What can the lap times tell us about the cars we test? | Articles

If you’ve been around these parts for at least a few years, you may have noticed one of my personal favorite new additions to our editorial mix, that being our track testing of all of our project cars and relevant new cars from the media fleets.

And not just track testing all these machines, but testing them on the same track with the same configuration so we can log both project car progress and also build a leaderboard of cars new and old that appeal to our readers.

[The Grassroots Motorsports ultimate guide to track car lap times]

Having access to a reliable test facility is a huge bonus for us, and we’re lucky to be located close enough to the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park in Keystone Heights. While we leverage that leaderboard for specific editorial tasks, periodically I’ll find myself taking a little more meta-level glance at it. Here are a few thoughts I had after a recent perusal of our lap log:

1. Not all trips to the track are competitive. Yes, the overarching point of our lap chart is objectively comparing one car with others, but before we even get to lap times, our list reminds us that our trips to the FIRM represent a lot more than pure numbers.

If you’re a competitor, you need to have an automotive “third place” that isn’t your shop and isn’t a race. Testing isn’t just taking extra notes during the race weekend’s practice session or the warmup laps before a time trial, but dedicated time on track to focus on specific information and processes.

Likewise, practice isn’t just driving when the clock isn’t running. Practice is a skill like any other, with its own set of techniques, and having a proper venue for it is something we recommend to everyone looking to improve.

There’s also just the general sense of community around facilities like the FIRM that we love and get to enjoy on non-competition days. Most of the time any of us are around a race track, it’s because there’s some competitive endeavor going on. Yeah, those are fun, in no small part because of the level of intensity. But that intensity doesn’t always lend itself to chill interactions, and having a track environment to just hang and be part of the scene is a huge bonus.

And this vibe is not entirely by accident at the FIRM. “We’re located in a small community,” notes the track’s GM Larina Hintze, “and we serve a relatively small community relative to other sports, so we love that…