We hold it as gospel that a lap time on a fast and technical circuit is the purest distillation of a performance car’;s ability.
The Contenders
| Base Price*/ Price As Tested | Power, HP | Weight, Pounds | LB/ HP |
$ 24,220/$ 25,610 | 197 | 2720 | 13.8 | |
$ 26,845/$ 29,375 | 252 | 3180 | 12.6 | |
$ 27,090/$ 30,790 | 268 | 3262 | 12.2 | |
$ 26,915/$ 32,510 | 210 | 3135 | 14.9 | |
$ 44,025/$ 46,875 | 320 | 3519 | 11.0 | |
$ 59,995/$ 59,995 | 420 | 3952 | 9.4 | |
$ 63,480/$ 65,665 | 460 | 3415 | 7.4 | |
$ 44,495/$ 48,622 | 306 | 3722 | 12.2 | |
$ 48,375/$ 58,845 | 355 | 3545 | 10.0 | |
$ 35,290/$ 38,190 | 305 | 3388 | 11.1 | |
$ 111,295/$ 117,885 | 560 | 4442 | 7.9 | |
$ 77,400/$ 80,350 | 425 | 3581 | 8.4 | |
$ 75,000/$ 75,000 | 505 | 3861 | 7.6 | |
$ 111,925/$ 117,825 | 550 | 3918 | 7.1 | |
$ 99,925/$ 105,800 | 550 | 4415 | 8.0 | |
$ 100,695/$ 109,435 | 577 | 4400 | 7.6 | |
$ 78,460/$ 100,870 | 325 | 3079 | 9.5 | |
$ 182,595/$ 196,795 | 550 | 3671 | 6.7 | |
$ 174,925/$ 174,925 | 550 | 3998 | 7.3 | |
$ 148,225/$ 157,325 | 530 | 4033 | 7.6 | |
$ 151,585/$ 151,880 | 600 | 3883 | 6.5 | |
$ 182,050/$ 198,380 | 560 | 3545 | 6.3 | |
$ 134,680/$ 134,680 | 640 | 3375 | 5.3 | |
$ 326,338/$ 437,844 | 730 | 3872 | 5.3 | |
$ 847,975/$ 875,175 | 887 | 3724 | 4.2 | |
*Base price includes all performance-enhancing options. †2015 model.
Bold = Best in Class
It’s believed that James Madison strode the White House and the War of 1812 was rapidly becoming the War of 1813 when an oak sapling poked through the soil in a southern Virginia meadow to witness its first sunrise and splash of rainwater. The tree’s shadow steadily grew as nearby Danville’s cotton mills and tobacco warehouses thrived on slave labor, as the vanquished Confederates retreated from advancing Yankees, and, a century later, as water cannons blasted civil rights marchers.
In 1957, a bunch of North Carolina racers cut a track around the tree, the majestic oak on the hill standing as the farthest and highest point of a long, meandering, European-style circuit. Life for the tree got a lot noisier as the cars apexed directly under its arching boughs before blatting back toward the pits and the crowds. For a while, peace returned as the track fell into disuse. But in 2000, the place revived, and some very fast machines again screamed under its leafy canopy.
A year ago last July, the old oak fell over and died. Hearts broke, and attempts were made to clone the tree with a replacement. In the meantime, nothing remains but a bare patch on a rise at the far end of Virginia International Raceway (VIR). They still call the corner “Oak Tree” and probably always will, but without the visual reference of that old friend, the turn is harder and rather less gratifying.
Alas, things change.
With our eighth Lightning Lap assembly of the current automotive elite, other things have changed as well, though not significantly. The goal remains to go flat-out in our market’s fastest new cars and set benchmark lap times on this, one of the longest road courses in North America at 4.1 miles. But this year we dispensed with any special classes, such as for cop cars. We considered airport tugs and lawn equipment, but ended up with a fairly straightforward set of 25 cars arrayed in 5 classes defined strictly by price. The bookends are the $ 25,610 Ford Fiesta ST in our LL1 class and the $ 875,175 Porsche 918 Spyder in LL5.
We also reconfigured our sectors to create better resolution, now stacking each one so that together the sectors comprise a complete lap [see Results and Sector Times]. Before, we counted sector times only as individual, noncontiguous segments with 2- to 3-second spreads from the quickest car to the slowest. The new method now has longer sectors with spreads of up to 10 seconds and allows those who wade deeply into our extensive tables (painstakingly rendered by people who don’t get enough credit but will get a pizza lunch out of it, eventually) to more easily determine where each car stands relative to another as the lap progresses.
Having been rained on repeatedly during our usual September/October dates, we scheduled this event for May. We still feared precipitation but got blessedly little over our 3 full days of hot lapping. And every time we turned into Oak Tree (soon to be renamed Doritos Jacked Enchilada Supreme Flavored Oak Tree we’re told), we thought of the arboreal spirit that once inhabited this idyllic place.
Rulebook
All of our contenders are unmodified production cars, just as your local dealer would deliver them. We set tire pressures to factory recommendations and record our laps with Racelogic GPS data loggers that are nearly identical to the hardware with which we test every other car you see on these pages. For LL, we request cars equipped with all available performance-enhancing options to achieve the best possible results from any given vehicle. Optional equipment is included in the prices posted here. We moved the price breaks up $ 5000 this year to reflect inflation. All the prices and class boundaries are found in the chart above.
Lightning Lap 8: In Depth
New, Bright, and Shiny This year, we supplemented our usual VBOX test gear |
View Photo Gallery
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