drivetofive

Odometer (Legend):  532,818

Odometer (ILX):  116,671

Let’s talk about some pedal-to-the-metal, high-revving adventures today.  With all the hundreds of thousands of miles I’ve traveled, I consider myself a seasoned driver, but certainly not when it comes to racing.  My younger brother Payton is the race driver for the H&S Motorsports team in Utah, but I don’t stand a chance at matching his skills.  (Here’s a short clip from about a year ago when his Ford Lightning got into the 8-second range in the quarter mile dragstrip).

My race experience, on the other hand, has been limited to just a few events, including the following which stand out in my mind:

• Autocross race in the Legend at NALM 2009 in Springfield, Missouri (photo below where it looks like my car might roll over)
• Bonneville 100 (100-mile, 105 mph) open-road race in rural Nevada in 2007 & 2008
• Those handful of times I took my 1989 Prelude on the 1/4 mile strip at the old airport at age 17

Some people just seem to have a gift for high-speed driving.  One of those is seasoned race veteran Peter Cunningham, who over the course of his 28-year racing career has taken home nearly 100 professional race wins across 12 different North American road racing series.

Peter’s race history goes back to when he founded a company called RealTime Racing in 1987.  RealTime is based in Saukville, Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee.  Since those early days, American Honda and the Acura Division have partnered with RealTime for performance driving events.  Peter has raced in such cars as a 1992 Integra GS-R and even a Honda Civic 4WD Wagon.

Today, Peter and his relatively new colleague driver Ryan Eversley, continue to pilot the RealTime team to wins year after year.  RealTime has amassed nearly 6,000 followers on Facebook and Peter’s Acura TLX “GT” has shown up at multiple Auto Shows, including its original debut (which I attended) in January 2014 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan.  I most recently checked the car out at the Japanese Classic Car Show (JCCS) last September in Long Beach, California.  Thumbs up!

Last night, I met up with Peter as well as his Team Manager, Nathan Bonneau, who happened to be visiting the Phoenix area for a Bridgestone Tire event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park.  We grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant called Roy’s in Chandler and visited for a couple of hours about the latest happenings with RealTime.

Peter also showed me photos a few of his latest Honda & Acura acquisitions.  Just a few weeks ago, I helped him scope out a local mint-condition 1990 Acura Legend LS Coupe with only 36,000 miles on it.  That car has now made its way into Peter’s collection in Wisconsin.

RealTime’s full race schedule is posted here.  Later this week, he and his crew are off to St. Petersburg Florida for the Grand Prix event there.  Good luck to them and I’ll stay tuned for the results!  Peter gave me a couple of RealTime posters as well as a T-shirt that I’ll proudly be wearing in support.

Coming up next:  A 2,132-mile, 5-day road trip to Dallas, Texas that starts tomorrow.  I probably won’t be doing any blogging on-the-fly (or, on-the-drive, in this case).  But I’m planning on sharing a few highlights on my Instagram as the trip progresses.

See you soon.

This entry was posted on March 24, 2015 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Blog, TLX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.