In our previous segment of the guide we introduced you to Track Night in America, a new SCCA program designed to serve as a low-cost entry point into driving on road courses with street cars. Within the SCCA ecosystem, it’s fair to consider Time Trials as the natural next step up the ladder from Track Nights in terms of driver experience and progression, and along with autocross events, for many it serves as the first exposure to a competitive driving environment. That newfound element here serves to ratchet up both the intensity and driver’s responsibility to be keenly aware of his or hers situation on-course substantially.
Almost every week we have a customer stop by one of our shops to ask us about a project he or she has in mind: “can you upgrade my current street car in phases to be a faster track day car and then a better HPDE car and then a wheel-to-wheel race car?”
Many fans and enthusiasts talk about or hear pro drivers and their engineers discuss the “diff” or “differential.” It’s a part of the car that is NOT easily changed and adjusted by the average high performance track day driver, but knowing how the different types of diffs behave can help you understand the handling of your car and what you can do to improve it. Then you can get a smart, experienced driver coach to help you drive around the limitations of the diff that’s in your car, or hire a smart race engineer to change or adjust it for you. So what is a diff and what does it do?
Flying Lizard Motorsports recently picked up a pair of Audi R8 LMS racers for its 2014 Tudor United SportsCar Championship team. Now, Paul Miller Racing has acquired its own.
Flying Lizard Motorsports, one of the teams to compete in the 2014 Tudor United SportsCar Championship (a replacement to the ALMS and Grand-Am series), has announced that it will be using two Audi R8 LMS racecars in its fight for the GTF-Class title.
Powered by an unrestricted 8.3-liter V-10 engine, it is a burly, race-ready version of the already raw SRT Viper street car. With 680 horsepower and 640 pound-feet of torque in a 2855-pound, it is eligible for competition in FIA GT3, United SportsCar Racing GT Daytona, Pirelli World Challenge GT, NARRA, SCCA, and NASA races.
We’ve just finished two thousand miles in the 2011 Porsche GT3 RS 4.0. They were two thousand mind-searingly memorable miles, in part because they were on some of our great western roads, including Rt. 4 in New Mexico, Rt. 145 in Colorado, and Rts. 95 and 24 in Utah, to name a few. And memorable, in no small part, because this is the last of the 997-generation Porsches, and when Porsche gives a going-away present to its owners, they do it in style.