Round 5 of the 2025 Racetreads.com GT Radial 86Cup has us visit an old friend, the proving grounds for many of us who begun our tracking journey in SoCal.
Streets of Willow is on the board and if not the heat then the CCW configuration turn 1 entry will surely cook your brakes, so hit up our sponsors CounterSpace Garage and prepare accordingly!
This will be our last track day before a pretty lengthy 2.5 month break for us here at 86Cup over the course of the summer so grab those crucial points before each class makes a run for the championship!
Track day registration for this round will be with Speed Ventures.
Round 4 saw the SoCal gang pack up their bags and head up north on Mother’s Day weekend to beautiful wine country in Sonoma, California.
It seems however that we may have brought with us our stereotypical desert weather as a heat wave consumed all of us on the way up and on Saturday during our Round 4 festivities (sorry NorCal friends!). Even with the hot ambient temperatures midday, that didn’t stop the actual heat and by that we mean record breaking laps!
The last time the 86Cup crew visited Sonoma was back in 2023. Since then Sonoma has had a repave so it seems that points to how fast everyone was this past weekend.
That being said, there were timing/transponder issues all weekend it seems so this is more or less the “preliminary” results and we did our best to sift through everything we had available to determine these times. If there’s no objections, then we’ll send it as is for final results on our socials.
For our NorCal friends, 86Cup only counts sessions 2-4 and no bonus (unless otherwise stated by admins explicitly to everyone prior to the event) for your reference. So for everyone here, your best time here may differ from your best time for 86Challenge.
STOCK Class
Stock class was the true battle of SoCal vs NorCal for our joint challenge it seems as Luke Daley and Dennis Feng duked it out in their 2nd gen BRZs for supremacy at the end of it all.
Luke won the dogfight and is the only SoCal class winner for the event with a 1:56.061* after adjustments for the Stock class time penalty. His actual lap of 1:54.561 breaks the previous FA24 86Cup Stock class record held under current ruling! Nicely done Luke.
Dennis threw down a very respectable lap as well coming in right behind Luke by less than 3 tenths with a 1:56.301* after the Stock Class time penalty was assessed.
Rounding out the class in the final spot, we have John Rice claiming his first podium of the year! John puts down a very respectable 2:04 for his very first foray with the behemoth that is Sonoma Raceway. An otherwise daunting track with it’s drastic elevation changes, walls and intense braking zones.
STREET Class
In Street class, we have Bobby Tisher taking home the final spot in the podium gang. Bobby lays down a very respectable 1:55.512 on the final time charts for the day for us which is less than half a second behind the second place finisher. We’ve been saying it since basically Round 2 this year, Bobby is the one to watch in 2025!
Brian Armstrong claims the second place spot in his 2022 BRZ with a 1:55.217 in the second session for Saturday.
Haowei Wu takes the top spot atop the podium in the SoCal vs NorCal Street class battle with a record-breaking 1:53.007 in his 2022 Toyota GR86. Looks like he wasn’t going to let Luke take away his former FA24 86Cup stock class record without taking another 86Cup record with him. Nicely done sir.
MODIFIED Class
Brian Kao is the lone soul for Mod Class this round. That being said, despite flying solo, he was definitely flying breaking the former 86Cup Mod class record with a 1:57.540 in his 2024 Subaru BRZ.
UNLIMITED Class
Unlimited is typically the next class that gets filled up just as much as Street but we had only two souls play around in Unlimited for this round.
In second place, we have SoCal regular Jeff Flogerzi in his 2013 Scion FR-S put down a 1:53.976 while playing with some new Toyo Proxes RRs.
For first place, there’s a reason this guy is THE BOSS (for multiple reasons, iykyk). First goes to Joe McGuigan in a K-swapped 2017 Toyota 86 putting down a blistering fast 1:47.643 on Bridgestone RE71RS. We have no other words for this, we’re pretty speechless.
And that concludes Round 4 at Sonoma and our first joint round with 86 Challenge for the year. We hope everyone that got to experience Sonoma for the first time had an absolute blast. Is this now your favorite track in California? We wouldn’t be shocked if you said it was.
We shot some photos of everyone during Round 4 and we’ll look to get those edited and shared with you all within the next week or two.
We have one more round until we take a bit of a summer break as we’re certain things are going to be hottttt. Round 5 will take place at Streets of Willow on June 28th with Speed Ventures and we will be running the CCW configuration if we’re not mistaken.
Hopefully you can bear one more round and some heat before we take a nice break. Streets dates usually sell out, but at the moment it seems like the day is still relatively wide open for signups so don’t sleep on it! Huge shout out to the 6 folks who already signed up for Round 5.
2025 Racetreads.com GT Radial 86Cup Rd. 3 – The Circuit at Buttonwillow – Event ResultsRound 3 was a stark reminder to everyone in our community that it ain’t always sunshine and rainbows in a time attack event. And that ultimately, at the end of it, a lot of it just comes down to pure luck.Drivers battled the elements dealing with suboptimal conditions all day. While we don’t count the first session of the HPDE day, drivers got to learn the new track at Buttonwillow at a relatively slow pace as the rain was coming down full bore early in the morning.
The track was full wet, then half wet, then dry/steamy, then full wet for half the track, and every combination in-between throughout the rest of the day for everyone in 86Cup. Not to mention lightning and then huge gusts of wind that blew tumbleweeds that would try to kill you entering turn 5, then try to finish the job again as you came by on the front straight.
It was definitely hard to put down a proper flying lap. Towards the end of the day, it seemed like everyone just decided to full send in the rain and put down the fastest lap that they could as time ran out overall.
Being this is a new track for us, there were several “records” recorded amongst the 86Cup gang and those laps have now been updated on our website for your viewing pleasure. Send us a photo if you print it out and hang it on your fridge for your mom to see.
STOCK Class
The Luke Daley show is in full effect for the 86Cup Stock class with another W added to his column. After the 1.5 second penalty is assessed for Gen 2 cars, he comes home with a 2:06.479*.
Sean Irwin falls closely behind in second place with a 2:06.936. Can Sean make a comeback in the rest of his season to go back-to-back Stock class championships? Only time will tell…
Eric Robi takes home the final spot on the podium in what is probably the last event for ‘ole red, laying down a 2:08.296* after time adjustment. Based on the group chat, it seems like he got his money’s worth out of his rotors.
Honorable mention goes out to William being the lone Gen 1 car in the class this round, putting down a 2:09.267. This lap will go into the records page but it will be exciting to see if someone can break it the next time around for 86Cup.
STREET Class
The party class strikes again, though this time the admins didn’t have to go into the double digits for the results positions which probably hasn’t happened in a bit.
Bobby Tisher comes up with a massive W in the rain! If we’re not mistaken, this is his first win in 86Cup? At least for Street class that is for sure. Congratulations on the top spot Bobby! It’s been awesome seeing you get faster year after year and especially in 2025 in particular you’ve been blazing a trail!
That being said, Ethan Lawrie comes nipping at his heels. Remember when we said time attack is sometimes just about pure luck at the end of it all? Well, Ethan comes up just 0.050 seconds behind Bobby to take second place. As many of us have experienced over the years, Ethan is probably analyzing that lap trying to see where they lost that time.
With rain, mud, lightning, and luck all thrown into the mix, we have Matt Woolsey taking home the final podium spot with a 2:05.345 in his 2023 Toyota GR86. Matt lead the charge for what is otherwise an extremely intense Street class midpack battle looking at the time charts. Everyone from 3rd to 7th was separated by less than half a second. Some Gen 1 cars thrown into the mix there too, suggesting some of the Gen 2 drivers need to go a little bit faster possibly.
MOD Class
Looks like the rain scared off any Mod class friends we were going to make this Round. No one wanted to be the first to claim a “record” lap? Guess we’ll have to wait until next year.
UNLIMITED Class
Is anybody going to stop this man? Jared Ramirez is on a terror in his 2022 Toyota GR86, seemingly in a league of his own setting the only sub-2 lap for the class this round.
Speaking of sub-2, Jeff Flogerzi gets ever so close to such. He sets the non-86Cup specific FA20 NA overall lap record based on our data. He laid down a 2:00.997 at the end of it all. So looks like there’s still about a full second to look for out there. Sounds like it’ll be doable on a completely dry event.
Tim Chan, also in a first gen car, comes home with 3rd place for Unlimited class in his 2014 Subaru BRZ. He put down a 2:02.743 on Kumho Ecsta V730s.
EXHIBITION Class
Exhibition class finally saw two challengers in the running. Our dear friends and sponsors, CounterSpace Garage managed to put down a 2:01.109 in their Silver Bullet 2022 Toyota GR86. They take home the “win” for the class, despite battling the drastic weather changes all day.
Shining Wolf Motorsports is the other contender for the class, with their 2020 Subaru BRZ, they managed to lay down a 2:06.105 lap on GT Radial SX2 RS tires. It’s nice to see that team back in action, having been dormant since a Global Time Attack event in 2021.
And with that, that’s a wrap on Round 3! Thank you to everyone who came out to the event. It seems like a lot of you changed your minds about the track after finally getting to see and drive it yourself for once, even with all of the weather.
Sidenote, did anyone catch the double rainbows at the end of the day? It was a nice touch to end what otherwise was a great day.
Our next round, Round 4, is coming up super fast! Round 4 sees us head up north to visit this wonderful track called Sonoma Raceway. If you haven’t been to it, we highly recommend you come join us!
Once you visit and drive this track, other tracks will pale in comparison. Round 4 will also be a joint event with our NorCal buddies 86 Challenge so there will surely be some fierce competition with folks who may call this their home track.
Registration for the track day portion will be via Speed SF Track Events, so a bit of a change of pace from the usual SV days. The SpeedSF guys run a top notch ship and a lot of them are 86Cup/86Challenge alum so they are all too familiar with our shenanigans.
Round 4 flyer and event details will be posted tomorrow. Hope to see you there!
We’ve been waiting on this for a while, and the 86Cup admins are pleased to announce that along with our Racetreads sponsorship for the series, we are NOW #RaceTreadsAmbassadors !!
The best part of this you ask? You, your mom, your mom’s friends, your dog (if they drive something with tires), your coworkers, etc. etc. can now directly support the series!
How, you ask? By purchasing tires which you were going to do ANYWAY for not only the series but also normal life. Not just GT Radials but ANY tires from the website are eligible from golf cart tires, trailer tires, race tires and much, much more.
All you have to do is use the code “86cup” and/or our website link here or the QR code and we’ll get a little kickback from every sale!
These funds will go directly back into the series to hopefully use for more fun stuff like stickers, maybe merch, fixing go karts, non-driving events, and more.
Feel free to share this out to ANYONE you think needs tires. The more funds we get, obviously the more fun we get to have!
Thank you again Racetreads, let’s make this year great everyone!
Round 2 was a fun day with absolutely fantastic weather! It was definitely a nice break from the bipolar weather SoCal has been seeing recently, especially with the rain last week.
The 86Cup community fire is burning bright only two rounds in as we had 20+ drivers join us for both rounds so far! For this particular round, we had 27 drivers after everything was said and done.
STOCK Class
It seems we have a return to form for Luke Daley. Two rounds in and two wins/records broken! What a feat. Luke lays down a blistering fast 2:07.074(* after time penalty assessed) in his 2024 Subaru BRZ to take home the top prize for Round 2 at Chuckwalla
Chasing after him is last year’s Stock class champion, Sean Irwin. Who comes home nearly a second behind to take second place.
Lastly for this class, we have Harry Galbraith in a 2019 Toyota 86. As we mentioned in the last round’s writeup, we’ve been seeing Harry move up and up the timecharts over the years and it’s awesome to see him grab another podium here. Nicely done!
STREET Class
Ethan Lawrie claims another victory this round but also claims a record for Street Class. We saw the speed developing last year when he joined us briefly and we’re keeping the magnifying glass close on him this year!
86Cup veteran Brian Guan joins us for this round. Brian rocked a 2:04.824 at the end of Saturday’s adventures.
Speaking of developing speed, Bobby Tisher comes home with another podium as well. It’s been great to see Bobby rise over the years through his participation with 86Cup. That’s ultimately what this community is all about!
MODIFIED Class
Still the loneliest class in 86Cup it seems…
BUT, we had Garrett Wilson join us for Chuckwalla festivities.
Despite the record breaking lap times, lengthy class lists, etc. at the end of the day we’re in it for the fun and the community and that’s what’s ultimately important. Hope you can join us for more rounds Garrett, and don’t be scared, we’re friendly!
UNLIMITED Class
In Unlimited class we had the usual suspects but also some new faces! Both literally and figuratively.
Jonathan Geisinger takes home the final podium spot for Round 2, just getting oh so close to the magical sub-2 at Chuckwalla.
No stranger to 86Cup but making the jump to Unlimited finally, we have Jeff Flogerzi taking home second by laying down a 1:59.349 in his first gen.
And with the top spot, 86Cup’s resident fast man at the top, we have Jared Ramirez taking home pole with a 1:57.542 for the class. This man is on a rocket ship and he is not to be threatened with!
EXHIBITION Class
Last, but certainly not least, we have our sponsor, CounterSpace Garage in their 2022 Toyota GR86 shop car for Exhibition class sporting some new mods for to test out. Looks like things panned out for them as they bring home a 1:56.410 for the day.
Event results will be posted shortly to our website. Points standings will be updated soon, we’re currently just figuring out the best way to display them to you all!
Next up is Round 3 where we FINALLY get to tackle “The Circuit” at Buttonwillow! We’ll be there Saturday, April 26th with Speed Ventures. Event poster flyer and details to come tomorrow.
Reminder we also have our 2024 Awards Ceremony coming up on Sunday, March 30th at the K1 Circuit in Winchester. We hope you all can make it out! Even if you’re not driving the karts, or won an award last year, or even drove with us last year, we hope you can come on through and just hang!
Also coming up at the end of this month is the final days for contingency forms with Racetreads/GT Radial. The deadline is March 31st. Do not wait, do it NOW before you forget!
86Cup’s tire contingency program and championship cash prizes have returned for 2025 with a new look!
Race Treads (Racetreads.com) will be organizing the GT Radial Tire Contingency Redemption and Championship Prizes for 2025.
If you’re participating in GT Radial Stock or GT Radial Street Class you have the chance to take home up to a $1000 prize for earning the top spot at the end of the year!
For those looking to participate in the GT Radial Tire Contingency Program, for every ten (10) championship points earned on GT Radials, you are eligible for one (1) free tire. There is a maximum redemption of eight (8) tires for the 2025 season.
Race Treads can only assure the sizes of SX2 tires in 215/45R17, 225/45R17, or 245/40R17 at any given time but any SX2, SX2 RS or HPY qualify for contingency claims.
Requirements that span across both programs: – Fender, quarter panel and windshield decals will need to be run at every event for those registered in the programs. All decals will be provided at no cost to competitors. Specific guidelines in the graphics below.
– Purchase GT Radial SX2 or SX2 RS tires exclusively through Racetreads.com after February 15th, 2025. GT Radial tires that are previous 86Cup redemptions or were purchased before the aforementioned date but after January 1st, 2023 are still eligible to be used for competition for the 2025 season. Proof of purchase will be required.
– Compete EXCLUSIVELY on GT Radial SX2 or SX2 RS tires for events in the 2025 Racetreads.com 86Cup region and class that you registered for.
It is imperative that you have reviewed all of the details shown in the photos below for the complete details on 2025 programs from Race Treads/GT Radial.
Registration for any and all programs is due by March 31st, 2025. You must submit THIS form to the organizers by this deadline in order to be accepted.
***SPECIAL NOTE*** For any competitors looking to claim tires for the 2024 season tire contingency, please continue to reach out to the established points of contact for previous seasons, thank you.
Round 2 of the 2025 Racetreads GT Radial 86Cup takes us to the desert to visit Chuckwalla Valley Raceway on Saturday, March 15th.
Registration for the track day portion will be via Speed Ventures. The 86Cup Driver Registration Form for this round will open a week before the event.
Cabins are sold out for this weekend so either bunk up with someone who has one or look to amenities in the nearby area.
We don’t get to go out to Chuckwalla too often in the year so now’s the time to get some practice for the later rounds here, even if we’re going the opposite direction.
Howdy folks, the time has come! We shook off the rust and dust off our builds and ourselves for a lovely day out at Willow Springs International Raceway for Round 1 of our 2025 season.
As some of you are aware, this may be one of the last times we get to play out here, at least for this “cheap” so who knows what the future holds.
Anyways…
With new stickers provided by our awesome sponsors Racetreads and GT Radial, and the power of friendship to help install our new windshield vinyls, we were off to the races! Even more so for a few of you as we had some course records already broken in the first event. C’mon guys, we JUST updated the website and records tab haha!
STOCK Class
Stock class saw a true return to form with Luke Daley taking the helm and breaking the previous FA24 Stock Class lap record held by Matt Woolsey. Luke’s unadjusted time of 1:35.409 will be inputted into the record books shortly!
After that, Luke was chased by some first gen cars surprisingly considering that Big Willow is most definitely a power track. William Chen comes home with a 1:37.874 in his 2015 Scion FR-S after some unfortunate mechanical troubles later in the day. Arguably the only person who could really put a stop to Luke’s reign with his new FA24 platform.
In third we have Harry Galbraith take the final podium spot with a 1:38.892 in his 2019 Toyota 86. It’s nice to see Harry move up the timing charts event after event we see him at.
STREET Class
It seems that 86Cup is for the streets as Street class is a party once again. A lot of familiar faces from the last couple of seasons join us in the fray, along with some new ones joining 86Cup entirely or downgrading/upgrading their 86Cup build.
Ethan Lawrie channeling the power of Takumi in his Trueno edition GR86 comes home with a 1:34.818. Previously in mod class, he figured he’d join the shenanigans in the lower tiers. He takes home the win for this first round.
Phuoc Hai Tran in his 2014 Scion FR-S comes nipping at his heels with a 1:35.017, he’s arguably a longtime veteran of this particular class. If you ever need a ridealong or some advice definitely seek him out at a future round!
Lastly, we have Bobby Tisher starting off the season strong claiming the last spot on the steps with a 1:35.321 besting Cody by over half a second. Is this the year we finally see Bobby take home a clearly metaphorical first place award at the end of an event? Only time will tell!
We’d also like to welcome Carlos Ruiz to the fold with his Neptune Blue GR86, who was extremely eager to join our ranks. Welcome Carlos!
MODIFIED Class
(*crickets*……..tumbleweed blows across the mini-straight inbetween turns 8 and 9 at Big Willow……..)
UNLIMITED Class
Luke wasn’t the only person to break a course record during this event, we also had Jared Ramirez besting the previous Unlimited class record in his FA24 rocket with a time of 1:29.501.
Another newcomer, Joseph Alfonso comes onboard with his 2023 Toyota GR86 flying fast in the Unlimited class. He set down a 1:31.146 for this particular round which is definitely not something to shake a stick at.
Jonathan Geisinger comes out of his offseason nap to come play with us at Big Willow. On Nankang CR-S, he nailed a 1:33.245 for the day after all was said and done.
Lastly, we had another new face in Tim Chan come out to party with us in his first gen BRZ. It’s always interesting seeing the first gen cars in the Unlimited class. We hope to see you at more events as the year unfolds!
EXHIBITION Class Something (not entirely but sorta) new to 86Cup is the exhibition class for this year. For those, especially (prospective) sponsors/shops/teams/etc. with FT86 cars that want to come out and play but don’t want to upset the championship dogfights, we invite you to take on the Exhibition class!
For this particular round, we had the CounterSpace Garage team take their shop 2022 GR86 and hand it to their notorious tame racing driver, who laid down a 1:29.061.
Despite having a full face helmet and a closed visor, we somehow interpreted that this tame racing driver did mention that this car could go much faster than the posted times. We wish them luck in their pursuit of squeezing even more speed out of the FT86 platform.
And with that, that wraps up Round 1!
How do you guys like the new graphic? How are you guys liking the new website so far? These event results will be posted their shortly and a new points standings will be shown as well at a later date.
Some other news while we have you all here…
Our 2024 Awards Ceremony has been scheduled for Sunday, March 30th at 2:15pm at K1 Circuit in Winchester, CA. If you’d like to go, please check out the “Schedule” tab for the event and it’s details.
If you can’t make it out to this event and you were a podium class finisher last year, let us know! We’ll be sure to accept the award on your behalf and bring it out to the next round you’ll be at.
There will be some information in the next couple of days/weeks on what exactly the 2025 contingency for Racetreads/GT Radial entails. There are obviously the vinyl stickers, and then some finer details.
CSG should be finalizing their 2025 details as well for their contingencies shortly.
For Round 2, we head to Chuckwalla CCW! We don’t get to do Chuck that often and it’s a long drive for most, except for you SD/Temecula/San Bernardino area folk so we hope you can make it out! Cabins are sold out for the weekend so best to look elsewhere or find someone to bunk with that got some quick thinking!
It’s been a long time coming, but the 86Cup admins have finally gotten around to updating our website! (You gotta remember, we’re racers/industry folks too and we’re all doing this pro bono)
That all being said, everything you see here while you’re probably reading this is still a work in progress for the time being.
We felt the site as it currently sits is a good enough foundation to finally show it off and to help keep 86Cup running where it needs to be in the pack for now but we’ll definitely look to add more features and pages as time goes on! As always, we are open to any and all suggestions coming from you folks.
For now, just sit back, relax and enjoy the upcoming season of 86Cup. With the growing pain of a stagnant website of yesteryear finally giving us the point-by of freedom on this flyer we’re on, we hope this new year is bigger and better than ever before!
‘Til then, we hope you’re getting your cars ready and prepped to tackle on the new season. Our first round is at the end of this month on February 22nd at Big Willow! And while you’re at it, check out our sponsors Racetreads.com, CounterSpace Garage, and OS Giken! They might know a thing or two about getting you what you need 😉
86Cup: 86/BRZ Time Attack Series 