senor honda

On the opposite side of the coin, White’s Supra was among the lighter cars in the category, racing at 2,800 pounds with its 192 cubic-inch, 88mm single turbo combination. Not only does it look different, but its tone is unmistakeable among a sea of turbocharged, supercharged, and nitrous-fed V-8’s (and one diesel).

White qualified with a 4.307, marking the quickest import run ever on 275 radials.

“Our goal was to qualify, but we definitely didn’t expect to go as quick as we did,” says Titan Motorsports’ Nero Deliwala. “We’ve never been that quick before, but we felt like we had a car that we could show up with and qualify. We just didn’t realize how difficult it would be to even get in the show, which came down to a couple of sessions where you needed to make a perfect run.”
After a tire-spinning effort in the opening session, White carded a 4.364 at 171 mph and progressively improved from there. In Friday evening’s final make-or-break session, he found himself sitting on the bump spot — Deliwala commenting, “we felt we had a car that go 4.30s and that that would qualify us — we never expected a .34 to be on the bump spot. Once we ran the .34 we were partying because we were sure it would help up. Then we saw our spot drop down the list to the point we were on the bump. When Gary pulled up Friday night to make his run, we were on the bump and I knew if it didn’t go A-to-B, we were probably getting knocked to 18th or 19th.”



His 4.307-second lap was a shocker, certainly to onlookers but, to a degree, even to the Titan camp, who had been 4.35 in testing in conditions even better than those at the Sweet 16. And while their elapsed time was outpaced by the supercharged small-blocks of Rich Bruder and Rob Goss by some .07-seconds, White reset the X275 speed mark at staggering 174.55 mph that got everyone’s attention.

The Sweet 16 marked Titan’s X275 debut with the unibody Supra — previous competitive outings and testing, however, gave indication they had the steam to compete on the class’ biggest stage.

“We had some confidence, because we had gone testing. We had an idea of what the car was capable of on a non-radial-prep surface,” Deliwala says.

[QUOTE]…these inline-six imports don’t make any torque, so getting a perfect torque converter combination is extremely difficult. So the clutch gives us a bit more flexibility to make changes track to track, run to run. – Nero Deliwala

The Supra utilizes a billet, aftermarket 2JZ block filled with aluminum rods, CP pistons, Ferrea valvetrain components, and a custom Titan camshaft, mated with a production cast cylinder head. Crew chief Erik Luzinski tunes the whole package through a FuelTech FT600 ECU. Intriguingly, White’s machine was the only manually-shifted, clutch-equipped car in the field on a tire and a track-prep process that’s long defied the use of such. Prev

“I have an awesome clutch and chassis guy in Erik, and so it only made sense for us to keep running the clutch. Not to mention, these inline-six imports don’t make any torque, so getting a perfect torque converter combination is extremely difficult. So the clutch gives us a bit more flexibility to make changes track to track, run to run. Plus we can make gearing changes with the transmission.”



The car sports a Liberty five-speed with a quad-disc clutch.

Deliwala says the feedback was tremendous from their racing counterparts and the fans on hand at the Sweet 16 in regards to their unique combination.

“People were really surprised [to see us in the field]. Many had never seen that engine combination run, let alone that competitively. I think people were also extremely surprised we would show up at the biggest-paying racing in X275 and didn’t even know we had a car for the class at all, much less a competitive car.”



White advanced to the elite eight with a 4.34 in round one and outran number one qualifier Rob Goss in the second round, 4.32 to 4.36, but succumbed to a sizable holeshot on the starting line.

He notes there is no question Titan Motorsports will be back for more radial tire action, sharing. “We’ll be back, 100-percent. I absolutely love Donald’s races, it’s very well put-together and his marketing is extraordinary.”
awolf@powertvmedia.com

About the author

Andrew Wolf

Andrew has been involved in motorsports from a very young age. Over the years, he has photographed several major auto racing events, sports, news journalism, portraiture, and everything in between. After working with the Power Automedia staff for some time on a freelance basis, Andrew joined the team in 2010.

senor honda

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