After a successful Thursday night on July 11, 2013, AMS/Alpha Performance made the decision to return to Great Lakes Dragaway just two days later in an attempt to be the first R35 GT-R in the 7’s. Their Thursday night outing netted an 8.25 @ 175mph, setting a new R35 GT-R world record on an easy launch, but their night was cut short due to a bad accident where a Mustang flipped end over end into a power transformer cutting power to the entire track. Thankfully the driver is going to make a full recovery but that left the AMS crew wondering what might have been…
The following day at their West Chicago IL. Headquarters, the AMS Team was excited to have broken the record but really felt the supercar would have gone 7’s on a better launch alone. Fortunately Great Lakes Dragaway had the MOFOCO Bugfest and bracket racing that Saturday but was allowing a short stint of test and tune. The decision was made to load the trailer and run with a crowded track in attempt to break the 7 second barrier.
[quote align=”left” color=”#000000″]The track announcer then congratulated the AMS team with “Welcome to the seven second club!”[/quote]
When the AMS crew arrived at the track it was packed. Everything from air cooled VW’s to rail cars. The track was much busier than even a normal Saturday afternoon at “Da Grove”. The Density Altitude was far from favorable at 2,129ft, it was humid and the temperature was in the low 80’s but the crew was eager to make a pass.
After a long wait in the staging lanes Ivan Phipps, driver and head technician behind the Alpha Omega GT-R project, was next to make a run. He pulled onto the track and did a short dry hop to clean the tires, crept in and lit the beams.
Launching hard with the perfect amount of spin Ivan was off. As Omega hit second gear the car jerked towards the center of the track, but he was determined to stay in it. By the time he hit third gear the car was back on track and pulling hard. The AMS Team was silent from that moment until the board lit up “7.984 @ 186.14mph.” It was then that the Team, track announcer and the crowd cheered. The track announcer then congratulated the AMS team with “Welcome to the seven second club!”
As Ivan drove down the return lane he had no idea he had hit his mark. “I knew it was a pretty good pass, but not sure how good.” he said. It wasn’t until Phipps neared the timing booth when he saw his team lined up waiting to congratulate him that he had just run the first 7 second pass in an R35 Nissan GT-R!
In addition to this milestone achievement, Alpha Omega also posted some insane numbers and set some other records which were recorded by the onboard V-Box data recorder:
0-60: 1.72 seconds
60-130mph: 2.67 seconds (new overall record)
0-300kph (186mph): 7.98 seconds (new overall record)
100-150mph: 2.42 seconds (new overall record)
30-130mph: 3.63 seconds
What made this even more astounding is Alpha Omega is a street-legal, road going car. “Believe it or not Alpha Omega is a car your Mom could drive to the store without having any clue how fast it really is. The car could truly be driven across the country without incident” noted AMS Sale Manager Eric Gaudi.
[quote align=”right” color=”#000000″]”(The 7.98 run) was far from an ideal pass and the car has more power left on the table.” [/quote]
“Omega is the test bed for our Alpha GT-R line of parts and uses mostly off the shelf components” Gaudi stated. “We will be releasing details on the improvements to the suspension, CCM brakes and our new wheel and tire package soon now that we’ve proven their capabilities. We look forward to seeing other GT-R owners getting much quicker with these new products.”
Alpha GT-R’s have paved the way for the R35 platform being the first in the 9’s, 8’s and now the 7’s. Don’t think for a minute though that these guys are done improving Omega. According to Chris Black, the Lead Calibrator at AMS/Alpha Performance, “(The 7.98 run) was far from an ideal pass and the car has more power left on the table.” With that being said, look out for an even deeper pass into the 7’s from Alpha Omega in the near future.
(Source: AMS)
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