Over the years of working here I’ve compiled a LOT of photos of varying years of Saleens. Not only for customers or for posting cars for sale, but just because its my job. A big part of that is the history of the General Tire Saleens that we have 4 of in our very own showroom. A few years back we located these old photos from when the cars were being actively campaigned. Just sharing as many have not seen these cars while in action!
Another installment of seeing whats been coming through the doors at PAS and rolling on the dyno…
Bolt-on-equipped C6 Corvette being tuned by Steve Williams of TunedbyFrost.com
The B.O.A.R. (Bronco Owners Association of Richmond) stopped by with a couple of early Broncos to see how they faired on the dyno
Ray’s Camaro hits the dyno after a bunch of parts were installed by PAS including a 2.9L Whipple Supercharger. Tuned by Steve Williams of TunedbyFrost.com
Phil brought his beautiful ’93 Porsche RS America in to verify the health of the engine, and left pleased with the results.
A 240sx with a LS1 being tuned by Steve Williams of TunedbyFrost.com
A Brunton Stalker being tuned by Steve Williams of TunedbyFrost.com. This little car has a 3.8L Supercharged V6 and MOVES!
Thought that was impressive? Check out the same car….but with a LS6! This was also tuned by Steve of TunedbyFrost.com
Performance Autosport is proud to announce a new suspension vendor for all it’s Mustang customers from years of ’64-’70 and ’79 thru ’12. CorteX Precision Racing Technology suspension systems are now available for purchase AND install through PAS.
Because the status quo was not good enough, CorteX Precision Racing Technology was born.
CorteX Racing began with a pursuit of products we wanted on our own cars. When no one in this industry offered what we were after, we went out and engineered it ourselves. Our passion is to provide best-in-class, optimized, professional caliber motorsports parts to the enthusiast and professional.
Our goal is to create automotive parts that will outperform all others at an excellent value.
Vintage suspension systems:
S197 suspension systems:
Performance Autosport will be running a CorteX fully adjustable Watts Link on the rear of their 2011 Mustang GT American Iron car for the 2012 race season. We are excited to have a partner to reliably deliver a great product with a lot of engineering and testing behind it. The Watts-link will be going on the racecar in the next few months before our first race in mid February so expect updates with install photos and feedback from the track!
Our website is in the middle of being updated to display the full line of CorteX products so if you are interested in hearing more, placing and order, or getting something installed give us a call at the shop – 804.358.2505.
During the “off” season of our busy race schedule I decided it would be a good idea to sit down with our fearless driver, Chris Cobetto, and let our customers get to know him a little better by asking him a few questions. Several of you have already met or been in contact with Chris one way or another, but for those that haven’t here is a look inside the driver that makes PAS look so good on track
PAS: Good morning Chris, how are we doing on this chilly day?
CC: Chilly but basking in the warmth of the end of the season.
PAS: Good to hear, I know you’re a busy man even on your down season so lets get right in to it. I know many of our customers have followed the build of your beautiful Saleen S302R on our blog here, but what we’ve never really covered is…the driver. You. The nut behind the wheel. So, I’d like to have them get to know you a little bit. For starters, lets cover the Chris Cobetto off the track.
CC: I’m pretty boring, really. Two boys, a wife, a dog and a mortgage. My boys are 10 and 6 years old respectively and are great. They make me smile all the time. They also test me…ALL the time, but they certainly keep me…young-ish. I’ve been married for 15 years to Laura. She has been very supportive in regard to this racing thing. I grew up about 30 miles south east of Pittsburgh in a time when the Steelers were dominant. The Pirates were good. The Steelers were good. The Pitt Panthers were good. All my favorite teams were in or winning Championships at the time. The expectation of winning was something that stuck early in me.
PAS: As we all know, even when you’re off the track…you’re still thinking about being on or at the track. And that’s because your job is pretty tied to what we help you do in that S302R of yours, ain’t that right?
CC: I’m the luckiest man on the planet. I wish I could say that I had planned the whole NASA Regional Director job but I kinda just backed into it at the time. There had been a few Regional Directors before me in Virginia, but I was the first one that had signed his name on 6 dates worth of track rental contracts. 2000 was the first real season any NASA east coast region had had. We were the ONLY east coast NASA region, for that matter. I had a “real” job working in the medical records industry as we were running that 2000 season. In all candor, I had planned on dropping NASA and just continue working my “real” job in 2001. I just wanted to make it through the 2000 season to satisfy my commitment to the tracks but I realized at the end of the season that several drivers, based upon our first season, had built cars specifically for NASA series and a LOT of people really liked the events we had hosted. Many drivers were expecting NASA to continue in 2001 and had made investments of time and money in their cars based upon that expectation. I had built my own car in 1998 and I knew the time it took to do so. I just couldn’t bail on my brothers in speed so I signed more contracts for 2001. 12 years later I find myself very happy that I stuck it out because I have done some really cool things, driven some great cars and, most of all, met some of the most wonderful people on the planet. Read More…
Mark and I just returned from the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show in Orlando, Florida that was held December 1-3rd. We were lucky enough to be invited to display our 2011 Saleen S302R American Iron car in the HRE Performance Wheels booth over countless other motorsport and high performance vehicles that HRE supports. We were very happy to trailer the car on down to make sure we wouldn’t miss this opportunity.
The show was great and the PAS/Cobetto race crew made a lot of progress in signing on new sponsors and confirming deals that were started at the SEMA show with several new companies. More on that later…
Performance Autosport just recently sold it’s one-of-a-kind 2011 Saleen S302 #18 shop car…
…and moved onto another car that we could use as a test bed for parts development.
A brand spankin new 2012 Mustang GT.
We are just getting started with this car as we’ve had it for only a couple of days, but we are slowly building the plans for this new project car. The overall idea is to test new suspension parts PAS is developing to be an affordable alternative to some other parts currently available without risking ride quality or most important, performance. A new brake package will also be tested on this car as well as few other things here and there. We haven’t really nailed down all the pieces and parts, but we’ll keep everyone updated as we make progress.
This car will be seeing track time during NASA events throughout 2012 not only for testing, but to show customers what the car is like. You’ll be able to find it close to Cobetto’s S302R in the paddock for sure.
We threw the car on the dyno today for a baseline dyno. With under 200miles on it and still with the dealership’s 87 octane in the tank it churned out 373whp/359wtq. We’ll update this once the 87oct is burned out of the tank and replaced with 93.
The SEMA show in Las Vegas happens once a year and it’s the biggest of the big when it comes to introducing new products, making contacts, and displaying the newest, neatest, craziest cars you can imagine. Performance Autosport was in attendance this year not only for the show, but also to display their championship winning 2011 Saleen S302R in the Speedlab Saleen booth.
The car being loaded up and heading to Vegas!
The racecar was fresh off the track with battle scars, dirty all over, and rocks and rubber still stuck to the Hoosiers. It was sitting next to the newest creation out of Detroit, Saleen’s S302 Speedster in a their first Matte Black paint job. Between both of these cars, lots of heads were turned and the Speedster was a BIG hit. The paint and wheel color made the car look sinister for sure and will become a paint option for all S302′s to be ordered in the future. This Speedster, #42, is actually for sale…so act now, and get your very own one of a kind Saleen. Notice all the carbon fiber bits on the car. These are all one-off pieces that Saleen will soon offer for sale and the quality of the carbon fiber was absolutely great. The front lip/splitter and rear wing are full carbon and really gave it a great look on top of the satin paint.
Just like last time, just throwing up a few cars that have rolled on to the rollers at Performance Autosport in the past few weeks…
Rod McGeorge and Mike “Junior” Johnson stopped in to get their C6 Z06 tuned for the most horsepower for their Championship winning ASP Corvette. Steve Williams of TunedbyFrost.com tuned the car to a peak of 510whp/485wtq. Thats VERY strong considering the mods consist of only long tube headers, exhaust…and thats it. Stock intake, stock everything else.
The PAS/Cobetto Racing crew packed up the car for it’s final 2 races at VIR this past weekend. For the first time this entire season we actually didn’t have a lot of adjustments to do to the car after Nationals. The car just needed a look over, make sure everything was tight and good to go and then loaded back up in the back of Cobetto’s trailer. Time to see if what we learned all season and the changes we made for Nationals would turn into a faster lap time at VIR. Before this event we held the American Iron lap record at 2:07.3xx. Now that we’ve had plenty of time on Hoosiers, tons more experience dialing the suspension/aero in, and much cooler weather, we were definitely thinking that there would be some fast laps in our future…hopefully a new lap record.
Friday was just a test day. We needed to get on track to bed in brakes and get ready for Saturday. Cobetto wanted to get some seat time in the car for some fast laps just to get comfortable with the changes we’ve made and how they translated to VIR. During practice, our good friend and competitor Beau Dunnivant had the unfortunate luck of hurting his motor just a few laps into his practice session. Beau then worked a deal with fellow competitor George Winkler to “borrow” his back up car, which is a World Challenge FR500 that he regularly de-tunes and runs in American Iron as well. Since Winkler had his BOSS 302 at the track, he let Beau take out his FR500. The only thing is…Beau needed to supply his own tires. So, a few minutes later after brainstorming with Cobetto, Read More…
Performance Autosport isn’t just a Mustang shop. We should all know that by now, right?
We’ve branched out to all sorts of domestics. But wait, there’s more.
We aren’t just tied to the domestic market. We have a big customer/friend base that are BMW owners and racers and we love to help them out whenever we can, however we can. Whether that’s making sure their track car is ready for their next track day or getting them on the dyno to make sure their M-powered racecar is making the power it should make to stay competitive. Here is an example of three of my customers that cover all the most popular generations of the BMW 3-series.
Charlie’s Spec E30-to-be track car on the dyno:
Tim’s beautiful E36 M3 BMWCCA IP Prepared race/track day car:
Max’s NASA GTS4 E46 M3:
If you have a BMW that needs something small like service work or a place to keep your track car running at its best, give Performance Autosport a call.
