Episode 98: "An inside look at 16th running of Car and Driver's Lightning Lap, with editor-in-chief Tony Quiroga"
In this episode, producer Phil Tower welcomes back Car And Driver editor-in-chief, Tony Quiroga. Tony is an 18-year-veteran Car and Driver editor, writer, car reviewer, and the 19th editor-in-chief for the magazine since its founding in 1955.
In this episode, Tony gives us an insider's look at Car and Driver's 16th running of Lightning Lap, an annual test of performance cars held at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). The 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 recorded the quickest time this year, lapping the 4.1-mile track in just 2 minutes and 38.6 seconds. The full package is available now on the Car and Driver website and in the February/March issue, which is available now everywhere magazines are sold.
Tony told us that VIR is chosen for its length and variety of challenges and that VIR is widely considered to be America’s toughest and most-demanding racetrack. This year’s 16 Lightning Lap entrants were grouped by base price (which includes performance-enhancing options and has been adjusted for inflation), and their best times determined the finishing order. The goal is to boil down each vehicle’s performance to a single number: the lap time.
More Online:
Lightning Lap 2023: The Hottest Cars on America's Toughest Track
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a42387169/lightning-lap-2023/
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/MichigansAutoTalkPodcast
Michigan's AutoTalk podcast is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Audio, Spreaker.com, Deezer, and Podcatcher.
Thank you for listening. If you like our podcast please share it with a friend!
Al, John, and Phil
In this episode, producer Phil Tower welcomes back Car And Driver editor-in-chief, Tony Quiroga. Tony is an 18-year-veteran Car and Driver editor, writer, car reviewer, and the 19th editor-in-chief for the magazine since its founding in 1955.
In this episode, Tony gives us an insider's look at Car and Driver's 16th running of Lightning Lap, an annual test of performance cars held at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). The 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 recorded the quickest time this year, lapping the 4.1-mile track in just 2 minutes and 38.6 seconds. The full package is available now on the Car and Driver website and in the February/March issue, which is available now everywhere magazines are sold.
Tony told us that VIR is chosen for its length and variety of challenges and that VIR is widely considered to be America’s toughest and most-demanding racetrack. This year’s 16 Lightning Lap entrants were grouped by base price (which includes performance-enhancing options and has been adjusted for inflation), and their best times determined the finishing order. The goal is to boil down each vehicle’s performance to a single number: the lap time.
More Online:
Lightning Lap 2023: The Hottest Cars on America's Toughest Track
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a42387169/lightning-lap-2023/
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/MichigansAutoTalkPodcast
Michigan's AutoTalk podcast is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Audio, Spreaker.com, Deezer, and Podcatcher.
Thank you for listening. If you like our podcast please share it with a friend!
Al, John, and Phil
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey, and welcome. It's Michigan'sAuto Talk podcast. This is episode number
ninety eight, and I'm producer PhilTower. Glad to be with you on
this iHeartRadio podcast where also wherever youlisten to your favorite podcasts, including Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, and if yourfavorite rock could play audio, we'd probably
be playable there as well. Everyepisode of Michigan's Autotalk is about celebrating everything
(00:24):
related to the wonderful, glorious automobile. Everything automotive. We're also about helping
and supporting you and occasionally entertaining youcar and truck owners across Michigan and beyond.
I'm very pleased in this segment towelcome back one of my favorite all
time guests. He's the editor ofCar and Driver magazine. We're here with
(00:46):
Tony Kuroga to talk about the amazinglightning lap. This is a story that
hit the magazine last month. Tonyand I've been playing guest tag I guess
if you will back and forth.I'm so glad to have you here.
Tony. First of all, welcomeback. It's goods good to see you
and air you. Yeah, thanks, sure, the invite fell I really
appreciate it. So this is reallya really cool story. This is something
(01:11):
that Car and Driver magazine has beendoing for a long time, sixteen plus
years at Virginia International Rage Raceway,judging cars by nothing more than what they
can do. These are really fastcars. They're all different classes of cars.
But it's it's an interesting story becausenot only of the location Virginia International
(01:36):
Raceway. I'm curious why that waschosen, but four different classes of cars.
Is that the right way to explainit, Tony, Yeah, we
have. There are five different classes, and occasionally we create classes of cars.
For example, we had a policecar package class one year just as
a fun Yeah that's lll oink,And we chose the IR. We started
(01:59):
looking at racetracks in the US,you know the nerburg Ring when we first
started doing this. The planning startedin like two thousand and five, two
thousand and six. The nurburg Ringtimes were becoming a thing. Automakers magazines
were testing cars at the Nrburgring,and we sort of looked at North America
and what a big track because theNurburgring is the Nordschlifa is like twelve point
(02:21):
nine miles I believe and we arelooking at a track that is that daunting,
And I mean if you drive acar all out for twelve point nine
miles, it stresses the car ina way that nothing really else can stress
it. You're stressing the brakes,you're stressing the cooling system, the engine,
everything, everything gets stressed, includingthe driver. So we looked for
the US equivalent of that, andwhat we came across was Virginia International Raceway
(02:45):
and we do a four point onemile configuration which combines two tracks there.
So usually racing is done on asmaller track, a smaller version of it.
We add a little bit more tothe track in our configuration. And
the first year nothing broke three minutes. Even a four GT of that vintage
of a two thousand and six fourGT didn't break three minutes. Now,
(03:07):
cars regularly break three minutes, andwe thought that that was going to take
a while, and it really didn't. Yeah, so this year we had
the first front wheel drive car tobreak three minutes was the Honda Civic Type
R. We had a few othersurprises like that, which was great.
It is a beautiful car. Bythe way, I know we've talked about
that car before. Who drives thesecars. Are these drivers you contract or
(03:30):
they do? They work for carand driver. How does that all work?
Well, the original thinking was wewanted us to be in the car
so we can tell the story.Yeah, you know, selfishly, we
get to lap an amazing track inthe in the year's hottest cars. And
over the years we've learned more andmore and more about you know, our
(03:50):
driving skills have improved. But whenyou're brought into lightning Lap, you start
out, you know, in theslow stuff. You'll drive one or two
cars, and each editor check thework of other editors. Sometimes I'll be
like Casey Cowal, our executive editor. He drives some of the fastest stuff,
and sometimes I'll come up to himand be like, I'm not sure
I'm getting everything out of this ory, don't you go try it? And
(04:12):
we all end up within about ahalf second of each other. I love
it, but it's sort of challengingto drive other people's cars because you know,
your plate is usually full with youknow, three to five cars that
you have to learn. They're oftenvery different. The breaking zones are all
different, they all respond differently.But we think that doing it ourselves,
while we probably leave a little bitof time on the table, and we've
(04:33):
compared our times to professional drivers andto development drivers who work for the car
companies, and we're usually, youknow, between one or two seconds off
the pace, which sounds like kindof a lot, but it is a
four point one mile track that youknow, lap times are anywhere between you
know, two thirty five and youknow three fifteen, So it's not a
huge percentage that we're off. Butthen we get to tell the story ourselves,
(04:57):
and we get to tell about theexperience, which is which is what
we were hoping for when we createdthe event. Tony Curroga is with us.
He is the editor in chief ofCar and Driver magazine carn driver dot
com, and this is all aboutthe Lightning Lap twenty twenty three, the
hottest cars on America's toughest track fourpoint one miles. There are five sectors,
(05:18):
Tony, Can you talk about thata little bit, how those all
differ. Yeah. Sure. SoSector one has the front straight basically the
end of the front straight, andthen you go into a very very hard
one hundred almost a one hundred eightydegree corner, a hairpin I'm looking at
it's called Yeah, you've got someof the cars are going like one hundred
(05:40):
and seventy and you've got to slowthe car down to around around fifty five
miles an hour. So you gofrom one hundred seventy to fifty five in
the breaking zone. Huge test ofthe brakes, huge test of the car
stability under that kind of breaking,and then you throw it into the first
corner. There's a couple of highhigher speed corners NASA cars in there.
And then as you get into sectortwo you start running down the there's a
(06:05):
there's a small s and then youlead up to a short straight which goes
into the climbing s's, which areprobably the scariest part of the track,
at least for me. Um.Interesting, you know, I think on
a public road it would probably havea recommended speed of maybe forty forty five
miles an hour, and we're goinginto it. Some cars are going into
it like one hundred and fifty umand you slow down as you go up
(06:28):
the hill naturally, and some carsare flat through there, like some cars
you know, typically we averaged youknow, between one hundred fifteen one hundred
twenty miles an hour in fast carsthrough the uphill ses, then you rise
to the top of the hill.Then there's this really terrifying downhill blind off
camber corner which sort of throws youoff the track. I've actually gone off
the track there a couple of timesover the years, just finding the limit.
(06:53):
And then you go into the tightestcorner in the track, which is
called Oak Tree Um. It's likea forty mile an hour corner, and
then that spits you out into theback straight. The back straight climbs,
and then you go into where webreak off from where the racing course is.
We go into a course called PatriotCourse, which is a very technical
course, lots of hills, lotsof blind corners, super fun. And
(07:16):
then you can reconnect with the trackwith the original track with the yeah that
feeds you down a hill and thenback onto the front straight Yeah. And
it's it's a lot of corners,it's a lot of concentration. In manual
transmission cars, it's often a lotof shifting. It's a lot of work,
and it is and it requires aton of concentration. I've I've been
doing it. I think this ismy thirteenth year. I think I missed
(07:40):
a year at the beginning, andI missed a year during COVID lockdowns.
I didn't travel, I didn't flyout before during that year, so I
missed a couple of years. ButI've probably lapped the track over two thousand
times, and so it's a fourthousand or it's a about eight thousand miles
of driving on this race track,which pretty insane. There's a turn here
(08:01):
called the Bitch, and it's Imean, that's the That's just not our
name for it. I want tosay, well, but that's a good
name for it. That's that's agood name for it. And we'll have
this article link posted on our podcastpage for Michigan's Auto Talk. We're talking
with Tony Kiroga, he's editor inchief of Car and Driver magazine. As
(08:24):
we talk about I mean, whatwould be a fantasy for most people to
go four point one miles on thelightning lap. This is so we think
of it as a employee retention.Yeah, that's that's a good way of
putting it. But it's interesting andyou've got a great visual. I want
to give you props for the articlebecause it'd be one thing to write about
(08:48):
this, but it's a great visual. It's an overhead view of the track.
But then you've got the elevation whichyou were describing really well in the
climbing s is part of the trackwhich looks like a fairly you know that
sec. Two it looks like afairly straight away point. But you're right,
it's got some messes in it.They you know, on a map,
they don't look like they're a bigdeal. But like you said,
on a regular road, there'd bemaybe forty miles an hour, especially if
(09:11):
you're going up hill. You've gotsome blind spots. Technically, fortunately there's
no traffic coming at you. ButI really, I really love this.
So as we break this down,how many total cars did the Lightning Lap
this year? What did we havethis year? I think we had around
sixteen or seventeen. Yeah, typicallywe have between fifteen and twenty. It
(09:33):
all depends on car availability. Imean, we start asking for them pretty
early, but not you know,sometimes timing just doesn't line up. Sometimes
you know, we're like a monthbefore some really hot car launches. But
we were lucky this year to getthe Corvette zero six, which I think
is probably the most significant performance carof the year. So it's the six
(09:58):
hundred seventy horsebar Corvette. It's reallydeveloped for the racetrack. It's got a
brand new engine and Casey Calwell drovethat car and it was phenomenal. I
mean, it's by far the leastexpensive car to get that sub two forty
lap. Usually the stuff that itlaps below two minutes and forty seconds is,
you know, really exotic stuff.McLaren Senna's Porsche GT two RS really
(10:22):
expensive stuff. And you can geta equipped with the options that we had
to replicate the lap. You canget a zero six for a round one
hundred thirty thousand dollars. That is, if a dealer would sell one to
you for one hundred thirty thousand times. Yeah, yeah, well said.
And just to shout out to peopleinvolved with the story, not only you
(10:43):
as senior editor editor in chief,David Beard, senior testing editor. You
mentioned Casey Colwell, executive director andDan Edmonds technical director. I love the
last part, and the zero sixdid win laptime of two thirty eight point
six. This is just amazing,the most powerful corvette ever made. Um
(11:07):
and it's a heavy car as welltoo. It's important to point that out.
Weighs thirty five hundred plus pounds threethousand, six hundred and forty six
pounds. But it is just abeast. What I love is just built.
It's just built. Sorry I meaninterrupt you feel you No? No,
yeah, it is built. WhatI love, Tony is the outliers
part of the article. You youtested some non performance vehicles, the keya
(11:31):
Carnival. I had totally forgotten aboutthat vehicle. It's um, it's an
suv, right or is that what? It's a minivan. It's a minivan
and yeah, so we tested it. We had a long term one.
We're always curious about how quicker,how quick are regular things, and we
often right in and ask us howquick? How quick is their camera?
V six? So we laped acamera V six, Um were we asked
(11:52):
forward for an F one fifty oneyear just to see what a FOURD F
one fifty the best selling car inAmerica? What that laps yeah? Or
with that laps VR? But theydidn't send us one. So we decided
to do the minivan. And thenwe did the minivan fully loaded too,
so with all the all the seatsfilled on the minivan, and it was
it was significantly slower as you wouldnot be too surprised by that. Yeah,
(12:13):
the slowest lightning lap vehicle vehicle wasthe Subaru WRX. Was anybody surprised
by either the overperformance or under performancein any of these vehicles? Tony Um,
certainly. Yeah. I mean Idrove the Honda Civic Type OAR,
which I mentioned, which was areset. It took back the record from
(12:35):
itself for the fastest front driver.The Zeo six also was kind of a
surprise. So I drove the lastgeneration C seven Corvette z R one,
which actually was more powerful than thezero six seven und fifty five horse power.
And the entire time I was watchingCasey's lap times come down and I
was like, oh man, he'sgonna beat me. He's gonna beat me.
(12:56):
And he ended up beating me bypoint nine seconds in the mid engine
car with a little bit less power. Nice, very nice. So we're
definitely pretty competitive with each other too. What I love about just the whole
attitude of your writers and car anddriver. Yes, you also had Jack
Fitzgerald run the track. I don'tknow who Jack is, but I'd love
(13:16):
to hear the story. Jack actuallyran the track. There's a picture of
him jogging the trap a track.He took twenty five minutes forty four seconds
to do the four point one milelap, which I love. It's not
a lightning lap, but that's notbad humans. For humans, it's pretty
good. I mean it's a fourmile track, so they were just over
(13:37):
six minute miles. So Jack isone of our news editors. He writes
a lot of news content online andhe at in college he was on the
track team, so he competed intrack, and so you know, he's
a couple of years out of college, so he's not quite in the same
shape that he was in college.But he promises to train a little more
(14:00):
next year and he thinks he canget well below twenty four twenty four minutes
well, and he says, Ilove it. And there's a separate story
that Jacket has about doing the lightninglap. While I didn't have to contend
with overheating fluids or tire temps,I did have a mild hangover. At
least he's fully trans He really felt, he really felt the elevation changes that
(14:22):
you mentioned, which you in acar, you don't really feel them obviously
now when you're actually out there onthe track, standing there and running,
which I wouldn't do for very long, but running it like the elevation changes
were kind of a butt kicker forhim. You got no and again we'll
have this link at Michigan's Auto Talkpodcast web page. You've got some beautiful
(14:43):
photography here as well. I wantto talk real quickly before we wrap up
with Tony Kuruga. He is theeditor in chief of Car and Driver magazine
Car and Driver dot com with uson Michigan's Auto Talk. I want to
talk about tires, because tires ahuge part of performance drive these cars.
These performance cars are tested with thetires they come with, or do you
(15:05):
do tire changes? How does thatall work? They are tested with cars
that are tires that are supplied bythe manufacturer, that come on the car
as you can buy it. Now. Some of the tires are what they
call dealer accessories, so they're availablethrough the dealer and we all we include
all of that in the base price, whatever it costs. We call it
the lightning lap. Base price isthe price that you need to recreate this
(15:30):
lap time. So there are somecars like the Audi RS three. You
can get a regular Parrel zero oryou can get a more exotic tire a
more exotic track tire TROPHEO R andthe difference was like over ten seconds a
lap. Tires are really, reallyan incredibly important part of performance. They
help you in every single way,breaking, acceleration and cornering, and you
(15:52):
see that in the lap times.Yeah, that's really interesting and that's why
I wanted to ask you about that. It is one of the first things
I learned from my dad years ago, is that just the importance of tires
on performance. And so many peoplethink they look at the car and they
go, oh, now this hasgot everything I need. But it can
make a huge difference the right tireand that's why some people actually care a
(16:15):
lot about them. And you canyou can always tell a driver's driver,
Tony. Don't you think when youlook at a certain car that has,
you know, a great tire onit versus you know tire versus some really
inexpensive tire. Yeah, no,absolutely, they know what they're doing.
Yeah, that's a that's a driverwho loves to drive, and it's a
driver who appreciates the performance and youknow, the suspension, the cornering,
(16:37):
everything, because with a good setof tires, a lot of regular consumer
cars can be a lot of funto drive. They really absolutely Any final
thoughts about the Lightning Lap this year, just things you learned compared to last
year's. Any any feedback from thewriters. Well, I had been driving
a lot of really fast stuff andthis year I sort of dialed it back.
(17:00):
I ended up in three manual transmissioncars, and manual transmission cars are
a ton of fun. But man, there are a lot of work too.
I mean, I think there wasone lap where I had, you
know, between thirty and forty shiftsa lap, so you're you know,
and that's each opportunity. Each eachshift is an opportunity to mess up a
lab. You miss a shift andyou got to just start over. So
that was a lot of fun,and that was a lot of work.
(17:22):
I wanted to direct your listeners toour YouTube channel too, current driver dot
com. On YouTube, you cansee all the lap times and then you
can see individual editors discussing the challengesand the cars that they drove and the
ins and outs and a little bitof behind the scenes action there too on
our YouTube channel. Yep, that'sa that's a great point. I'm looking
at one of those YouTube videos andbe sure to check out Car and Driver's
(17:45):
YouTube channel. All kinds of greatcontent there. I'm just warning our listeners
you can get lost. You canget lost down the performance rabbit hole.
Just just saying, you know,those kinds of things get lost there.
Yes, please do get lost.It's always makes Tony smile. And that
will be for his twentieth year atCar and Driver next year, getting him
(18:07):
that much closer to the bronzed performancetire that you can put on your put
on your desk in your office.Tony, always a lot of fun to
talk with you. I'm glad wecould finally connect and I look forward to
the next fun Right up you havefrom Car and Driver. Let's connect on
that soon. Okay, great,thanks for your time, Phil. Yeah.
(18:27):
Tony kruga editor in chief Michigan's Autotalkpodcast Car and Driver magazine. He
has been our guest here on Michigan'sAutotalk. He can learn more at carndriver
dot com. Don't forget to hittheir YouTube channel as well for Car and
Driver until next time for host AlfSwinkdorff and John Pewick. Yeah, they
told me to say that I'm producerfull Tower. Have a good one.
Hey, and welcome. It's Michigan'sAuto Talk podcast. This is episode number
ninety eight, and I'm producer PhilTower. Glad to be with you on
this iHeartRadio podcast where also wherever youlisten to your favorite podcasts, including Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, and if yourfavorite rock could play audio, we'd probably
be playable there as well. Everyepisode of Michigan's Autotalk is about celebrating everything
(00:24):
related to the wonderful, glorious automobile. Everything automotive. We're also about helping
and supporting you and occasionally entertaining youcar and truck owners across Michigan and beyond.
I'm very pleased in this segment towelcome back one of my favorite all
time guests. He's the editor ofCar and Driver magazine. We're here with
(00:46):
Tony Kuroga to talk about the amazinglightning lap. This is a story that
hit the magazine last month. Tonyand I've been playing guest tag I guess
if you will back and forth.I'm so glad to have you here.
Tony. First of all, welcomeback. It's goods good to see you
and air you. Yeah, thanks, sure, the invite fell I really
appreciate it. So this is reallya really cool story. This is something
(01:11):
that Car and Driver magazine has beendoing for a long time, sixteen plus
years at Virginia International Rage Raceway,judging cars by nothing more than what they
can do. These are really fastcars. They're all different classes of cars.
But it's it's an interesting story becausenot only of the location Virginia International
(01:36):
Raceway. I'm curious why that waschosen, but four different classes of cars.
Is that the right way to explainit, Tony, Yeah, we
have. There are five different classes, and occasionally we create classes of cars.
For example, we had a policecar package class one year just as
a fun Yeah that's lll oink,And we chose the IR. We started
(01:59):
looking at racetracks in the US,you know the nerburg Ring when we first
started doing this. The planning startedin like two thousand and five, two
thousand and six. The nurburg Ringtimes were becoming a thing. Automakers magazines
were testing cars at the Nrburgring,and we sort of looked at North America
and what a big track because theNurburgring is the Nordschlifa is like twelve point
(02:21):
nine miles I believe and we arelooking at a track that is that daunting,
And I mean if you drive acar all out for twelve point nine
miles, it stresses the car ina way that nothing really else can stress
it. You're stressing the brakes,you're stressing the cooling system, the engine,
everything, everything gets stressed, includingthe driver. So we looked for
the US equivalent of that, andwhat we came across was Virginia International Raceway
(02:45):
and we do a four point onemile configuration which combines two tracks there.
So usually racing is done on asmaller track, a smaller version of it.
We add a little bit more tothe track in our configuration. And
the first year nothing broke three minutes. Even a four GT of that vintage
of a two thousand and six fourGT didn't break three minutes. Now,
(03:07):
cars regularly break three minutes, andwe thought that that was going to take
a while, and it really didn't. Yeah, so this year we had
the first front wheel drive car tobreak three minutes was the Honda Civic Type
R. We had a few othersurprises like that, which was great.
It is a beautiful car. Bythe way, I know we've talked about
that car before. Who drives thesecars. Are these drivers you contract or
(03:30):
they do? They work for carand driver. How does that all work?
Well, the original thinking was wewanted us to be in the car
so we can tell the story.Yeah, you know, selfishly, we
get to lap an amazing track inthe in the year's hottest cars. And
over the years we've learned more andmore and more about you know, our
(03:50):
driving skills have improved. But whenyou're brought into lightning Lap, you start
out, you know, in theslow stuff. You'll drive one or two
cars, and each editor check thework of other editors. Sometimes I'll be
like Casey Cowal, our executive editor. He drives some of the fastest stuff,
and sometimes I'll come up to himand be like, I'm not sure
I'm getting everything out of this ory, don't you go try it? And
(04:12):
we all end up within about ahalf second of each other. I love
it, but it's sort of challengingto drive other people's cars because you know,
your plate is usually full with youknow, three to five cars that
you have to learn. They're oftenvery different. The breaking zones are all
different, they all respond differently.But we think that doing it ourselves,
while we probably leave a little bitof time on the table, and we've
(04:33):
compared our times to professional drivers andto development drivers who work for the car
companies, and we're usually, youknow, between one or two seconds off
the pace, which sounds like kindof a lot, but it is a
four point one mile track that youknow, lap times are anywhere between you
know, two thirty five and youknow three fifteen, So it's not a
huge percentage that we're off. Butthen we get to tell the story ourselves,
(04:57):
and we get to tell about theexperience, which is which is what
we were hoping for when we createdthe event. Tony Curroga is with us.
He is the editor in chief ofCar and Driver magazine carn driver dot
com, and this is all aboutthe Lightning Lap twenty twenty three, the
hottest cars on America's toughest track fourpoint one miles. There are five sectors,
(05:18):
Tony, Can you talk about thata little bit, how those all
differ. Yeah. Sure. SoSector one has the front straight basically the
end of the front straight, andthen you go into a very very hard
one hundred almost a one hundred eightydegree corner, a hairpin I'm looking at
it's called Yeah, you've got someof the cars are going like one hundred
(05:40):
and seventy and you've got to slowthe car down to around around fifty five
miles an hour. So you gofrom one hundred seventy to fifty five in
the breaking zone. Huge test ofthe brakes, huge test of the car
stability under that kind of breaking,and then you throw it into the first
corner. There's a couple of highhigher speed corners NASA cars in there.
And then as you get into sectortwo you start running down the there's a
(06:05):
there's a small s and then youlead up to a short straight which goes
into the climbing s's, which areprobably the scariest part of the track,
at least for me. Um.Interesting, you know, I think on
a public road it would probably havea recommended speed of maybe forty forty five
miles an hour, and we're goinginto it. Some cars are going into
it like one hundred and fifty umand you slow down as you go up
(06:28):
the hill naturally, and some carsare flat through there, like some cars
you know, typically we averaged youknow, between one hundred fifteen one hundred
twenty miles an hour in fast carsthrough the uphill ses, then you rise
to the top of the hill.Then there's this really terrifying downhill blind off
camber corner which sort of throws youoff the track. I've actually gone off
the track there a couple of timesover the years, just finding the limit.
(06:53):
And then you go into the tightestcorner in the track, which is
called Oak Tree Um. It's likea forty mile an hour corner, and
then that spits you out into theback straight. The back straight climbs,
and then you go into where webreak off from where the racing course is.
We go into a course called PatriotCourse, which is a very technical
course, lots of hills, lotsof blind corners, super fun. And
(07:16):
then you can reconnect with the trackwith the original track with the yeah that
feeds you down a hill and thenback onto the front straight Yeah. And
it's it's a lot of corners,it's a lot of concentration. In manual
transmission cars, it's often a lotof shifting. It's a lot of work,
and it is and it requires aton of concentration. I've I've been
doing it. I think this ismy thirteenth year. I think I missed
(07:40):
a year at the beginning, andI missed a year during COVID lockdowns.
I didn't travel, I didn't flyout before during that year, so I
missed a couple of years. ButI've probably lapped the track over two thousand
times, and so it's a fourthousand or it's a about eight thousand miles
of driving on this race track,which pretty insane. There's a turn here
(08:01):
called the Bitch, and it's Imean, that's the That's just not our
name for it. I want tosay, well, but that's a good
name for it. That's that's agood name for it. And we'll have
this article link posted on our podcastpage for Michigan's Auto Talk. We're talking
with Tony Kiroga, he's editor inchief of Car and Driver magazine. As
(08:24):
we talk about I mean, whatwould be a fantasy for most people to
go four point one miles on thelightning lap. This is so we think
of it as a employee retention.Yeah, that's that's a good way of
putting it. But it's interesting andyou've got a great visual. I want
to give you props for the articlebecause it'd be one thing to write about
(08:48):
this, but it's a great visual. It's an overhead view of the track.
But then you've got the elevation whichyou were describing really well in the
climbing s is part of the trackwhich looks like a fairly you know that
sec. Two it looks like afairly straight away point. But you're right,
it's got some messes in it.They you know, on a map,
they don't look like they're a bigdeal. But like you said,
on a regular road, there'd bemaybe forty miles an hour, especially if
(09:11):
you're going up hill. You've gotsome blind spots. Technically, fortunately there's
no traffic coming at you. ButI really, I really love this.
So as we break this down,how many total cars did the Lightning Lap
this year? What did we havethis year? I think we had around
sixteen or seventeen. Yeah, typicallywe have between fifteen and twenty. It
(09:33):
all depends on car availability. Imean, we start asking for them pretty
early, but not you know,sometimes timing just doesn't line up. Sometimes
you know, we're like a monthbefore some really hot car launches. But
we were lucky this year to getthe Corvette zero six, which I think
is probably the most significant performance carof the year. So it's the six
(09:58):
hundred seventy horsebar Corvette. It's reallydeveloped for the racetrack. It's got a
brand new engine and Casey Calwell drovethat car and it was phenomenal. I
mean, it's by far the leastexpensive car to get that sub two forty
lap. Usually the stuff that itlaps below two minutes and forty seconds is,
you know, really exotic stuff.McLaren Senna's Porsche GT two RS really
(10:22):
expensive stuff. And you can geta equipped with the options that we had
to replicate the lap. You canget a zero six for a round one
hundred thirty thousand dollars. That is, if a dealer would sell one to
you for one hundred thirty thousand times. Yeah, yeah, well said.
And just to shout out to peopleinvolved with the story, not only you
(10:43):
as senior editor editor in chief,David Beard, senior testing editor. You
mentioned Casey Colwell, executive director andDan Edmonds technical director. I love the
last part, and the zero sixdid win laptime of two thirty eight point
six. This is just amazing,the most powerful corvette ever made. Um
(11:07):
and it's a heavy car as welltoo. It's important to point that out.
Weighs thirty five hundred plus pounds threethousand, six hundred and forty six
pounds. But it is just abeast. What I love is just built.
It's just built. Sorry I meaninterrupt you feel you No? No,
yeah, it is built. WhatI love, Tony is the outliers
part of the article. You youtested some non performance vehicles, the keya
(11:31):
Carnival. I had totally forgotten aboutthat vehicle. It's um, it's an
suv, right or is that what? It's a minivan. It's a minivan
and yeah, so we tested it. We had a long term one.
We're always curious about how quicker,how quick are regular things, and we
often right in and ask us howquick? How quick is their camera?
V six? So we laped acamera V six, Um were we asked
(11:52):
forward for an F one fifty oneyear just to see what a FOURD F
one fifty the best selling car inAmerica? What that laps yeah? Or
with that laps VR? But theydidn't send us one. So we decided
to do the minivan. And thenwe did the minivan fully loaded too,
so with all the all the seatsfilled on the minivan, and it was
it was significantly slower as you wouldnot be too surprised by that. Yeah,
(12:13):
the slowest lightning lap vehicle vehicle wasthe Subaru WRX. Was anybody surprised
by either the overperformance or under performancein any of these vehicles? Tony Um,
certainly. Yeah. I mean Idrove the Honda Civic Type OAR,
which I mentioned, which was areset. It took back the record from
(12:35):
itself for the fastest front driver.The Zeo six also was kind of a
surprise. So I drove the lastgeneration C seven Corvette z R one,
which actually was more powerful than thezero six seven und fifty five horse power.
And the entire time I was watchingCasey's lap times come down and I
was like, oh man, he'sgonna beat me. He's gonna beat me.
(12:56):
And he ended up beating me bypoint nine seconds in the mid engine
car with a little bit less power. Nice, very nice. So we're
definitely pretty competitive with each other too. What I love about just the whole
attitude of your writers and car anddriver. Yes, you also had Jack
Fitzgerald run the track. I don'tknow who Jack is, but I'd love
(13:16):
to hear the story. Jack actuallyran the track. There's a picture of
him jogging the trap a track.He took twenty five minutes forty four seconds
to do the four point one milelap, which I love. It's not
a lightning lap, but that's notbad humans. For humans, it's pretty
good. I mean it's a fourmile track, so they were just over
(13:37):
six minute miles. So Jack isone of our news editors. He writes
a lot of news content online andhe at in college he was on the
track team, so he competed intrack, and so you know, he's
a couple of years out of college, so he's not quite in the same
shape that he was in college.But he promises to train a little more
(14:00):
next year and he thinks he canget well below twenty four twenty four minutes
well, and he says, Ilove it. And there's a separate story
that Jacket has about doing the lightninglap. While I didn't have to contend
with overheating fluids or tire temps,I did have a mild hangover. At
least he's fully trans He really felt, he really felt the elevation changes that
(14:22):
you mentioned, which you in acar, you don't really feel them obviously
now when you're actually out there onthe track, standing there and running,
which I wouldn't do for very long, but running it like the elevation changes
were kind of a butt kicker forhim. You got no and again we'll
have this link at Michigan's Auto Talkpodcast web page. You've got some beautiful
(14:43):
photography here as well. I wantto talk real quickly before we wrap up
with Tony Kuruga. He is theeditor in chief of Car and Driver magazine
Car and Driver dot com with uson Michigan's Auto Talk. I want to
talk about tires, because tires ahuge part of performance drive these cars.
These performance cars are tested with thetires they come with, or do you
(15:05):
do tire changes? How does thatall work? They are tested with cars
that are tires that are supplied bythe manufacturer, that come on the car
as you can buy it. Now. Some of the tires are what they
call dealer accessories, so they're availablethrough the dealer and we all we include
all of that in the base price, whatever it costs. We call it
the lightning lap. Base price isthe price that you need to recreate this
(15:30):
lap time. So there are somecars like the Audi RS three. You
can get a regular Parrel zero oryou can get a more exotic tire a
more exotic track tire TROPHEO R andthe difference was like over ten seconds a
lap. Tires are really, reallyan incredibly important part of performance. They
help you in every single way,breaking, acceleration and cornering, and you
(15:52):
see that in the lap times.Yeah, that's really interesting and that's why
I wanted to ask you about that. It is one of the first things
I learned from my dad years ago, is that just the importance of tires
on performance. And so many peoplethink they look at the car and they
go, oh, now this hasgot everything I need. But it can
make a huge difference the right tireand that's why some people actually care a
(16:15):
lot about them. And you canyou can always tell a driver's driver,
Tony. Don't you think when youlook at a certain car that has,
you know, a great tire onit versus you know tire versus some really
inexpensive tire. Yeah, no,absolutely, they know what they're doing.
Yeah, that's a that's a driverwho loves to drive, and it's a
driver who appreciates the performance and youknow, the suspension, the cornering,
(16:37):
everything, because with a good setof tires, a lot of regular consumer
cars can be a lot of funto drive. They really absolutely Any final
thoughts about the Lightning Lap this year, just things you learned compared to last
year's. Any any feedback from thewriters. Well, I had been driving
a lot of really fast stuff andthis year I sort of dialed it back.
(17:00):
I ended up in three manual transmissioncars, and manual transmission cars are
a ton of fun. But man, there are a lot of work too.
I mean, I think there wasone lap where I had, you
know, between thirty and forty shiftsa lap, so you're you know,
and that's each opportunity. Each eachshift is an opportunity to mess up a
lab. You miss a shift andyou got to just start over. So
that was a lot of fun,and that was a lot of work.
(17:22):
I wanted to direct your listeners toour YouTube channel too, current driver dot
com. On YouTube, you cansee all the lap times and then you
can see individual editors discussing the challengesand the cars that they drove and the
ins and outs and a little bitof behind the scenes action there too on
our YouTube channel. Yep, that'sa that's a great point. I'm looking
at one of those YouTube videos andbe sure to check out Car and Driver's
(17:45):
YouTube channel. All kinds of greatcontent there. I'm just warning our listeners
you can get lost. You canget lost down the performance rabbit hole.
Just just saying, you know,those kinds of things get lost there.
Yes, please do get lost.It's always makes Tony smile. And that
will be for his twentieth year atCar and Driver next year, getting him
(18:07):
that much closer to the bronzed performancetire that you can put on your put
on your desk in your office.Tony, always a lot of fun to
talk with you. I'm glad wecould finally connect and I look forward to
the next fun Right up you havefrom Car and Driver. Let's connect on
that soon. Okay, great,thanks for your time, Phil. Yeah.
(18:27):
Tony kruga editor in chief Michigan's Autotalkpodcast Car and Driver magazine. He
has been our guest here on Michigan'sAutotalk. He can learn more at carndriver
dot com. Don't forget to hittheir YouTube channel as well for Car and
Driver until next time for host AlfSwinkdorff and John Pewick. Yeah, they
told me to say that I'm producerfull Tower. Have a good one.
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