We are pleased to announce that at round 3 of the HKS Drag Series on 10th August 2008, Guy Chamberlain of the CPL Racing team beat his existing European record, running a 10.28 second pass at 144 mph, and taking the win in the front wheel drive class.

Out around 9th August is the September edition of Japanese Performance magazine.  This month's edition features:

- A six page feature on the CPL Racing 291 bhp supercharged 2007 Civic Type R FN2 with extensive road/track test results and comparisons with a standard 2007 Type R. 

- A five page technical feature on nitrous oxide, its installation and the CPL nitrous kit for the Civic Type R EP3

- Race report of round 2 of the HKS drag series

The CPL Racing cars are featured alongside Virtual Racer Software in the August 2008 edition of Race Car Engineering.  The feature explains how Virtual Racer works and how CPL have utilised the data from the software to help build their record-breaking Hondas. 

Virtual Racer software is available now by mail order from CPL Racing priced at just £39.99 including VAT.  Race Car Engineering magazine is available in larger newsagents and magazine stores and by mail order.

CPL Racing would like to wish Karel Pohner and his rally team the best of luck for the 2008 season.

Below is a link to Karel racing his Civic Type R EP3 and some very impressive driving.

http://www.stream.cz/video/11/18405-rally-video-alert-rally-team-2007

Doug MacMillan and Miriam MacMillan of the Hondata Team attended the land speed event at El Mirage dry lake bed, USA, in the 2nd of 6 scheduled events. The temperature on Saturday was up to 107 deg F (41.6 deg C) with Sunday a bit cooler in the high 90s (high 30s deg C). Fortunately both cars had good starting positions, and ran before 10:30 am.

Doug set a new record of 178.720 mph (288 kph) on a 173.265 mph record in the Blown Gas Competition Coupe Class.  GPS datalogging showed Doug hit 190 mph at the top of 5th gear, but because of problems getting the car into 6th gear, the car slowed 12 mph while Doug battled the gear shift. It was still a record, but the car has more potential.

Miriam (the only lady competing in a car) went off the line 55th on the grid and went on to set a new record of 161.141 mph (259 kph) on a 157.162 mph record (Doug's from last year) in the Gas Altered Coupe (G/GALT) class.   Though she mis-shifted 2nd to 5th, she recovered quickly and got it into 3rd and powered through each gear. The car handled perfectly, keeping straight all the way, even through the chute deployment.  Miriam will run in the same class next month with ITBs, which should give her another 23 hp and a rev limit increased from 9500 to 9800 rpm.  Miriam’s CRX is just at the beginning of its development it is expected that it will improve in speed as the year progresses.

Below is a link to the final of Round 2 HKS Drag Series 2008 (Jap Show), between CPL's Guy Chamberlain and Neil Knight.

The 22^nd June saw the 2^nd round of the HKS Drag series with far from ideal weather conditions and a track with no grip  due to heavy rain the previous day.

With a head wind and gusts of up to 65 mph having a negative effect on everyone’s times, the 4WD pro cars were running in the high 8’s and low 9’s, when normally these cars would be in the low 8 second bracket. 

Right throughout the day both Guy and Neil were running reasonable times at around 11 seconds and 12.2 respectively, but still not as good as they would have hoped for.

With Guy drawn against fellow team mate Ryan Panter in the semi-finals, and Ryan running on just street tyres, it was Guy that went through to the final.

In another round of the semi-finals CPL Neil’s Jackson Racing supercharged Civic was up against Dougie Gemmell’s Rotrex charger with built engine.  After an extremely close race it was Neil who managed to get to the lights first putting him through to an all CPL final with Guy.

And on to the final both Guy and Neil were determined to put in some better times and not let the dreadful conditions put a damper on their last chance to put in some good times.  With both on the line it was Neil that was clearly out of the lights first with an impressive 1.73 second 60 foot, however the additional power of Guy’s car allowed him to overtake around the 300 foot mark.  With Guy’s car having over double the power it was certainly a great performance by Neil who held his own and managed an 11.95 second pass at 112 mph with an absolutely atrocious head-wind. 

Guy took the win for the FWD class with his second 10.4 pass in 10 days with a 10.4777 at 136 mph, affirming his car as the Quickest Honda in Europe.

The current standings for the HKS Drag Series are now:

Guy Chamberlain (CPL Racing) – 1^st

Neil Knight (CPL Racing) – 2^nd

Scott Whitelaw (CPL Racing) – 3^rd

In addition to the Pro-Class CPL would like to say a big well done to Paul Cresswell who was entered into the RWYB in his CPL turbo’d Type R with  road tyres.  Paul had been running low 13 second passes at previous meetings but broke into the 12 second bracket for the first time with a 12.9 second pass.  Once again, given the atrocious head wind this is a great achievement and we look forward to seeing more from Paul at future meetings.

CPL would like to say a big thank you to Neil’s family and friends, Scott and his family, Guy’s parents, Elliot, Pete, Emma and Tommy who all came along to help and support the team at the weekend.  Special thanks also to CPL customer Paul Grima and his friends who came all the way over from Malta to watch the racing.