Season 20 January Pre-Season Test

After a short December break, the ARCSOA Elite Series roars into what many people are widely considering a possible Western Home for the AES, Las Vegas Nevada. The awards ceremony, a new branch of ARCSOA operations, and a massive headquarters building highlight ARCSOA's involvement in the series. This move has been quite controversial, as many teams and drivers still live in the historical home for ARCSOA, which is the Great Lakes region of the United States, however one can not complain about the brand new cooperate office complex that CEO Kayla Tonney built. Another major change was the relocation of Pre-season testing from Homestead-Miami Speedway, to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The first test was on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Road Course... The teams all had 5 hours to go out and test their car/engine combinations. One of the biggest changes this season is the open engine requirements. Teams are now allowed to run any of the following engine combo's, A Turbocharged V6, a V8, a V10, or V12. T


he Turbocharged V6 engines seem to be the engine of choice with the non-American Manufactures. The lightweight V6 engine makes the car zip around corners, and they keep up with the V8's down the straights as well. However they do struggle with reliability, as every team with the new Turbo V6 had some sort of mechanical abnormality. Kenny Myatt for PETRONAS Honda, and Sean Angel for Porsche, were the fastest two cars on track. Both drivers, did however suffer from a mechanical abnormality.


Dodge, Ford, Chevrolet, and Infiniti have all brought V8 engines to play this season. They are about as fast as the Turbocharged V6 down the straights, however they aren't nearly as good in the corners as the V6 cars. However, the lack of a turbocharger makes them quite a bit more reliable.

Auricom and Arthur Binghampton have brought In house V10 engines to play this season. These two teams have had a slew of mechanical problems. Neither Binghampton car completed a hot lap before breaking down. Auricom got Martinage out for a few hot laps before bringing him in to the pits to work on the car. From what we saw out of Martinage, the Auricom car is a flying monster down the straights, and it accelerates better then any other car on the grid. Plus she wasn't too bad through the corners either. Hyundai also brought a V10 for S3 this season. Those cars actually ran quite a bit. Both Perkins and Shelton were fast, but both cars did have teething problems through the corners.

Ferrari, TVR, and Mercedes have all brought V12's to the season. These cars have had a lot of teething problems. The two teams running the Ferrari V12 engines, Ferrari and Mentervini, actually set lap times. From what we could see, they were about 3 or 4 MPH faster down the straights. However they really dogged down on acceleration. Plus they continuously overheated. Mercedes claims they had a computer fault on their V12 engines causing the car's ECM to shut down midway through the out lap. Kirbum International Racing, didn't even touch the track because the team only got their engines the night before. They may be on the track tomorrow for the Oval test.

Top 10 Lap times

1. Sean Angel- Porsche
2. Kenny Myatt- PETRONAS Honda
3. Jake Baskinger- Cathenix
4. D.J. Kurtis- Red Bull
5. Aurel Riucu- Tanaka
6. Tamur Delic- Tanaka
7. Vincent Allen- Red Bull
8. Ryan Griffin- Silversport
9. Charles Sandfer- D&C
10. Roman Rehall- Blue Flare