How to stay competitive in the face of back-to-back adversities | Articles

First the Build

Her current project car is this S2000. She learned how to run time trials in this car. Then she expanded into wheel-to-wheel racing. 

As her driving skills grew, she built the car to be more competitive, gradually making modifications. “It was completely stock and in perfect condition when I bought it,” she explains. “Today, the car is completely transformed and on its second engine swap.” 

She reports that a lot of people look puzzled when hearing about her engine swap. “If they only realized how much torque the engine has,” she says of the V6. “It’s a party!” 

She swapped in the engine, original to a 2002-’04 Honda minivan, during the winter of 2020 so she could make the 2021 Gridlife Touring Cup season. Since the V6 has double the torque of the car’s original engine and her run group doesn’t limit torque, only horsepower, she was hoping for an advantage. 

This isn’t her only S2000, though, as she has another one for daily driving. “I’m obsessed with the S2K platform and how it handles,” she says. “I just love how the experience resembles driving a go-kart. The turn-in and corning speeds are phenomenal. It may not be the quickest in a straight line, but I feel it’s one of the best cars for getting around a corner fast.”

Tiffany Kelly loves the Honda S2000 so much that she has two of them–one for street and then this one for track. It’s had a bit of a tough time, facing two wrecks in one season.  

She started off last season starring in the Discovery Channel’s “Getaway Driver” challenge. Spoiler alert: She didn’t win but, she says, left with memories she will never forget, like meeting Michelle Rodriguez of the “Fast & Furious” franchise.

Tiffany earned a handful of top-10 finishes last year, and although she felt like she made progress, it didn’t seem linear. “Unfortunately, it was a rough season for me,” she reflects. “It was challenging to race wheel to wheel in a 45-to-50-car field full of other skilled…