
The last event before our summer break! Despite the rather elevated temperatures compared to most of the events in the first half of the year, we still had a bunch of our regulars come on out to play. We even had some new faces join the fold, which always seems to happen at Willow Springs, so welcome aboard!
Running the results, it’s obvious that the session to take home the W was in the first competition session of the day. A few of you, however, managed to sneak in your PB for the day in some of the later sessions which is interesting to see.
Despite everything above and below, we actually managed to bust out a GT Radial tent as a necessary for this Round’s heatwave and it DIDN’T fly away! That’s a W in our book despite being totally unprepared otherwise.
STOCK Class
At this point in the season, it almost feels like Luke is getting away with highway robbery in the points standings for this class. Luke adds another W on his resume for the season with his time at Round 5.
Chasing behind him in the points and for this round is none other than Sean Irwin. Laying everything out on the line, Sean unfortunately comes up almost half a second short to Luke’s best for this day.
Keeping things in the family is Scott Irwin who claims the final podium spot for the Stock class gang.
Honorable mentions for this round include Sam Nunez in his beautiful Hakone Edition GR86 and Celeste Alvarez also in a 2025 Toyota GR86, competing in their first 86Cup event. It’s always nice to see new faces having a good time!
STREET Class
Even without some of its regulars, the Street class party was still partying on for Round 5!
Ethan Lawrie continues to abuse plot armor in his Trueno Edition GR86, absolutely decimating the other Street class competition by nearly two seconds compared to most of the field.
Brian Guan, a definitely worthy opponent, set his sights on challenging that plot armor in his first gen BRZ. Unfortunately, as we all know, plot armor always prevails, and after everything was said and done for Round 5, Brian comes up with a time of 1:28.689 for his second place endeavors.
Coming off of some stints of #86cupsecretseattime is Greg Balos who lays down a 1:29.236 to take home the final podium spot in Street class in his 2022 Subaru BRZ. Aside from the secret seat time, we’ve seen Greg slowly but surely creep up the rankings over the last several months.
MODIFIED Class
(insert gif of tumbleweed rolling here)
UNLIMITED Class
Mother nature’s heat was no match to the heat that Jared Ramirez brought to Round 5, smashing through the previous 86Cup Unlimited class record! Jared after a brief hiatus and some choice mods, puts down a 1:24.015 in his 2022 Toyota GR86 to continue to assert his dominance in Unlimited class.
Tim Chan follows behind in his 2014 Subaru BRZ laying down a 1:27.816 for the day.
Lastly, we have Damon Estrada joining us as another new face to the 86Cup family in his 2015 Scion FR-S! Damon managed to put down a 1:32.752 for his time before packing it up and heading home.
Thank you all to everyone who came out to Round 5 and braved the typical heat (and wind) that Willow Springs provides! It’s looking like this was (one of?) the last event at the facility before they get to work on some renovations as you may have seen in our group chat, so we’re excited to see what that looks like in the coming months.
For now, we have a TWO AND A HALF month hiatus until our next 86Cup round.
This would surely be the time to finally perform any “deferred” maintenance you’ve been dreading. If you need any helping sourcing things for your maintenance needs or modification endeavors, look no further than our sponsor CounterSpace Garage to get you situated!
Even if they don’t have it listed on their website, they have an extensive backcatalog and access to numerous brands, OEM Subaru/Toyota parts, etc. etc. So hit them up!
Given that we’re 5 events into our 10 round season, you may also be looking to get some new tires for the remainder of the season. That being said, our friends at Racetreads can surely help with that. If you use 86Cup’s ambassador link, you also get a small discount on your order: www.racetreads.com
This is also your friendly reminder that any GT Radial SX2s you plan on using for 86Cup (contingencies) needs to be purchased via Racetreads after February 2025.
That all being said, have a happy summer break! Round 6 is on a SUNDAY, September 14th. We’ll be running with Speed Ventures and it’ll be a joint round with our NorCal friends again 86 Challenge. We chose the Sunday date from this SV weekend because we’ll be getting to run a very rare (to those outside of Cal Club/SCCA days at least) 25 CCW configuration.
This will surely be challenging as you’re going to skip the famous bus stop section completely and go full steam from Riverside all the way to Grapevine. We would place some good money someone will probably blow through the braking zone at least once.
Round 6 event flyer and details will be posted as soon as possible. See you then!
















