Pirelli Tire partnered with event organizers Grassroots Motorsports last week to host the fourth running of the ultimate on-track competition featuring some of the hottest race and production cars in the country. This year’s record entries were made up innovative and fast machines from locations as disparate as home garages to factory-supported professional efforts. All competitors had the opportunity to turn the ultimate lap in the event’s NASA Time Trial format. The wide variety of competing cars complemented Pirelli’s position as a worldwide leader in motorsports and high-performance production tires.
The battle to determine the ultimate track car competitor in the country came down to a contest between two generations of mighty Mopars and a pair of road racing talents from different eras. Veteran road racing champion Phil Currin returned in Glenn Bunch’s 800-horsepower 1974 Dodge Hemi Challenger while young French-Canadian star Kuno Wittmer strapped into his factory Dodge Viper ACR-X to compete at VIR. Knowing the Challenger had a nearly 1.5 second gap on the field, Wittmer took to the track in the day’s final session and pushed his 640-horsepower Viper to within .036 of a second of Currin’s overall winning lap time of 1:54.428. It was the closest fight for the overall ultimate title in event history.
Currin also took top honors in the Über Varsity class while Wittmer’s narrow overall loss was cushioned by a nearly six-second margin of victory in the Shop Varsity category. Other class winners included Pirelli Ultimate Track Car Challenge veteran John Meyers and his home-built Stalker powered by a Chevy LS3 V8 in the Independent Study class. Pablo Crespo is the only driver to compete in every Pirelli Ultimate Track Car Challenge event to date, and he finally hit the win column this year driving his Porsche 968 in the Shop Junior Varsity class. Independent Junior Varsity division honors went to Pete Challinor in his Caterham Super 7.
All class winners received a $500 bonus from Pirelli, which were just part of the event’s deep prize pool. In addition to Pirelli, competitors also won prizes from HRE Wheels, Dodge, Exedy, AEM Performance, StopTech Brakes, Koni, Redline Oils, SafeRacer and Grassroots Motorsports, amounting to more than $11,000.
More information, complete results, pictures and video can be found at grassrootsmotorsports.com/utcc if you want to take in more of the excitement from the 2010 Pirelli Ultimate Track Car Challenge.
