Planning for 2009 While Trying for More Wins in 2008

What a year 2008 has been so far for the Compass360 crew. We've had the highs of two race wins. We've had three of our cars finish in the top ten in one race. We've had podium finishes for two of our four cars, and one of our drivers has finished sixth a remarkable five times.

By most accounts, a great year. But coming off a strong second-place in the championship last year, we are always gunning for the top spot, and so to be fighting for a top-five finish in the Driver's Championship, and a top-three in the Team's just shows how very deep the talent pool is in the KONI Challenge.

And so, while we focus our resources and the resources of our technical partners (which include Honda of America, Skunk2, King Motorsport, Cobalt Brakes and K&N -- thank you all!) on winning the last two races, we are also working hard on our 2009 program. Our Technical Director, Ray Lee, has already done all of the heavy lifting on our new Civic Si program, despite my five-barrel-roll destruction of our first car back at Lime Rock in April.

The two-door Civic that Christian Miller has been at the helm of since Iowa has been an ideal test bed for components on our new "Version 2.0" car that we will run in 2009. We have a very good motor program thanks to the hard work of our friends at Skunk2, and I think the 2009-spec C360R Civic Si will be a very strong package. That says a lot when we're competing against the powerful forced induction cars which have shown to be very fast indeed. Some of those normally-aspirated cars are no slouches either! In the right hands, I'm confident our Civics will be on the top of the box.

It's likely we'll be retiring our Acura TSXs at the end of this year. The #76 is the winningest TSX ever in the series, and is arguably one of the winningest single cars ever (with six wins in the last two years). But that doesn't mean that we've stopped development. No sir! With two races to go we see two opportunities to win, and the 76 and 75 TSXs have received a host of upgrades just in time for Miller. With last year's Champions Burrows and Hopwood in the #76, plus Kenny Wilden and his star student Jeremy Willard in #75, both of these cars can pull off a win, having both been on the podium this season.

Likewise, Christian's #74 Civic has received a lot of attention since New Jersey in the interest of constant improvement. It's also got a bunch of new kit that Ray thinks will further enhance performance. And our #73 RSX-S has just been fitted with a new powerplant that we hope will make up for the high altitude of the Miller track, something our Mesco Rookie competitor Kevin York will no doubt appreciate.

With eyes to next season, we will be testing drivers and cars soon after the season-ending VIR event. We're hoping that a number of the series' hot shoes will attend the test, and we've also been talking to some great talent from other series as well (you can email me at karlt@compass360.com if interested).

Yep, even though we've got two races left and a good fight at the sharp end of the stick to get some more podiums, the Silly Season for 2009 is already going strong. And we wouldn't have it any other way, now would we?

Labels: gablog