The Right Stuff

WITH INCREASING RESTRICTIONS ON PUBLIC ROADS, MORE AND MORE OWNERS OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE CARS HAVE BEEN SIGNING UP FOR TRACKDAYS WHERE – AS MOTORING AUTHOR, RACING DRIVER AND PHOTO-JOURNALIST IAN KUAH REPORTS – THEY CAN EXTEND THEIR CARS IN RELATIVE SAFETY

ON THE ROAD The choice of dedicated trackday cars is expanding all the time, and thinly disguised road-legal track machines from the Radical and KTM X-Bow to the Gumpert Apollo offer hard-core track junkies a true racecar experience at different price points. However, not everyone wants a second or third car that is total impractical for normal road use, so we lined up three seriously quick road cars at the Ascari Race Resort to see just how close they come to giving you a racecar experience. The Noble M600 and Porsche GT3 RS are genuine practical supercars, while the Caterham Superlight R500, with a supercar power-to-weight ratio, is a minimalist machine whose basic design has been honed to a fine point over decades of development from the original Lotus Seven. Then we threw a wild card into the mix in the form of a Ferrari F430 Challenge, the race version of the F430 road car. As this has just been made obsolete by the 2011 season Ferrari Italia Challenge car, there will be a few F430 Challenge cars floating around looking for homes. Wealthy enthusiasts often find ex-racecars like the F430 Challenge, a Porsche Carrera Cup or a GT3 RSR appealing as trackday cars. Unlike the three road-legal machines, however, these have to be transported to and from the circuit on a trailer.

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