The Grassroots Motorsports ultimate guide to track car lap times

Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

Located in Keystone Heights, less than 100 miles from our home base, the FIRM offers a 1.6-mile course that’s safe, repeatable and accessible.

The track features a mix of medium- and slower-speed corners, and most of it is run in third and fourth gear–aside from the second-gear hairpin. It also features longer sweepers that test steady-state grip as well as traditional road course kinks that test braking, turn-in and corner exit.

We’ve tested a number of cars at the FIRM–including hot new rides, old favorites and our project cars–and we’re constantly adding to the list.

Keep reading for synopses of each car tested–fastest to slowest–and scroll down for an easy-to-digest chart at the bottom.

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Comments

Colin Wood Associate Editor
12/7/22 8:13 a.m.

You've been asking, and here it is: Our official lap time board for all the cars we test at the FIRM–new cars, project cars and pretty much anything in between.

Be sure to check back frequently for updates.

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand MegaDork
12/7/22 9:16 a.m.

Very cool to see where the Elantra N placed, about where I would have expected it. I really hope you are able to add a lot more cars to the board.

RadBarchetta New Reader
12/7/22 9:27 a.m.

Reminds me of the old Top Gear leaderboard. Which one of you guys is the GRM Stig?

Colin Wood Associate Editor
12/7/22 9:35 a.m.

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

That's the plan. In addition to keeping the board updated with times for new cars, we'll be updating the board as we modify our project cars and (hopefully) make them faster.

Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Director of Marketing & Digital Assets
12/7/22 9:38 a.m.

RadBarchetta said:
Reminds me of the old Top Gear leaderboard. Which one of you guys is the GRM Stig?

JG posted most of the times on the board since he does our new car testing, while I posted the times from my projects. Him and I seem to be fairly evenly matched so at some point we'll need to do a race in the same car or something.

JG Pasterjak Production/Art Director
12/7/22 10:12 a.m.

In reply to RadBarchetta :

Yeah like Tom said all the new cars are me. And you can check out this sidebar for a look at the methodology. At the end of the day, the ultimate capabilities of these cars is probably a few clicks faster than what you see here, but we also can't be giving cars back to press fleets with chunked tires or crushed unibodies. So while my approach also factors preservation of equipment into it, I'm 100% confident that I'm pushing all the cars to the same relative 99% and the ultimate finish order reflects the real world of unlimited tries and track insurance pretty acuurately.

KyAllroad MegaDork
12/7/22 10:13 a.m.

Any opportunity for readers to try their hand at posting a time for the board?

Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Director of Marketing & Digital Assets
12/7/22 5:06 p.m.

At this point we're focusing on cars we've tested personally.

glyn ellis New Reader
12/7/22 5:23 p.m.

Kinda curious why JG was driving the Miata whilst wearing his Hans Hybrid, without connecting the tethers?

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) Dork
12/7/22 5:57 p.m.

Thanks for also putting information about the tires used for the tests. For all the grief that the new Supra has gotten, it sure looks like a great performer for the dollar.

JG Pasterjak Production/Art Director
12/7/22 6:14 p.m.

glyn ellis said:
Kinda curious why JG was driving the Miata whilst wearing his Hans Hybrid, without connecting the tethers?

While I try to live by the ATGATT motto, I'm not going to say I'm not above forgetting a couple straps when we're in a hurry to catch good light or something. But, yeah, the goal is to exercise and model proper track safety.

Really you should just be thankful I remember pants in all these videos.

gearheadE30 Dork
12/7/22 7:47 p.m.

As an E30 devotee and 318is owner myself, I'm pretty sad about the 318is... was that with the stroker engine and everything?

Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Director of Marketing & Digital Assets
12/7/22 8:03 p.m.

gearheadE30 said:
As an E30 devotee and 318is owner myself, I'm pretty sad about the 318is... was that with the stroker engine and everything?

Yep. I've spent some time driving that car at speed and while I love it... it's ultimately underpowered, undertired and undersprung to compete against the cars on this list. But that's what makes it such a rewarding street car on back roads.

JG Pasterjak Production/Art Director
12/7/22 9:44 p.m.

gearheadE30 said:
As an E30 devotee and 318is owner myself, I'm pretty sad about the 318is... was that with the stroker engine and everything?

Yeah the only thing that car disappointed was the stopwatch. It was awesome to drive, just slow.

te72 HalfDork
12/11/22 1:01 a.m.

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:
Thanks for also putting information about the tires used for the tests. For all the grief that the new Supra has gotten, it sure looks like a great performer for the dollar.

For all the grief I *give* the Mk5, I've been on track with them. Bit of typical Supra tinkering and they are *very* fast on track. I'd love to set my wife's Mk4 up like I did my Mk3 (all the suspension, bushings, small single, reliability mods, etc) and see if I could truly hang with the new car.

Granted, her car has 220k on it, and from 10 feet you'd never know it. Would be curious to see how the new car holds up in 25-30 years.