The Grassroots Motorsports ultimate guide to track car lap times

Photography Credit: Chris Tropea

This 1.6-mile course, managed by Larina Hintze, is located half an hour east of Gainesville, Florida, and less than 100 miles from our home base.

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.

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) GRM+ Memberand 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.