The Grassroots Motorsports ultimate guide to track car lap times

How fast is that car for real?

We have a benchmark for that: lap times from GRM’s official test track, the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park.

Located in Keystone Heights, less than 100 miles from our home base, the FIRM offers a 1.6-mile course that’s safe, repeatable…

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You've been asking, and here it is: Our official lap time board for all the cars we test at the FIRM–new cars, project cars and pretty much anything in between.

Be sure to check back frequently for updates.

Very cool to see where the Elantra N placed, about where I would have expected it. I really hope you are able to add a lot more cars to the board. 

Reminds me of the old Top Gear leaderboard. Which one of you guys is the GRM Stig?

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

That's the plan. In addition to keeping the board updated with times for new cars, we'll be updating the board as we modify our project cars and (hopefully) make them faster.

RadBarchetta said:

Reminds me of the old Top Gear leaderboard. Which one of you guys is the GRM Stig?

JG posted most of the times on the board since he does our new car testing, while I posted the times from my projects. Him and I seem to be fairly evenly matched so at some point we'll need to do a race in the same car or something. 

In reply to RadBarchetta :

Yeah like Tom said all the new cars are me. And you can check out this sidebar for a look at the methodology. At the end of the day, the ultimate capabilities of these cars is probably a few clicks faster than what you see here, but we also can't be giving cars back to press fleets with chunked tires or crushed unibodies. So while my approach also factors preservation of equipment into it, I'm 100% confident that I'm pushing all the cars to the same relative 99% and the ultimate finish order reflects the real world of unlimited tries and track insurance pretty acuurately.

Any opportunity for readers to try their hand at posting a time for the board?  

At this point we're focusing on cars we've tested personally.

Kinda curious why JG was driving the Miata whilst wearing his Hans Hybrid, without connecting the tethers?

Thanks for also putting information about the tires used for the tests.  For all the grief that the new Supra has gotten, it sure looks like a great performer for the dollar.

glyn ellis said:

Kinda curious why JG was driving the Miata whilst wearing his Hans Hybrid, without connecting the tethers?

While I try to live by the ATGATT motto, I'm not going to say I'm not above forgetting a couple straps when we're in a hurry to catch good light or something. But, yeah, the goal is to exercise and model proper track safety.

Really you should just be thankful I remember pants in all these videos.

As an E30 devotee and 318is owner myself, I'm pretty sad about the 318is... was that with the stroker engine and everything?

gearheadE30 said:

As an E30 devotee and 318is owner myself, I'm pretty sad about the 318is... was that with the stroker engine and everything?

Yep. I've spent some time driving that car at speed and while I love it... it's ultimately underpowered, undertired and undersprung to compete against the cars on this list. But that's what makes it such a rewarding street car on back roads. 

gearheadE30 said:

As an E30 devotee and 318is owner myself, I'm pretty sad about the 318is... was that with the stroker engine and everything?

Yeah the only thing that car disappointed was the stopwatch. It was awesome to drive, just slow.

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:

Thanks for also putting information about the tires used for the tests.  For all the grief that the new Supra has gotten, it sure looks like a great performer for the dollar.

For all the grief I *give* the Mk5, I've been on track with them. Bit of typical Supra tinkering and they are *very* fast on track. I'd love to set my wife's Mk4 up like I did my Mk3 (all the suspension, bushings, small single, reliability mods, etc) and see if I could truly hang with the new car.

Granted, her car has 220k on it, and from 10 feet you'd never know it. Would be curious to see how the new car holds up in 25-30 years.

It's sad to see no British cars here,-- once upon a time when you went to the races you saw almost only Brits and essentially no Asian cars and a only few Germans.

Is there a web site where there is a reference like this for all (Or most) of the tracks in the country?  I assume it would be a self reporting thing so maybe not super trustworthy but a decent ballpark for understanding what fast is at any particular track?

In reply to msterbeau :

I’ve seen individual track record sites for different tracks, but I haven’t seen a one-stop-shop for that info. 

No press cars from Porsche? And only two older ones on the list? 

Where is the tigers time?

In reply to MauryH :

We’re told that Porsche doesn’t maintain much of a fleet down here in Florida. 

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to MauryH :

We’re told that Porsche doesn’t maintain much of a fleet down here in Florida. 

Kind of surprised that they don't given the proximity from Atlanta and their presence down at Sebring and Daytona

In reply to aw614 :

Yeah, a little surprised myself, but the cars that you see used for promotions at events often come from a different pool of cars. 

MichaelRogers said:

It's sad to see no British cars here,-- once upon a time when you went to the races you saw almost only Brits and essentially no Asian cars and a only few Germans.

Most of our British cars, including the Tiger, Spitfire, TR6 and Elan, can't run at the FIRM (or any other track) due to inadequate safety gear.