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A multi-day road route covering hundreds of miles. One of this magazine’s crown jewels: A racetrack.
#Amateur car body design competition driver#
In a time when we’re told that the driverless car is around the corner, these machines put the driver squarely at the front of the experience. None of them fade into the background or aim to remove you from the experience. These cars are proof that there’s still plenty to be excited about. At Road & Track, we drive hundreds of new cars each year, which means our affection for hydraulic steering, natural aspiration, lightweight efficiency, and a good, old-fashioned stick shift is tested on a regular basis. Consumer trends lean toward amorphous appliances. More than ever, regulations try to force automakers into a box. The industry is undergoing transformation. We hold PCOTY testing each year as reason to celebrate the future of the performance car, not lament it. A loose guide to judge the spectacular machinery on these pages. With those caveats in mind, it’s best to view the lap times as bellwether, not absolute.
#Amateur car body design competition drivers#
While I made every attempt to, as one of our contributors once said, “underserve all the cars equally,” most amateur drivers will get faster over the course of a day at a track they had never before seen, learning the pavement’s nuances, and I am no exception. That kind of heat doesn’t help lap speed, and it ensured that late runners needed shorter stints, as times immediately dropped off. Ambient temperature during our lapping day started at around 85 degrees Fahrenheit and eventually hit 107. Just enough to establish a representative lap and suss idiosyncrasies, not enough to set a record. How easy is it to get up to speed in a given car? How communicative is the car? Is it hard to learn the quirks? Under the watchful eyes of our testing staff, every PCOTY contender got a quick warm-up session to set tire pressures, then no more than seven timed laps. We wanted to stress accessibility and adaptability. When you buy a new car, a professional’s lap time at any track is an interesting metric, but it’s rarely reflective of a normal person’s experience.
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We did this for a reason, and it wasn’t to build my ego. When it came to lap times, we enlisted a licensed club racer with no Thunderhill experience: me. Our current method gave the staff a chance to drive every car in similar conditions, learning their limits in a safe, controlled environment. Past PCOTY contests have tested cars on the road first, then trekked to a closed course. You might be wondering why we elected to conduct track testing first this year. A final vote at the end of the journey determined the winner. Those six were then road-tripped on a winding, demanding test route through the Sierra Nevada, ending at Lake Tahoe. A staff vote at the end of our track time cut the field to six contenders. This year’s test saw 11 cars join us for two days at Northern California’s Thunderhill Raceway Park.
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Each fall, we gather every new or revised performance car that we can get our hands on. Crowning the Road & Track Performance Car of the Year is not an easy task.