They say VIR is the hairiest track in the US. True/false?

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...at-vir-feature

 

performance for $$$: Corvette GrandSport buy a huge margin

 

key point, they drive as "fast as we can"....

they certainly do try their best and sometimes convinced a car can not be driven faster by anyone.
Even when they are speaking face to face with a man who threw down -1.5s the previous day in the exact same car.

 

they don't get a pro driver for this?

 

No... Not only that, they have different people setting the times in each car. Just looking at the videos, some are clearly better drivers than others.

 

lol I know right. I got to some insight to these guys and by the end I would say that all of us were not impressed. Expected more professionalism and skill.

However.. I do agree that we were ignorant to the fact that these guys are journalists first not drivers.... in hind sight it makes sense why they don't have top levels skills.
That being said, they are still skilled drivers, more than the average enthusiast... but they do have an ego and a over bloated sense of self.

and as stated... they use different people to record laps.
Usually OEM's will send people out for magazine trials to help them lay down fast lap times. Some cars take a specific driving style or guidance. For instance, the Viper ACR is ***** to the wall with its aero, generally the amount of aero the vehicle has is more like a GT class vehicle with GT class skills and normal people don't trust the aero to carry the speed through the turns... way to scary.

 

all of the sudden the vette GS time vs the GT3RS time isn't all that impressive anymore

 

Not sure if I'd say hairiest track in US but it is definitely one of the better race tracks out there in regards to configuration and the different types of turns that you will have to navigate. That being said, I have never done the grand course, only north course, which is still amazing.

Id like to think that Thunderbolt ranks right up there with VIR.

 

Do you have proof of this? I get the impression that several people drive each car to extract the best times they can from them.

Let's be realistic too; these guys are better drivers than most of the people on this forum.

 

you right, usually on these test days everybody drives every car. What times they run announced later ...

Also you would think they are all great drivers, not all the time. Which makes actually a good point. 99% of the people who drives these cars are not race drivers .
And if they do , at that point usually the car has nothing to do with a factory set up cars anyway.
Think about Grand Tour, James May isn't the best driver at all, yet he has many many valid points and does a great reviews. These tests gives you a fair point of view what you can except from a car as a regular driver.

But a same times, that is why we shouldn't put too much attention on magazine numbers. More of the car characteristic.


Also the majority of these drivers doing this year around , so yes most of them are better drivers them most people on forums.

 

Over its long history, LL times should definitely be taken with a grain of salt. They've had professional race drivers set some of those times for a few cars when a point was trying to be proven. John Heinricy is personally driving on a few of those Chevy laps.

 

Lightning lap is cool. I feel like you get as more real world expectation of the lap times you, yourself, could do in a car. Because obviously none of us on here are at the level of a true professional race car driver.

 

Exactly. This is also the reason I love reading and have had a subscription to EVO Magazine from the UK for the last decade plus.

Pro driven car data are for hard parkers bragging about their cars as they stand around in parking lots.