NASA Pro Racing – Interview – Corey Weber – American Iron West 2006 2nd place AIX
By Andy Bowman

The 2006 American Iron Extreme (AIX) series had only a few stars competing on a regular basis, with Team Witherow taking the championship. Joining in the AIX fight mid-season was #47 Corey Weber and his team. Starting a new team, designing and manufacturing new race and performance parts, Weber and his AGENT47 team bring new energy to the Extreme race group. Watching Weber in his first few races, it was clear their rookie season was going to be a challenge. Things however, quickly improved for the team as they developed their own suspension systems and the car development improved, and of course, Corey quickly smoothed out his rookie ways with consistent race performances. Corey Weber and his team are now offering a contingency program for the west region, offering cash money for fast laps and track records. This now brings some additional incentives for drivers to hammer the throttle. So, we talked to Corey and his team to see how their 2006 and the fast approaching 2007 race season.

1. Corey, you came in 2nd place in the American Iron West Racing Championship in 2006, how do you feel about your season run?

CW: I feel that we did fairly well considering the circumstances: Starting the season on the 4th race weekend and this being my first go at competition road racing.

2. This season was also your rookie season, what challenges did you face?

CW: My main challenge was with myself because the car performed near flawlessly. The Car was built by Bill Osborne, our in house race car builder and crew chief over here at Agent 47. I had really never driven on 2 out of the 3 tracks that we went to the rest of the season. It was tough learning the tracks while I was still learning the car. I had a few embarrassing moments at Buttonwillow and Infineon mostly involving some sort of rotating motion followed by a cloud of dust.

3. You are developing a pretty interesting car; tell us about your suspension and technical developments?

CW: Our car was built completely in house and has a lot of prototype products in it. The roll cage is built around one of our first Innerframe structures which make for a very rigid chassis. It also makes up the top link mounting point of our custom 3 link setup that is built around a speedway engineering 9" housing. We have been real happy with its performance and will eventually be selling a similar setup for the 8.8. Our front suspension is our (Bill Osborne’s) own design as well. It is a super lightweight double A-arm setup mounted to our own custom K-member. We use double adjustable Afco coilovers. This setup has been really working well for us. We have made a couple minor changes to the geometry and are fixturing now for reproduction. It should be available for sale within a month or so.

On the exterior we have an incredibly attractive rear spoiler. Actually, it looks pretty ridiculous but it works well especially after we added our Vortex Generators. We tested those with load cells mounted in trunk and were surprised how effective they were. 20% more down force.

Right now we are putting the car back together after putting it on a plasma cutter diet. We also got some composite body panels from Paul Brown at Tiger-Racing so after all this we should be at a respectable AIX weight.

4. What inspired you to get into American Iron racing?

CW: I started road racing a 64 Vette convertible years ago at track days. That got me hooked and I wanted to step it up. When I found out about American Iron I knew that was it. I am really having a great time and everyone is very, very cool. I couldn’t be more pleased and with the competition growing it will only get better. It is also a huge benefit to get direct feedback from actual mustang road racers and R & D products while having fun.

5. What were your best on track moments? And any favorite tracks?

CW: Probably the most fun I had was in a practice session on the last day of the season. Nothing to exiting happened, I just felt very comfortable and I was getting a lot faster with better control. It was actually borderline euphoric. The hydraulic throwout bearing blew on the very last lap and we were done for the day but it was a great session to end the season with. After that day I think Buttonwillow may be my new favorite track (but I still think we should include Willow Springs in the 07 schedule)

6. How do you think you are going to stack up in 2007 against some stiff new drivers and returning veterans?

CW: I know the car and Bill's chassis setup skills have the potential to compete with anybody. The driver on the other hand, we will have to see.

7. What are your racing plans in 2007, will you also race the National Championship?

CW: Race every race including the Nationals and pray to baby Jesus that we win.

8. Tell us about your team and support efforts?

CW: We have a good team. With the exception of Bill we are fairly new to road racing and are learning a lot from him and having a great time. He has been racing and building race cars professionally since 1970 and has raced against names like Earnhardt, Petty, Allison, Yarborough, Fullmer, Pearson, Bondurant, Mcgriff and Elliot in Winston Cup and NASCAR Sportsman. He has an extensive driving career but his real accolades lie in race car design and fabrication. He has built over 100 race cars over the years and several of them have taken championships. Probably the most familiar car he has built was Big Red, the 69 Camaro. The Silver State classic is considered by Guiness to be the world’s fastest road race and Big Red held the silver state classic record for 12 years.