The sixth round of the Redline Time Attack took place in the hot California desert. It was called the “Liberty Grand Prix” and it took place on America’s birthday, July 4.

Despite the fact that it was like the surface of the sun outside, a gusty wind helped keep the temperatures from climbing into the 100-degree range. The intense heat had a big impact on the cars that were competing on the track.

The time attack cars were sprayed with water and packed with ice before their runs in an effort to keep them cool and some were even running without hoods and bumpers.

Saturday’s practice session and Circuit Battles went flawlessly. Most of the fans withstood the tremendous heat in order to watch film star Paul Walker take his supercharged BMW E92 M3 around the track. With 500 horsepower on tap, Walker’s road car did battle with an ABF Performance Mini Cooper S->ke629.

One would think that the M3 driven by Walker would dominate the Mini, but if you look deeper, you will discover that this is no ordinary Mini. Under the hood of the Cooper S is a 650 horsepower motor that allows the car to run the quarter mile in 10 seconds. Needless to say, it beat Walker with sub 1:30 times.

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Photo credits: Larry Chen

On Sunday, the time attack started with more teams involved in the competition. The Super Modified cars looked a bit thin, with Sierra Enterprises, FX Motorsports Development, Crawford Performance, and AMS skipping the event.

GST Motorsport’s Subaru Impreza L->ke1319 took the overall event win with a 1:20.759 ahead of a Lancer Evolution->ke1122, driven by Trent Choi with a time of 1:25.336.

Shockingly, there were no Super Modified rear-wheel drive cars, so World Racing’s Scion tC->ke1339, driven by Gary Sheehan ended up finishing second with a time of 1:22.649. Behind the tC was Tri-Point Engineer’s Mazda3->ke504, which finished the time trial in a time of 1:28.212 with driver Jason Saini.

Things were a bit tighter in the Modified level, with Cobb Tuning’s GT-R running a time of 1:23.488, just ahead of 034 Motorsport’s Audi A4->ke1087 with a time of 1:25.277. Ryan Gates’ Evo X finished with a time of 1:26.506 for a third place finish.

Yet, while those ranks were close, things were even more tightly packed in the street tire class. The rear-wheel drive cars were the fastest, with Evolution Racewerk’s BMW 135i running a time of 1:29.331. Godspeed’s S14 240SX ran a time of 1:29.583, which was top of all the 240SXs.

The Street All-Wheel Drive class that was once the fastest of all the street tire class, was now out of the event. The fastest AWD car was a Subaru WRX STI ran by Cobb Tuning.

In the final session, the field was packed tight with eleven cars. With close and exciting racing at the start, it was a bit disappointing to see the field spread out as the race dragged on. GST’s Subaru would take the win, followed by Cobb Tuning’s R35 GT-R, and Takata/LIC’s Subari STI.