For a drag strip. No. For the real track, yes.

Take a stock Evo, drive 10 laps around a track. Take your best time.
Take the same Evo, gut 300 lbs out of it, repeat 10 laps. Take your best time.

I'm sure you'd find at least a 1 second difference, if not more. The Evo is a heavy *** car. And I can tell you from personal experience that a 330 whp gutted Evo vs a 450 whp fully DD equipped Evo the 330 is faster on a real track. The only way the 450 would stand a chance is if it had slicks and the other had street tires.

Which would I rather own as my only car? The 450 of course. My point is just to say that while weight redux may not make much of a difference for drag racing, it makes a huge difference in track racing.

 

Fastest/Quickest stock turbo Evo of 2010 - light weight
Fastest/Quickest stock turbo 3000gt of all time - lightweight
First stock block Evo in the 9's - lightweight
Any professional racecar - lightweight


Hundreds of thousands of average to slow cars - normal weight

 

Yes it does make a big difference.

If all you do in your car is go to track days, weight reduction would be the first thing to do.

If you drive it AT ALL on the road, a gutted interior is not worth it IMO. A couple tenths / higher traction is rarely needed on the streets.
I like the clean leather interior in my car too. Soaks up a lot of unwanted noise also.

 

i never felt like a big difference. but if u go to a drag race and put something heavy in there, make a run, take it out and run again you will see.. there is a difference