What’s faster than a McLaren Senna? This Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. | Articles

Why a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500?

Photo by J.A. Ackley

Steve didn’t intend to make the GT500 his time attack car. He previously campaigned a GT350R that he had stripped and prepared for competition. Steve bought the GT500 loaded with options, including the Carbon Fiber Track Pack, to simply serve as his track day car.

“It turned out that GT500 was so much faster than the car I already had put all this work into,” Steve explains. The GT500’s higher-cost consumables, though, steered him toward saving it for competition events: “The GT500 also eats a full tank of gas in a 20-minute session–15 gallons of fuel. It’d chew through a set of tires in two track days. The running cost of this car didn’t make sense. So, we put the GT350R back to a street car, and we built the GT500 into what it is today.”

So why not just buy a wrecked S550 and build his own GT500? “Do the math,” Steve advises. “A wrecked S550 is $10,000. I need a $40,000 engine package, including boost, and a $30,000 drivetrain. That’s $80,000. And what do I have? Somebody’s old, rusted S550–and I have to do all this work.

Photo by Tradd Slayton/Racing for ALS

“If you’re going to build one of the fastest time attack cars in the country, what’s it going to need?” continues Steve. “You’re going to need to make a lot of power. You’re going to need one hell of a transmission that can shift lightning fast. The GT500 was $100,000. I sold the [carbon-fiber] wheels and seats for $30,000. So for $70,000 I was racing it immediately–with slicks, some baby aero, took the seats out of it, and I was already winning events.”

The Record-Breaking Build

Photo by J.A. Ackley

Steve brought the GT500, still running its stock drivetrain, to last year’s Ultimate Track Car Challenge. He finished second overall to Ghais Khaleghi’s Stohr 01D sports racer by less than 2 seconds.

“It may be one of the fastest cars…