersburg race for his GTS class 370z. although i've done many a track day and several bigger events like this as a spectator it's different, and better, to be shooting for a team. unparallelled access to the team and the pits means i have a few shots that the media shooters won't. Brian's car, built by DWW Motorsports, did really well this weekend overall though he was down on power. the car was put together last second as they were waiting for parts to come in. it has an out of the box uprev tune (custom coming soon), had a carbonetix diff with 4.08 gear, and straight pipe exhaust. other than that it's stock. they figured somewhere around 290whp. in his class were 6.2L camaro's and 5.0L mustangs. so he was down a good bit of whp compared to the rest of the class. bryan ended up 13th in class but trust me when i say that was very impressive. he was only a couple seconds off the leader on a 1:40ish long track. the track itself was awesome going down some downtown streets in St. Pete and out by the water's edge, reminding me a lot of Streets of Monaco Gran Prix that has become so infamous from Formula 1 racing. anyway, on to the pics!
album:
Pirelli World Challenge Streets Of St. Petersburg - March '12 - JPMcG Photography
fav's:
1. epic sunrises were a mainstay over the course of the weekend
2. JJ Abhrams style
3. Brian crossing the start/finish line
4. Johnny O'Connell with his CTS-V coupe GT car
5. we had a couple girls with us on saturday, they drew a lot of public attention lol
6. real racing is rough on a car
7. on the starting grid for round 2 sunday morning
8. paul, from nissan corporate, was happy with the results
i had a damn blast hanging out with Brian and the rest of the team and look forward to covering more events with his team as they progress through the season, hopefully with a little more horsepower. brian's a great driver and a great Z guy. every nissan fan should be cheering him on! be sure to check out the race coverage next weekend on NBC Sports channel (the new one) at 4pm on sunday!