mark kibort

Did anyone check out the performances of the GT2 group in ALMS at Laguna this weekend????

1:22.xx for GT2 folks!! thats as fast as GT1 (corvettes) a few years ago!!
How come no one in the club ranks, even with the big turbos can scare up a time anywhere under 1:30 (8 seconds difference) There are a lot of fast POC , PRC, PCA, SCCA drives out there. in fact, several of the drives in GT2 this weekend are guys I've run with and are no doubt good, but im thinking these cars have evolved into brutal MONSTERS!! 1:19 for the Corvette and 1:09 for the P1 cars!! (that's as fast as CART a few years ago)

I didnt check out the GT3 porsche class, but If they are running like they have been in the past, they will be in the 1:31 range. something tells me that they will be in the 1:29s not. Ill have to take a look.

mk

Circuit Motorsports

IMSA challenge was in the 1:28s

And 2 things. Yes the drivers are faster than the fast club racers and many people underestimate what a pro-level prep can do for a car.

wanna911

They have CERTAINLY gotten faster, even since earlier in the season. In GT2, they beat the old GT2 record by over 2 seconds in practice at Road Atlanta for the Petit Lemans. I said the same thing when that happened wondering how they got that fast. The fastest times from last year would barely have gotten you in the top 10 this year.

I think GT2 picking up is due to the huge competition going on. Just wait until next year with even more competition coming from BMW and GM. They are going to be insanely fast.

mark kibort

I remember running against Derek Clark in his cup car in WCGT. (He had a stock cup car at the time and i had my street 928) He is now running 1:31s in the cup car! and was about mid pack at a time over the last few years , that would have won the porsche cup race.

The question is, what is making these new cup car SO fast! the sequential gear box has been around for awhile, is it even better aero now, or even more power? tires??

I was running with a 07 cup car in our SCCA Laguan race a couple of weekends ago. It sure didnt seem like it had an enormous amout of power unless he wasnt flooring it down the main straight. He was just trying to get track time, and was running the spec slicks.

mk

jrgordonsenior

Mark the IMSA Cup times at Laguna are almost identical to last years times, and 1/2 to 1 second faster than 06'. They repaved the course after the 06' event which may expain that difference.

The new 08' cups have 25 more HP then the 05'-07' cars but they aren't showing to be quicker. The leader of that series Tony Rivera, would be leading the overall if there was only 1 group.

JimB

Tony probably stretches the "no pro driver" rules. The 08s are a little quicker. Not a lot.

mark kibort

I do remember that the new paving (and slightly different track config) shaved about a 1 second for the slower 1:39 type car times (us, WC Touring, etc) and about 2 seconds off the 1:30ish time cars. (WCGT) (anderson's 928 ran the 1:30.7 in the PCA event after the paving.)

However, I didnt follow the GT3 race last year. thought it was still in the 1:31s as it has been in years past. So if they ran 1:28s last year, then you are right.

I dont think the GT2 car were running anywhee near 1:22s last year, but Ill have to check.

mk

mark kibort

did you hear Calvin Fish saying that the laguna seca surface doesnt have much grip? (and the surface is old)
I wonder if he didnt get the memo that the track is much more grippy, and is new as of 2006.

Johninrsf

Mark,
One of the links below my signature is of a 1:32.2 I ran at Laguna with POC this year. I can see how there's another second there --maybe getting into the high 1:30s. However 1:22 is really unimaginable, regardless of sequential gearbox or even another 75 HP or better suspension!! I think you've got to give the drivers credit, and not just because of their superior driving, but also their ability to give detailed, accurate feedback to their crew to get the setup correct. That's the major difference IMO between what they're doing and us Club racers: better driving and better setup. (of course, having a new RSR would make a difference, but no way anyone who just races in POC would do a 1:22 IMO --e.g Blake R did a 1:29 in an '05 RSR!!)

IcemanG17

MK
The GT1 corvette qual'd at about 1:19 last year.....thats smoking.....for a supposedly 2500lb car with "only" 600hp????

38D

+1

mark kibort

600hp and 2500lbs??? you mean like mark andersons car? I bet its more like 600hp at the rear wheels!!

mk

mark kibort

That maybe true, but there a few guys that are not top pros that were doing it. It leads me to believe these cars are absolutely phenominal! As I have always said, a top pro will not run so much faster than a top club driver, but he might make better decisions in the race, along with being more consistant. Lots of top club drivers can run a hot lap time. These times are off the charts! 1:22. This class of car would beat you by 10 seconds a lap. To put this in perspective, I had my gutted street car in a WCGT race a few years back and was only 6 seconds off the leaders with top pros and the best equipment, being down nearly 200hp to many of them. Later Randy Pobst and I were running a SCCA event while he had a Grand Am Cup GS car, fully prep'ed and was only a second faster than my gutted street car on used tires!
There is something magical about these GT3RS's. I just want to know what it is!!!

mk

C.J. Ichiban

a few observations from watching every session of practice as well as talking to about 15 of the ALMS drivers...

race pace and qualifying pace are quite different...in imsa GT3, about 9 people ran their fastest race laps from 1:29.220- 1:30.297. nobody broke 1:29, and most of the field was in the 1:31 range as their FASTEST race laps.

the michelin people have nailed the tires this year, and tires being a technology means that they can take leaps and bounds ahead at random intervals. ALMS drivers are very happy.

the track is slick compared to road atlanta or road america. fine for street type cars, but when you pull over 2g's (gt2) or well over 3.5 (lmp) you need a lot more grip on the surface than a street car, or even an older cup car.

there are some straight up hacks in imsa gt3, imsa challenge (prototypes), and ALMS. some guy spun unassisted in his imsa gt3 4 times in the same race. WTF?????

HP/weight of club cars vs pro cars is completely irrelevant. they might weigh the same and have similar HP- but those guys (especially the pratt&miller GT1 car) have unbelievable AERO- maybe I'm wrong but let me know if any POC race cars can churn out and hold 2 Lateral G's in Turn 4 @ LS. or 2.5G's in T9.

ergo: AERO+TIRES= waaaaaaaay faster.

add to that drivers who really are much better (especially on the brakes)...and you've got insane lap times.

Bryan Watts

Because West coast club racers are slow? I see some big hardware in the SCCA ITE class out there, but ya'll aren't even running 2007 World Challenge Touring car times.

SCCA ITE, 1:37.59: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=866729
SCCA World Challenge, 1:35.85: http://www.world-challenge.com/event...lts.php?ID=552

Sorry, hard to pass up a chance to throw some stones at you West coast guys (especially the West coast BMW guys).

In all seriousness, Circuit summed it up already:
If you're capable of driving consistently enough to really setup a car and have the time/knowledge/ability to really start dialing it in, you can drop 2-4 seconds in a weekend on setup alone assuming it's not a track where you already have really good baselines.

To go back to the World Challenge (or ALMS or Star Mazda or...) example...we don't see the laptimes posted that they run on the Sponsors' test day on the series websites, but for the teams that don't have a lot of experience at a certain track, you occasionally see pretty significant leaps in speed between the Sponsors' test day and the official practice sessions