Congratulations to the winners and everyone who came out and competed.
Who already is starting to plan for next year?
Photography by Chris Tropea
The Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge Presented by Grassroots Motorsports came down to this: 1000 horsepower versus less than 1000 pounds of weight. Steve Luca brought the former, with a 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. Ghais Khaleghi came with the latter with a Stohr prototype.
Luca set a blazing lap time of 2:02.759 around NCM Motorsports Park. That broke the production car record at the facility, a 2:02.860 lap set in 2020 by Andy Pilgrim in a McLaren Senna.
However, Khaleghi’s car, with a Suzuki 1000 engine putting out around 175 horsepower, went even faster, with a 2:00.091 lap.
The battle for first may have captured the spotlight, but that was just the tip of the iceberg of the battles during our annual Ultimate Track Car Challenge. Fastest FWD? Fastest AWD? Fastest car on 200tw tires? Read on for the complete list of award winners.
Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge Presented by Grassroots Motorsports Full Results
NCM Motorsports Park
Bowling Green, Kentucky
October 14-15, 2023
Thank you to the support of Tire Rack, Sunoco, CRC Industries, Wilwood Engineering, SPA Technique, Ampere EV LLC, Miller Electric and of course the SCCA for sanctioning the UTCC.
Congratulations to the winners and everyone who came out and competed.
Who already is starting to plan for next year?
Justin Peachey reset his own record multiple times as well as pulling off the 3 peat.
Congrats to him
annnnnnd this is why I am always going on about single seat race cars. Also of note is the winning car probably cost half of what the second place car did.
I've driven that generation of Stohr and they are amazing.
Anyone from Maine?
In reply to TomHale :
No entrants from Maine. Massachusetts was the closest for UTCC.
I always like to see the "little guy" win. Just goes to show that Colin Chapmans favorite sayings still hold water.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:I always like to see the "little guy" win. Just goes to show that Colin Chapmans favorite sayings still hold water.
I mean in no way shape or form to take away from the driver but if you haven't driven one of these or been around them the performance is mega.
The lap times at Laguna Seca are equal to the old Indy Lites cars.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:I always like to see the "little guy" win. Just goes to show that Colin Chapmans favorite sayings still hold water.
It's tough to argue with physics and simplification.
It's interesting that the top 6 were separated by ~2 seconds EACH, while the next 6 were separated by ~2 seconds TOTAL.
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