The Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge offers one of the easiest rule books to follow: Pass a NASA safety inspection. That’s it. No additional caveats. No B.S. Bring a car–any car, really–and set a fast lap. It’s as simple as that.
UTCC typically attracts a wide range of vehicles, with drivers from all walks of life. For example, TV host, stunt driver and professional race car driver Tanner Foust competed with a new Volkswagen Golf R straight off the assembly line.
The field for the 16th annual edition held at Virginia International Raceway featured a wealth of production cars, with varying levels of mods. The Chevrolet Bowtie dominated the paddock, with five Camaros and four Corvettes.
Regardless of marque, entrants had to manage another challenge besides just laying a fast lap: weather. Intermittent rain wreaked havoc on some competitors’ strategies throughout the May weekend.
Nevertheless, one car stood out among the rest. Brian Faessler, a familiar face in the UTCC, took a heavily modded 2015 Ford Mustang to the first spot. He laid down a lap more than 5 seconds quicker than the second-place BMW M3 of Charles Harding.
While many focus on the fastest lap of the competition, other categories within the field highlight its diversity: entries that can top 180 mph, entries wearing license plates, entries that still have that new car smell. For more details on how the field fared in the 2022 Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge, read on.
1st
FAST LAP: 1:49.057
CAR: 2015 Ford Mustang
DRIVER: Brian Faessler
Brian and this radical Ford Mustang–which originally rolled out of the factory with a V6 under its hood–are no strangers to the top step of the UTCC podium. In fact, this year Brian became the event’s first-ever triple champion when he took the overall win.
His Mustang still featured a turbocharged, Coyote-based V8 under the hood–the “baseline” power spec was around 650 horsepower, and it only went up from there as he added boost with the cockpit-mounted controller. That engine propelled the car past 180 mph down VIR’s long back straight. The in-car video of him banging through the sequential gears is a sight to behold.
The Mustang received minimal changes from…
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