On day four, competitors stopped by Grassroots Motorsports world headquarters for some hospitality and refreshments.
Top honors went to Hugh Bate and Devin Brice in their 2013 Nissan GTR, supported by Chariots of Palm Beach.
For the seventh consecutive year, a Nissan GT-R took top honors at the Tire Rack One Lap of America. The event wrapped up this weekend with participants enduring 3459 miles and 19 motorsports events at venues like Road Atlanta, Sebring International Raceway, Gingerman Raceway and Tire Rack’s own skidpad.
Here is our big question: What would you take on this event?
Do you go with the flow and enter a Nissan GT-R? Regular Grassroots Motorsports contributors Andy and Ann Hollis jumped on that ship a week before the event, picking up a leftover GT-R from a local dealership when they decided that their McLaren MP4-12C wasn’t up to the task. Despite zero setup time, they took the Stock GT-class win while finishing eighth overall.
Or do you go for wacky, like third-place finishers Jack Beachem II and Victor Leo? What did they drive? Their Ariel Atom—yes, nearly 3500 miles in an Atom. In the rain.
If you want to see how the rest of the class did, final results can be found right here. And if you want to see the cars, competitors stopped by Grassroots Motorsports World Headquarters on Day 4 for some hospitality and refreshments. We recorded more than two hours of interviews that day.
So, back to our original question: What would you take on One Lap?
Go behind the scenes and read Andy Hollis’s full breakdown of the 2017 Tire Rack One Lap of America in our magazine. Subscribe to Grassroots Motorsports now.
In reply to Ed Higginbotham:
I talked about this in our automotive bucket list thread but my weapon of choice would be an FD3S RX-7 on air struts wearing slimmed down time attack aero.
Or a 911 GT3 since I'm getting old and like quiet more than I used to.
Yes. Literally. Anything. Dream car? 1989 9C1 with LS9/T-56 swap and 315's all around.
I've never been too tempted by this event because the transit/racing time ratio seems way off. I know it's a big part of the appeal for others, though.
But if I were to do it, I'd put some priority on that long distance comfort because long days in the saddle kinda suck. Andy's plan of buying a new GTR, running it for a week and selling it is a little non-GRM, but effective. I wonder if I could rent a Z06?
In reply to Keith Tanner:
The idea of a Genesis Sedan springs to mind. One with the 5.0L V8. Long on comfort. there's some performance hidden in there somewhere.
What MazD ran in his inaugural attempt, CTS-V wagon...sporting a gearvendors box and 305's all around ...
Not that I'd want to suffer that much, but after seeing the guys running the Atom, I wonder if anyone at Exomotive has seen a request for adding a trailer hitch to the Exocet.
Probably a factory five Daytona coupe.
I'm too prone to making bad decisions when I'm tired to run this event but if I were too and my budget were up to it I'd be looking at a GT3.
Three years into this, some thoughts:
The CTS-V wagon was amazing. My highest finish, most comfort, just had to rotate tires during the event. I'd like the rear axle to stay in next time, but great car. I have only one problem with it, it's fast. I found myself at a track two years ago hitting 140mph going into a blind downhill left and wondering if this was a good idea. I'm not opposed to the speed in general, but I don't want to track a car that fast with stock seats/belts/roll protection. Lots of people go faster than that and don't have an issue, it's really just me.
Then I did it in Mini. I really liked the car on track, but it was......nervous? on the highway. It required a fairly high amount of mental processing for the transits which got tiring. It was a backup car that year and worked great in that capacity.
This year I did it in. 2009 Civic Si. The biggest complaint was noise. You can have a nice quiet conversation at 55mph, but by 75mph it requires ear plugs. There is a LOT of 75mph on One Lap. This particular car also needed a bit more brake pad (which Carbotech solved for us) and, at 110k miles of daily driving and something like 500 rallycross runs, it needs the suspension refreshed somehow. It was predictable and worked, but there is a LOT more in the car than we got out of it.
So what would I bring? I'm still not sure. The plan right now is a bit more development on the Civic, bigger ear plugs, and give it another go. Starting from scratch a C4-C5 Corvette would be a cheapish easy button. Also looking at the possibilities of a 2003-2005 Accord with the right options for something that is comfortable and safe in a way that makes me happy. An M3 of any generation or either of modern Mustang/Camaro pony cars would also work.
The big thing is to not overthink it. If you're sitting on the sidelines because you don't have the "right" car, you're doing it wrong. You can do it in anything that you can prepare to be safe and reliable on track. As much fun as it was to read about this event for years and years, I'd much rather be driving hard at the back of the pack than sitting home reading threads. Brock and the competitors welcome anyone who can drive hard, safe, and reliably, no matter what the absolute speed is.
I have neither the budget nor talent to be in it to win it. So it be more of a simple bucket list checkoff. As such, my desire is to one day complete the One Lap in one of my other bucket list itmes, the glorified full-body Locost (with some type of rudimentary weather protection) that I have started building in my garage.
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