Wednesday, October 28, 2015

2015 Lightning Lap: LL3 Class Spotlight

-Every year, we take the hottest performance cars to Virginia International Raceway for our Lightning Lap competition, where our editors turn lap after lap on the 4.1-mile Grand West Course in pursuit of each model's single quickest time. The contenders are grouped into classes based on price; here, take a tour of this year's LL3 class, which includes cars with prices between $65,000 and $124,999.-Lexus's performance play is a sort of Japanese Camaro SS with a burly V-8 and lots of, um, flair in its styling. But clocks are blind, and our LL test is all about what a car will do against one. This heavy sports coupe wasn't as quick as some of its competitors, but it did three consecutive hot laps in three minutes and five seconds apiece. That's an impressively consistent perform­ance—especially in hot southern weather—produced by having the right tires and brakes for the track. Those aren't attributes we've often observed in a Lexus.-Almost everywhere on VIR, the Lexus closely trails the Mustang GT, the nearest analogue to a Camaro in this test. Were it 200 pounds lighter like the Ford, the RC F might even have caught the Mustang. Simply put, the RC F goes as fast as this much power moving this much mass (4069 pounds—only the CTS-V is heavier) will allow. Which is praise indeed, because it means the chassis is not getting in the way by being spooky or dull. READ MORE ››-For the past few years, Mercedes has sent along a man, Karl-Heinz Seitter, to mind its cars at Lightning Lap. He's also become a kind of Mercedes-Benz team manager, ­gently prodding our drivers to do better. Tell him you got a 3:02 and he'll ask you if three-flat is possible. Get the three-flat and he'll have you chasing 2:59. We love Karl-Heinz; it's like ­having the great, globular Rennleiter Alfred Neubauer along, but without the gray serge and fedora.-We thought the C63 S had hit the temporal wall at just over three minutes, but Herr Seitter went to work, channeling the ghost of the big man. He had to move fast; the car spent a day fallow with a chewed accessory belt that was destroyed by a bad alternator. He thought this middle-sized AMG, with its roaring 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, could slip under three minutes, and we were obliged to try. READ MORE ››-The coupe brings the same stunning competence to the task as the sedan, though it's in the higher LL3 class ($76,950 as tested!) mainly because of a $6195 Track Perform­ance package that includes a low-mass battery, the Perform­ance Data Recorder video system, and a carbon-fiber aero kit that cuts top speed on the straight by about 3 mph. Even so, the coupe and sedan are in all but a dead heat around the circuit. The coupe clipped a few tenths in Horse Shoe and up through the infield, then gave back a little of it in Hog Pen. Call it driver variation, track temperatures, whatever; to the clock, the coupe was effectively the same car minus a couple of doors.-Which means it is fabulous, a thrilling revelation. GM gives you a number of driving modes, and we found that leaving the transmission in automatic and setting the Performance Traction Management to level five—the so-called race mode—gave the best performance. Any automaker that can program electronics to be this natural understands the racer's challenges. READ MORE ››-Some things, while physically possible, just shouldn't be done. For example: flushing a public toilet with anything other than your shoe, driving a cargo van to pick up your prom date, or drinking a Skinnygirl Marga­rita at a football tailgate. You can add lapping a 4114-pound sedan at VIR in 2:56.8 to the list. Big sedans aren't supposed to corner this fast; inhaling highway without compressing spinal discs over bumps is their prime directive. Yet GM's ultrasedan does it all, sticking an all-American pin into the balloon of German dominance in this genre.-When Cadillac says it built the CTS-V for the track, it isn't kidding. In our all-time LL rankings, the CTS-V's lap slots 0.9 second behind the 2011 911 GT3 RS and 0.6 quicker than the '06 Dodge Viper SRT10. That's heady company for any car. The -Seconds before the Corvette Z06 crosses the start-finish line to begin its hot lap, you're subjected to 1.20 g's of lateral acceleration for six full seconds through Hog Pen. A silence falls over the switchboard in your head. Every neuron lines up to get the Z06 moving through space as quickly as possible. Gone are the employment doubts, the mortgage-payment anxieties, and the hair-thinning concerns that clutter up your daily thoughts—domestic worry is not possible at 1.20 g's. Belt into a Z06 with the Z07 package like this one and the automotive-induced enlightenment lasts exactly 2:44.6.-This isn't a peaceful, monk-on-a-mountain experience, though. It's like being caught inside your own personal earthquake. And in 100-degree heat, as we don't run power-robbing A/C while lapping. Did we mention that you have one chance to perfectly execute a quick lap before the fresh $2200 set of Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires lose their maximum potential? READ MORE ››--

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