We're still trying to wrap our heads around yesterday's drive of the Lexus LFA, but before we give up the goods on Toyota's first V10-powered hypercar (check back on Monday), we cornered Paul Williamsen, the National Manager of Lexus College, about ToMoCo's plans to offer a harder, track-focused LFA.
In the last few years of development, Lexus considered building several more LFAs to be used in a one-make spec series to pit wealthy privateers against each other, further accentuating the LFA's extensive motorsport involvement. That plan fell by the wayside when Toyota decided to limit production to just 500 units.
However, Lexus is actively considering offering owners the option to purchase a decontented LFA, stripped of its luxurious, tech-laden interior and fitted with more track oriented features to be used as a weekend racer. A final decision hasn't been made yet, but Williamsen was clear that these hardened LFAs would have to be created out of the current allocation, as Lexus is intent on keeping production to a "hard" 500 units. Considering that nearly all the components fitted to the LFA were derived from prototypes that ran at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring and other events (the suspension remains adjustable for corner balancing and nearly all the components on the race cars were serialed production pieces), it wouldn't take much to turn the LFA into a tried-and-true racer with a few thoughtful, minimal mods.
As the Formula One championship winds to a close, the series is on track for a big change-up in drivers. But not before one last in-season switch. Earlier this season, Toro Rosso replaced Sebastien Bourdais with Jaime Alguersuai. Ferrari called up Luca Badoer to fill in for an injured Felipe Massa when Michael Schumacher wasn't up to the task, and subsequently replaced Badoer with Giancarlo Fisichella, leaving Force India to promote Tonio Liuzzi to Fisico's seat. And of course Renault fired Nelson Piquet Jr and brought in Romain Grosjean in his stead. Now Toyota has announced that Kamui Kobayashi will be filling in for Timo Glock at Toyota this coming weekend in Brazil.
Glock started out with four races for Jordan Grand Prix in 2004, earning the rare distinction of scoring championship points in his race debut. The German driver then moved back down to Champ Cars and on to the GP2 Series, whose championship he won in 2007 before being called back up to F1 by Toyota. So far this season, Timo's scored two podiums, including a second place finish in Singapore, but may have to sit out the remaining two races this season due to an underestimated injury. During the Saturday qualification session for this past Japanese Grand Prix, Glock suffered a major crash, which seemed initially only to have cut his leg. Glock was sidelined for the race, but was expected to be back in the cockpit for Brazil until it was discovered that he suffered a cracked vertebrae.
Unable to drive, Toyota has promoted their reserve driver Kamui Kobayashi to fill in. The reigning champion in the GP2 Asia Series, Kobayashi will be making his grand prix debut at a track he doesn't know next weekend in a car he's only driven once. The 23-year-old driver is excited for his unexpected race debut, and is undoubtedly hoping he can match Glock's distinction.
With various racing series coming to a close this month, the Mustang has proven its worth on track by bringing home two major road racing championships. This past weekend Brandon Davis secured the 2009 SCCA SPEED World Challenge GT title in only his second season with a fourth place finish at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Davis, who was racing in the new 2010 ACS Mustang that debuted a few weeks earlier at Road Atlanta, only needed to finish in eighth place to guarantee the championship and beat out Porsche driver James Sofronas.
In the Grand-Am Koni Challenge series, the Mustang FR500C also captured not only the driver title, but also the team and manufacturers' championships for the second straight year. Rehagen Racing sat atop the driver and team points lead with a sixth place finish at Virginia International Raceway, and the win by JBS Motorsports helped put Ford just one point ahead of BMW in the manufacturers' standings. Mustangs won five races during the 2009 season and finished on the podium eight out of eleven races.
We didn't make it out to VIR for the Koni Challenge race, but we were on hand at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to watch the SPEED World Challenge race with cameras at the ready. Check out the high-res gallery below, or tune into SPEED TV on November 3 at 2:00 pm EST to watch the race yourself. If you're down with spoilers.
Different automakers seek out different bragging. The same goes for tuning houses. The bogey in question may be the quickest lap time around a given race track (usually the Nürburgring), a particular horsepower figure, a performance benchmark, or, in some cases, a world land speed record. That's what Spectre Performance was after with their SpeedLiner, and that's what they got. Well, one category of LSR, anyway.
The Spectre SpeedLiner is a purpose-built speed record car powered by a custom Cadillac V8 measuring 529 cubic inches (8.8 liters) in capacity, boosted by a pair of intercooled 88mm turbochargers, custom forged rods, solid roller cam, ported heads and oversized valves. The result is somewhere near 2000 horsepower, give or take. And on Sunday, the SpeedLiner clocked a 330.7 mph top speed on the Bonneville Salt Flats, claiming the record for the fastest wheel-driven, gasoline powered vehicle in the world.
Reports indicate that Spectre is looking to hit 400 mph, so this may very well not be the last we've heard from the SpeedLiner. In the meantime, you can check out a trio of videos after the jump.
The 2009 ALMS season came to a close last night with a four-hour race into the sunset at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. While several championships still needed to be decided going into the race, much of the attention during the weekend was given to Gil de Ferran, who was competing in the last race of his career. His uniquely-liveried Acura ARX-02a not only looked fantastic, but it was quickest by a slim margin in qualifying. It seemed everyone hoped de Ferran would go out on top, but the sister Acuras in P1 and P2 were determined to make it difficult. In GT2, it was anyone's guess who would come out on top. A Corvette put down the quickest qualifying lap, but both the Flying Lizard Porsche team and the Risi Competizione Ferrari would be fighting hard to secure the championship. Would Gil de Ferran win his last race as a driver? Would the Corvette manage to hold off the Porsches and Ferrari? If you don't plan on watching the tape-delayed race on SPEED TV this afternoon at 2:30 pm EST, then read on to find out.
The ALMS race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this weekend is Gil de Ferran's final race of his career, and he plans to go out on top. The Brazilian captured pole position yesterday in his Acura ARX-02a, which features a unique livery to honor Jim Hall, the man who de Ferran first raced for. The milk white paint and number 66 roundels mimic Hall's legendary Chaparral race cars, two of which were on hand at the track. Gil de Ferran's qualifying time of 1:11.206 was less than a tenth of a second off the class record, which was followed closely by fellow Acura driver David Brabham. Brabham and the rest of the Patron Highcroft Racing team need only to complete seventy percent of the race to wrap up the LMP1 championship.
The Lowe's Fernandez Racing LMP2 Acura team continued its season-long dominance by capturing its fourth pole of the season and hopes to record its eighth victory this year. Although the team secured the class championship at Petit Le Mans two weeks ago, it hasn't secured sponsorship for the 2010 season and hopes to make a good final impression.
In the hotly-contested GT2 category, Corvette Racing continued to prove that it will be a top contender no matter what class it competes in. Jan Magunessen edged out the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 in qualifying for Corvette's first ever GT2 pole position. The main battle will be between the Ferrari and the Flying Lizard Porsche GT3 RSR, both of which are still in contention for the championship.
Welcome to the second installment of our Introduction to Karting series. Hopefully the first piece piqued your interest with tales of tiny machines pulling 3 g in the corners then hitting 60 in under three seconds on their way up to over 140 MPH. (Well over, as it turns out; one commenter indicated he hit an indicated 156 this season.) That kind of performance is unequaled outside of top-level formula motorsport, yet is available to anyone with some disposable income and a passion for going quick.
However, karting isn't for everyone so suitably endowed. The physical demands placed on a kart racer are hard to comprehend until you're in a fast turn, holding your breath because you can't inhale, feeling like your head is going to fly off and land somewhere in the pits. Chances are it won't, but whether or not you can withstand that while maintaining a good racing line and keeping an eye on a swarm of opponents is an important thing to find out before breaking out the charge card. The best way is, of course, to try it, and given the big up-front cost to buy a kart, a rental is the way to go.
To get our first real experience we signed up for an afternoon's racing school. We walked the track, worked with multiple instructors, got a lot of advice, had an impromptu race, and stuck it out for way more seat time than was probably advisable for a newbie. How'd we do? Read on to find out, and see some videos of our on (and, occasionally, off) track antics.
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Another show, another pair of special editions from Lotus. This time around it's the Elise Club Racer and the Exige Cup 260, two lightweight specials based on the company's core product range.
We brought you details and photos of both a few weeks ago in the ramp-up to the show, but stopped by to have a closer look at the pair while we were there checking out the race-spec Evora.
It's only been a week since Lotus delivered the first production Evora to a customer, and now the sports car maker has unveiled the first race-ready version of its newest model. The new Type 124 Evora is built to FIA GT racing specs and will debut next year at the Nürburgring 24 Hour race.
The Evora already has many of the basic elements needed to make a robust race car thanks to its bonded aluminum structure and mid-engine layout. But the racing version receives a revised version of the stock car's Toyota V6 cranking out over 400 horsepower, along with a new paddleshift sequential six-speed gearbox.
Even with a full roll cage and fire extinguisher system installed, the Type 124 gains about 440 lbs of "lightness" dropping the car to about 2,600 pounds. How'd that happen? Lotus has replaced the standard bodywork with lightweight composite and carbon panels that add front splitter and rear diffuser elements, along with a prominent rear wing.
That rear wing will push on a tweaked suspension system (both the four-way adjustable dampers and the anti-roll bars are tunable) and the car will run on wider 18-inch Pirelli slicks. Braking will be provided by a Bosch ABS system optimized for competition and a set of six-piston AP Racing calipers.
Looking for a corkscrew? If it's a bottle of wine you're looking to open, we're afraid we can't help you there, pal. But if you want to take an interactive look at one of America's best race tracks, Mazda and Google have come to the rescue.
The Japanese automaker has captured the Laguna Seca race track (which it sponsors) from every which angle and placed it on Google Street View, making it the first circuit available on the online service. The interactive feature allows you to check out the track from start to finish, Andretti hairpin to the famous Corkscrew downhill kink, all from the comfort of your own home.
