The Hills are Alive - Garrett Mealings Talon

Words by Garrett Mealing, Ian Rae Images by Shawn Bishop, Brent Martin, Garrett Mealing

Thirty-six year old Penticton, B.C. native Garrett Mealing started autocrossing under his father’s watchful eye in 2002 when Garrett got a Corvette. His good friend Roger Sieber started Sim Racing with Mealing and as soon as they could afford to race away from their computers, they raced everything they could get their hands on. Pretty well anything with wheels was fair game, Side-by-Sides, ice racers, go-karts, rally cars and even their street cars at their local tracks; Stratotech Park as well as Castrol Motorsports Park both in Edmonton. After that he moved on to co-driving for Sieber in the Canadian Rally Championship in 2014. In fact he still goes rallying when time allows. The last one was in March 2019 when they travelled to Cochrane, AB but unfortunately the Covid 19 epidemic has stopped and further outings. He bought the 1995 Eagle Talon TSI AWD that he now races in 2005 bone stock form. It was originally driven as a street-car with just a few simple modifications like turbo and exhaust upgrades. In 2008 he upgraded to forged pistons and rods which coincidentally are the same ones that are still in the car and a Forced Performance 3065 Turbo. Around the same time the suspension was upgraded to Koni yellows and coils. Mealing continued to drive it on the street for a while before parking it in 2009 for a few years before feeling the need for speed again and started building it into a race car in 2014. He added a self-built roll cage and gutted the interior in 2015 but basically left the rest as is, minus putting some Hankook DOT slicks on the car. It even retained the complete steel body as it came from the factory but due to the level of preparation on the engine and chassis we always ran in the GT-M class. His intention was to build the car as a dedicated hillclimb car as the famed Leavitt Machinery Knox Mountain Hill Climb is located less than an hour from him in Kelowna, BC. When asked about the decision to stay AWD Mealing told us, “If it was strictly a track car I probably would go

Telephone: 540.773.4317 Email: nick@klauscomposites.com Website: klauscomposites.com

Introducing the wing!

Custom Composite Fabrication CFD Optimized Products BMWCCA Club Racing Compliant

the RWD route but hillclimbing and 30 kph hairpins along with 570 whp getting out of the corners could be a challenge so I decided to continue with AWD and as long as breakages are not a problem I’m happy running the way we are.” He ran up Knox Mountain for first time in 2015 and has ran there every year up to 2019, winning GT-M class three times. Moving away from hillclimbing he ran his first endurance race at Castrol Raceway (now Rad Torque Raceway) in an FC RX7 in Aug. 2019, where he and the team finished 6th. He continues to run in endurance events. The most recent being back to back 8 hour enduros on July 31st and Aug. 1. It was an interesting event with polar opposite result for the team that consisted of Mathew Murphy the car owner, Mark Dunbar and Pierre-Benoit Lemire. “The Saturday was a bit of a disaster” said Mealing, before explaining, “The 2 rotor motor we use let go after one hour of the event which was disappointing but it was all hands on deck as we collected everything up, headed over to a friends shop and rebuilt the motor. Then it was back to the car, install the motor and got it on the grid for the second 8 hour of the weekend. All the hard was worth it as we not only ran well with little trouble in the race but we won it! “ In 2019 Garrett ventured over the border with the Talon and ran the Maryhill Loops Hill Climb in Goldendale, Washington and set the GT-M record(2:05.683) at that venue. Setting that record was interesting as the US hillclimb series have stopped using the same rule sets as run in Canada. As the Talon was specifically set up for the GT-M class they allowed him to run as the only car in the class to try and break the previous record. Once he returns to the Maryhill Loops course after Covid Mealing would be required to run in the Hillclimb Prototype class. The Talon went 1:59.878 at Knox Mountain on the cars debut in 2015. Since then it has been slowly developed, starting with a small wing and splitter and then went to a GT1000 rear wing/larger Andrew Brilliant history with the Talon was perfectly suited to putting together the AMB Aero package that Carbonetics turned into reality.

Four Function Autosport of Kelowna, BC are responsible for dyno tuning the Talon and also support Mealing at the Knox Hillclimb

The Build List

Engine: 2.0Litre Mitsubishi 4G63T Manley pistons and rods FP3582HTA turbo BC280 Cams JMF Drag intake manifold 3 inch stainless exhaust Mishimoto X Line triple core radiator

Fuel System: Radium Fuel surge tank Walbro 450 high pressure pump AEM 340 lift pump in tank 1250cc FIC injectors Ethanol fuel Teflon fuel lines

Chassis: AMB Aero Body APR GT-1000 wing .750 inch plywood splitter and front diffusers Self built roll cage Wheels/Tires: 18x11 cosmis racing wheels 285-30-r18 BFG Gforce R1S tires Brakes: Wilwood Forged superlight fronts, 13”x1.25” rotors Standard rear Pads - Wilwood polymatrix H front and Hawk hp plus rear

Suspension: KW V3 Suspension Custom tubular front sub frames

Transmission: John Shepherd Stage 3 transmission Welded center diff, Stock axles and front and rear diffs

Interior: Corbeau Forza Sport Seats G-Force 5 point FIA belts 2$ Fire extinguisher

Car weighs 2875lbs wet

splitter and fender flares. Mealing worked with noted aerodynamicist Andrew Brilliant of AMB Aero in 2016 and had Carbonetics build his 2G DSM version 2 aero body. It took two years to get it all designed and built. Then on his first run up Knox in 2018 with the new body he crashed the car. Despondent but determined to compete, the team worked on the car until late into the evening on Saturday and straightened it/fixed the bumper/built a new splitter and he went on to win his class on Sunday. The following year he bought the old ROBI SPEC custom valved KW V3 Suspension from Andrew Brilliant’s original 2G DSM Time Attack car which were a huge upgrade from the Koni yellows! Since then, he has just been picking away at reliability issues and most recently the car was painted and wrapped in a new livery.

With Covid affecting motorsports like it has the events at Knox Mountain have been hit hard with both the 2020/21 events being cancelled. Mealing sees that as two lost opportunities as he still has not reached his goal of setting the GT-M

class record. He knows the Talon has the potential as the previous record holder at Maryhill Loops is Josh Vanderkerkhove and his AWD VW Rabbit. Vanderkerkhove is the current GT-M record holder at Knox Mountain with a 1:54.661, Mealing is less than a second behind with a best of 1:55.505 but he is confident that the car updates will put him right in the ball park. He mentioned above the accident at Knox Mountain in 2018 but never elaborated how they straightened the car. “We fixed it by chaining it to my brothers welding truck and pulling the front straight again. A lot of duct tape went into putting the front bumper back together and trip to the local hardware store provided what was needed to build a new plywood splitter.

It was quite an effort but coming back to win the class made it all worthwhile.” When asked about the future plans for the Talon, Mealing said, “I would really like to get a dog box transmission with better gear ratios. I have a second block waiting to be built into a 2.3 litre stroker to help pull the car out of the very low speed corners seen on many hill climbs. Obviously, weight is always a concern and a composite splitter to shave some weight off the front of the car would be nice as would composite doors/ hatch and Lexan glass. As with many teams Garrett could not compete at this level on his own. The JGVNR (Just

Givenr’) Rally team got me into the hill climb scene (I co-drive for Roger Sieber owner of the rally car) My brother Breton Mealing helps me with all my welding needs, My dad Greg Mealing is the “Pit Boss” at all of our Rally/time attack/hill climb events and helps keep me focused! Four Function Autosport in Kelowna, BC is my main sponsor and has been a huge help on and off the track for the past two years.