Nightmotorsport at Road Atlanta

Night Motorsport Shines at GTA Road Atlanta

Night Motorsport made the long cross-country trip from California to Georgia for the first round of Global Time Attack Pro Championship at Road Atlanta and came away with the Street Class win. Night Motorsport’s first win of the season came in front of a big crowd of spectators drawn by the one-two punch of Global Time Attack and Formula Drift events that shared the beautiful circuit through the weekend. The Night Motorsport's Subaru STI, driven by Istvan Klag, won the class decisively with more than 1.3 seconds in hand over the nearest Street Class competitor.

Night Motorsport has upped their game this year with programs specific to vehicle and driver development, and the team is already seeing gains in performance. Despite a busy shop schedule, the team accomplished a rigorous pre-season chassis testing and development program that guided several updates to improve outright performance and reliability, as well as caught a few issues that would have been difficult to overcome during a race weekend. Furthermore, Night Motorsport owner and racing driver Istvan Klag has brought in veteran Time Attack driver Gary Sheehan as a driving coach to accelerate his learning curve as a developing driver.

Pedal to the Metal 

 Istvan is certainly no stranger to hard work, and honing one’s driving skills in a 550+ horsepower race car on street tires is not an easy task. Added to this was the challenge of learning the daunting high-speed and high-risk layout of the famous Road Atlanta racetrack in competition and you have quite an intimidating set of circumstances for a developing driver. Istvan showed his maturity with a steady approach to progressing throughout the weekend, taking his time to learn the track and pick up pace session after session. Istvan felt the time was right midway through the second day, and was able to put together his class-winning lap near the end of his session, knocking over 1.5 seconds off his fastest lap of the weekend and catapulting him into the class win.

Significant in the team’s success was the 2006 Subaru STI’s reliability throughout the weekend. Time Attack cars are not endurance race cars by any means, being built for outright speed for short bursts of track time. Thanks for Turbo By Garrett , Cp Piston , AEM performance electronics , Paez Precision , APR  performance, Konig wheels ,Momo Italy , Clutch Masters , WCB 5 printing , Eibach Springs ,Darton Sleeves, BMS machining and Nightmotorsport team  performed flawlessly all weekend, giving Istvan the consistency needed to learn the track coupled with the outright power pull out the Street Class win.

With this first round victory in-hand, the Night Motorsport team now heads back to their home state of California for the second round of the Global Time Attack Pro Am series at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway in Desert Center, CA on June 8th. The close-to-home venue is a welcome change from the challenges of racing across the country, however, the desert racetrack surely bring high mid-June temperatures into the mix, which will make it hard on both the cars and the drivers, and the single day format demands maximum attack from the very first session. To follow the action at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, visit the NightMotorsport Facebook page for continuous updates throughout the day.

Night Motorsport is a full-service high-performance shop based in Rialto, California supporting the greater Inland Empire area of southern California. Night Motorsport gets its name from the shop’s unique business hours, operating on weekdays from 3pm to 11pm, giving performance enthusiasts the opportunity to have their cars service outside of normal business hours. Night Motorsport specializes in Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota performance vehicles, offering products from a wide range of top performance manufacturers and services from general maintenance to full street performance and racing engine builds.

993 west valley blvd unit 310 bloomington Ca 92376

909-258-2072

Photo by Klye Lewis 

1st racing news by Nightmotorsport

NIGHTMOTORSPORT RACING’S NEWSLETTER! MARCH 6, 2012


Nightmotorsport Racing update

We join NASA at Fontana, uncork Tony Brown’s ride, and begin

the framework for our team future.

Well the weekend did not seem to start the best, after a 2 hour drive to

get to the track and get there early. I am sitting in Jack in the Box

eating fast food for breakfast at 6:45am, reviewing my notes and

objectives for the weekend. I get a text from Tony, “Hey Allan, we are

still at the shop and Steve is still working on my car, you may want to

meet us here”.

Not good news, my infamous yellow pad is full of notes on things to do

and try, the track opens in 15 minutes and the hot rod is well, parked.

I’m sure the readers of this update really get the importance of getting

a jump on the day during track testing or race weekend.

At the shop one look at the guys and I know they have been through

hell. One of Tony’s eyes is not opening as far as the other and Steve has

been assembling the car for 48hrs......straight. There is still some top

end assembly of the fresh engine, and interior wiring still to go. The car

is also sporting a new larger wheel set from Konig with different offsets,

a all new type of tire (more on that in a future issue) and tons of other

new components and structural changes. Most of which can present

variables, which by design I am trying to contain and control.

As the day and clock progress, so does the car and in the early afternoon its initial test fire is done and a 20

minute idle heat cycle of the motor goes smoothly. In fact the whole motor is noticeably low vibration,
something Subaru “boxster” style engines are not known for. I learn that in prep lots of weak points were
noted in the motor and many internals were addressed by necessity. Those internals were largely upgraded
and that Im sure had lots to do with this new smoother engine.
I am also introduced to our newest member of the team, Richard Allen whom is a contact of Tony’s. He
literally walks in says hi and starts wiring the internal gauges on a car he has never seen. He energy and
addicting smile and enthusiasm is exactly what the guys needed. It also came at the perfect time. BTW he
at 39 rides a skateboard to get around the track, he still has some kid in him.
Two more heat cycles are put on the engine at slightly high RPM and the cooling system is bled, today is
done but Tony has a different car than was originally thought. As I drive back to Ventura county that night
I really felt that this perhaps was the best thing the team could have had. Not that a track day lost is a
good thing, but that having the car properly tested in the shop and a chance for all of us to spend time was
much more valuable.
Sunday is different, its predicted to be pretty warm and 1st thing Tony takes the car to NASA tech while
the rest of us build our space for the day. Ice chests, three pop up covers, chairs, video equipment, girl
friends, track buddys and BBQs fill the space. Now things are starting to feel normal.
For the 1st morning run session Tony has instructions to keep the car to a max of 4,000 rpm for the 1st
run session and does so. Its been several months since he has turned the wheel so he is just focusing on
remembering the track marks and line short shifting and watching the gauges....a lot. On the final lap a
loud pop, and the car dies. Steve and I exchange a look and we ask Tony to see if he has electrical power,
he does, so now we wait for the car to be towed in.
Within moments of the car coming to a stop in our pit area, Suzie who is Steve sister is under the nose and
see’s a disconnected tube and thats our problem. It is corrected before his second run session, just barely.
The second session goes well and RPM limits are raise a little for the next session. In the pit we discuss
some of the cars behavior and I make our 1st chassis adjustment. This may not seem significant, but it is
because its the 1st time Tony has described something and I have adjusted for it.
It works, Tony recognizes the change and although I could have make more moves under the car we hold
as he is within several seconds of his personal best, without aero, on newly acquired tires none of us had
any exposure to. Confidence is high and Steve is raising the RPM call to Tony, and he is ready to “lay one
down” and see if he can touch his old record. Two nice progressive warm up laps and its hammer time.
Fresh engine, better set up, new tires that are looking good, the untouched transmission...not so good.
Say goodby to 3rd gear. So there you have it, the ultimate tease. We have already scheduled another test
date, at a proper road course, which will hopefully for the 1st time see both cars on the track at the same
time. There are more tools with a multi car team Should be fun!
Allan Crocket

Our history

History of Night Motorsports

Night Motorsport started in 2005 as a small race team competing in local events and Redline Time Attack. Fast forward to 2012 and Night Motorsport is not only a competitive racing team fielding 2 Subaru WRX STi race cars but also a service dealer providing high performance parts and service at its brand new full-service automotive shop in Rialto, CA. Night Motorsport offers high performance parts from some of the best companies in the industry; ACT, APR Performance, Auto Meter, Edelbrock, Eibach, Sparco, Goodridge, Hawk Performance, MOMO, Turbonetics, ARP, K&N, AEM, Mobil 1, Stop Tech, Seibon, Rays Engineering, Samco, Cusco, Deatsch Werks, and Braille Batteries, just to name a few.

Night Motorsport is well known throughout the Inland Empire for its quality of work, dedication to its customers as we are the only full-service high performance tuning shop that is open till midnight Monday through Friday and 10am to 8pm Saturday and Sunday. Night Motorsport has the most competitive prices in the Inland Empire, you won’t find anyone cheaper in the I.E. the can deliver the quality of work and parts provided then Night Motorsport.

Night Motorsport was founded by Istvan (Steve) Klag, an ambitious individual with a passion for speed and the adrenaline to persistently move forward and keep his eyes on the goal. From idea to execution, Steve, a mechanic since age 18, not only worked on high performance cars, but is a driver himself of the number 13 Night Motorsport Subaru WRX STi sponsored by Garrett Turbos by Honeywell, Konig Wheels, Eibach Springs, APR Performance, Clutch Masters, WBC 5, GS Werks, MOMO Italy, EBC Brakes, Subaru of Ontario and SPC Performance.  2012 marks an exciting year for Night Motorsport. Not only have we opened a full-service high performance tuning shop but our success has allowed us to grow our racing team to field two Subaru WRX STis and we welcome car number 25 and driver Tony Brown to the Night Motorsport family. In 2012 Night Motorsport will be competing in NASA Time Trials, Global Time Attack, Speed Ventures Time Attack, SubieFest, and the North American Festival of Speed. We will also be seen at Hot Import Nights, Motion Auto Show and SEMA. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for live streaming updates from the track and auto shows,