Team ENEOS Shines at Super Lap Battle Finals 2024

As if the week of SEMA Show isn’t exhausting itself, Team ENEOS went straight from Las Vegas to Buttonwillow Raceway in California for Global Time Attack’s Super Lap Battle Finals. Dai Yoshihara and Hana Burton swapped Sharpies from the autograph signing for their race suits, ready to drive Evasive Motorsports’ S2000RS and Model 3 respectively, with the hopes of achieving greatness as the 2024 motorsports season comes to an end.

Following the unexpected disappointment of not being able to compete at WTAC with the S2000RS, Evasive set their eyes on SLB immediately once the car returned to the shop, which required additional tuning regardless of where it would be competing. They also had to make the necessary adjustments to the Model 3 so Hana could drive it according to her preferences.

Evasive re-tuned the S2000RS but Dai didn’t have an opportunity to do any testing before its first practice session. With an old set of tires, he went straight to work, blasting around Buttonwillow with a vengeance. From a far he looked to be in fine form, lapping with confidence and pure speed. With the track record being a 1:37, the team had its eyes set on at least breaking Dai’s personal best, which was a 1:41. It looked as if he were on par to match or beat the record (though it wouldn’t count during practice), but he ran into traffic coming into the final corner, causing him to slow down. Despite this, he destroyed his PB, clocking in 1:38, shaving three seconds off his previous PB!

From that moment, the team decided it would be best to spare the car for the main race, but wanted to implement a few other small changes to see if it would help give Dai a little extra power in his attempt to break the track record. Unfortunately that decision proved to be fatal as the S2000RS blew its motor during its next practice session, ending the team’s weekend before it could lock in potential victory. Regardless, Evasive and Dai were ecstatic about shaving time off their previous PB and look forward to officially setting a record next year.

For Hana, getting behind the wheel of Evasive’s Model 3 would be a totally different experience compared to gas-powered race cars she’s been competing with in Japan and the States. After a seat fitting at Evasive HQ, she also wouldn’t have time to get any seat time until a SoCal Driver’s Club track day the day before SLB’s practice day. “I wasn’t sure what to expect driving an EV car on the circuit for the first time,” she said. “The weight, battery life and the feeling of having no engine braking were some concerns for me. But after the first lap, I was pleased to feel that movement wise, Evasive built a car that stops and turns in really well. It was critical to get the perfect lap on the first attack because of the battery/power which was quite difficult because I was still figuring out the car every one lap between charges. Surprisingly I wasn’t too affected by the lack of engine noise.”

Racing an EV for the first time certainly presented Hana with challenges, like figuring out which lap was the fastest: “With gas cars you can do more than one lap and make changes based on what you felt the lap prior so there’s a lot of data to compare. But with the Tesla you can only try one way for one corner between charging. It makes it difficult to figure out whether to change the car setup or the driving inputs.”

But it also helped to not only have Evasive’s immense knowledge with the car’s setup, but having Dai available to provide feedback based on in-car video footage following each practice session: “It was great to have Dai there because he has winning experience with the car so he was able to validate some of my concerns with the car before the attack. Mike Kojima and Kel from Evasive were really helpful in trying to fix the issues we had with traction control cutting in.”

There were problems with the Tesla’s power cutting, so Hana wasn’t able to maximize her laps, but started with a 1:59 with the traction control on. By the last session, Evasive was able to turn traction control off but the power cut again through the esses because of heat soak, so Hana’s best was a 1:56 — incredible to see Hana shave three seconds off for a PB, and also makes her the fastest female in an EV at Buttonwillow!

“I was really excited to be able to work with Dai and Evasive because they are people I looked up to when I first started to work in the automotive industry,” Hana adds. “They were very responsive to my feedback and worked endlessly to make changes to the car so that I could perform my best. I’m very thankful to ENEOS and the Evasive team, and would love to work with them again in the future!”

Congratulations to Dai, Hana, and Evasive for their impressive lap times at Super Lap Battle 2024!

Photos: Luke Munnell