UPDATE!

The inaugural Hankook Ultimate Track Car Challenge was a complete success, and nearly 40 cars put in scorching laps at Virginia International Raceway in the search for glory. Don’t miss the November issue of Grassroots Motorsports magazine for the full story and complete results to see how your favorite fared at the event.

Plans are already underway for 2008, so keep an eye on the magazine and here at grassrootsmotorsports.com for details when they become available.

Old News

June 1 has come and gone, decisions have been made, and the GRM staff has sent out invitations to our picks for the first-ever Hankook Ultimate Track Car Challenge presented by Grassroots Motorsports. Our thanks go out to everyone who put their hat into the ring for this event at CarDomain.com.

If you didn’t make the cut this year, we still encourage you to sign up for one of the many NASA events that weekend, or simply come spectate for just $10 at Virginia International Raceway on Friday, July 27.

We’ll be updating the list of entries who have sent in their final confirmations on this page on a regular basis, so watch this space to see if your favorite is going to be vying for top honors in the Ultimate Track Car Challenge!

The following entries have been confirmed by NASA as all signed up and ready to compete. This list will grow as the entry confirmations roll in. They appear in no particular order. The name listed is that of the driver registered to drive the car in the Ultimate Track Car Challenge.

• Justin’s 1983 Mazda RX-7
• Randy’s 1993 Mazda RX-7
• Michael’s 1993 Acura NSX
• Christopher’s 1997 Honda Civic
• Derek’s 2005 Noble M400
• Dave’s 1978 Ford Fairmont
• Douglas’s 2004 Dodge SRT4
• Peter’s 1991 Toyota MR2
• Rob’s 1993 Acura NSX
• Tim’s 1988 Porsche 924S
• Buschur’s 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII MR
• Luke’s 1996 Subaru Impreza
• Eric’s 1996 Chevrolet Corvette
• David’s 2006 Ariel Atom III
• Factory Five’s 2007 GTM
• Factory Five’s Type 65 Coupe
• Tom’s 1978 Datsun 280Z
• Rick’s 2002 Porsche 911
• Paul’s 1997 Chevrolet Camaro
• James’s 1996 BMW 320i turbo
• John’s 1998 Acura Integra Type R
• Kirk’s 1994 VW GTI
• Todd’s 1995 Honda Civic DX-S Turbo
• Roy’s 1973 Datsun 510
• Shane’s 1994 Mazda Miata
• Hal’s Superformance Cobra
• Chip’s 2001 Audi S4
• Brian’s 1989 Plymouth Colt
• Jeff’s 2007 CMC Locost 7
• John’s 1996 Dodge Viper
• Aik-meng’s 1995 Nissan 300ZX
• Richard’s 1997 Dodge Neon
• Gary’s 2006 Dodge Viper Competition Coupe
• Skip’s 2002 Honda S2000
• Barry’s 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STI
• Chet’s 2004 Mosler MT900s
• MORE TO BE REVEALED SOON!

Do You Have the Ultimate Track Car?

Thanks to its four-cylinder normally aspirated engine and home-built nature, this Honda Challenge S2000 is a great example of an Independent Study Junior Varsity entry.

Raise your hand if any of the following describe you:

• I get so excited the night before a track day that I have trouble getting to sleep.
• My team and I build the fastest cars around, and we’ll take on any challengers.
• I love beating up on the fancy-pants hardware with my crazy driving skills and this trusty (Your Car Here).

Now put your hand down and prepare to lose sleep, because we’ve got an event just for you.

GRM has teamed up with NASA to create the Grassroots Motorsports Ultimate Track Car Challenge. We’re going select a variety of cars to compete in a NASA Time Trial format at the Virginia International Raceway North Course on Friday, July 27.

The fastest car wins, but since we’re a bunch of car-crazy writers, we’ll be looking for neat stories throughout the field. While the only hard data we’ll be gathering is the lap times, we’ll have our eyes peeled for outstanding (or horrific) engineering, daily driver manners, bad assedness, durability, ease of duplication, operating budget, driving ease and the use of brains over brawn.

To keep it simple, we’re going to have two categories, Shop Class and Independent Study. Shop Class is for the heavy hitters who build and prepare cars for a living. Independent Study is for the guys and gals who come home from work and spend late nights doing it themselves in the garage.

Each category is broken into two classes, Varsity and JV. All naturally-aspriated, four-cylinder (or less), mass production based cars running DOT legal tires are in the JV class. Anything with forced induction, racing slicks, a tube frame or an engine with rotors or more than four cylinders runs in Varsity.

The Porsche 911 has a reputation for winning. Will a turbocharged flat-six take the GRM UTC Challenge victory?

This is an invitation only event, but we’re teaming up with CarDomain.com to make the application process part of the fun. If you want to be considered for the GRM UTC Challenge, log on to www.cardomain.com/grm and follow the steps to create a CarDomain.com site for your entry.

As part of this process you’ll be required to upload a photo of your car, so have a digital image at the ready. The deadline for entry is June 1, but the sooner you submit your entry at CarDomain.com the more time we have to get to know your car before we make a decision.

Be sure to put in as much information as you can on your CarDomain.com site. We’ll be picking entries based on this information, and we won’t know how cool your car is unless you tell us.

Best of all, you’ll be able to poke around the GRM UTC Challenge category and see what other cars are in the running for a coveted entry spot. Readers can even vote on the entries on the site to influence the staff as to what they want to see in the competition. We’ll notify the invitees six weeks before the event (see sidebar). Up to the minute details will be available at grassrootsmotorsports.com, and we’ll keep you posted in the magazine as well.

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CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP AT

Be sure to include plenty of information about the car so we know how wonderful it is and how we’d be fools not to consider it for an invitation to the event.

When you’re finalizing the page, make sure you click on “Hit Counter & Ratings” on the left. Check the box for “GRM Ultimate Track Car” (it’s in the Special category) to be added to the list. Otherwise, we won’t be able to find your car. It can take an hour or two for the databases to be updated to reflect the entry, so don’t panic if it’s not there right away.

Click here to see who’s signed up already.

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Making the Cut

The Factory Five 65 Coupe is built just for racing by a pro shop and gets its power from a big hairy American V8, so it would be classed in the Varsity Shop Class category.

If we choose your car for the GRM UTC Challenge, you’ll then need to register for the event through NASA and expect to pass a NASA tech inspection for a Time Trial car. Specifics will be posted along with the official rules at GRM Online. Each car can have one driver, and that driver must hold a NASA Time Trial or equivalent license. Generally this requires HPDE 4 or higher experience; obviously a road racing license does the trick too.

If you’re not already a NASA member, check out nasaproracing.com; signing up for a year is just $40, and that includes a 1-year subscription to GRM. They’ll be happy to get you on the path to getting your Time Trial license if you don’t already have one, or you can hand over keys to the qualified ringer of your choice if you prefer.

Time Trial rules will apply, so if you drop a wheel off the track you loose your time for that session, and metal-to-metal contact with another car on track means immediate disqualification with no refund. Open passing is allowed during each session.

The entry fee will be less than $200 per car and will be announced as soon as it’s finalized. All cars must run an AMB transponder, and a very limited number of rentals will be available at the track. Our tentative schedule includes a 20 minute morning warm-up session followed by three 15-minute afternoon sessions. A car’s single fastest lap from any of the afternoon sessions counts for the purposes of scoring.

If you want to learn more about NASA Time Trial as it applies to the GRM Ultimate Track Car Challenge, click here to read what NASA Mid-Atlantic TT director Jon Felton wrote on our message board.