A friend from Mid-West sent me an email of this car on track last weekend. I thought the GT2 car has single lug, undertray..etc. but WDIK.
"On Saturday, there was just one car in GT2. But it happened to be an Acura NSX. I've been away from club racing for a long time, but I didn't expect to see an NSX. It looked very smooth on the track. It was no match for the sole GT1 Corvette that showed up, however. (The GT1 Corvette driver drove to the track in his new Corvette Stingray. He raved about that car. 28 mpg on the highway at 80 mph, he said. Oh, and one of his other cars is a McLaren MP4-12C.)
On Sunday, two GT2 Corvettes showed up. One of them didn't run any qualifying laps and the other qualified just behind the NSX. In the race, the second of the GT2 Corvettes quickly overtook the first one and the NSX and pulled away. The slower of the 2 Corvettes eventually got past the NSX and put about 100 yards on it. The NSX spent the rest of the race reeling that Corvette back in. By the last lap, he was within 10 yards, but could not catch him before the checkered flag. Looking at the results, the NSX turned a fastest lap that was only 0.3 seconds faster than the 2nd place Corvette, but almost a second down on the first-place GT2 Corvette.
Between qualifying and the race, I went over to look at the car. I ended up talking to the builder, John Vasos, who was crewing for the owner. John said he built his first GT2 NSX in 1995, starting with a 1991 NSX. He said the NSX is a great basis for a race car because it is so over engineered. In the 10 years the first GT2 car was raced, they did not tear down the motor. Stock suspension arms, ball joints etc could be retained and lasted a very long time. He said it did take them a while to come up with the best tires for the car. They ended up having custom made wheels so that they could run 18 inch front and rear and fit them with Pirelli tires. He said the Pirellis are much better than the Hoosiers they had tried, were available in the optimal sizes to fit the car--once they had their custom wheels. The only down side to the Pirellis as that they are horrifically expensive.
He built a second GT2 car sometime after the first, and then built this one, his third--also from a 1991--for the current owner/driver.
John was a long-time Acura employee when he built that first GT2 NSX. I don't know what he did for Acura, but he had the manner of an executive. His company is Asteri Motorsports in Glendale, Wisconsin (a north Milwaukee suburb), and according to their website, they specialize in "servicing, repairing and modifying Acura, Acura NSX, BMW and Honda Automobiles." Here's his website:
www.asterimotorsports.com
I took some photos of the NSX. I would have brought Janna's camera (FZ7) if I'd known I'd have such a good vantage point for on-track photos. As it is, I'm way out of practice shooting motorsports, and my camera was marginal for the task. I've downsized the attached photos quite a bit. If you'd like a higher res version of any of them, let me know."View attachment 114268View attachment 114269View attachment 114270View attachment 114271View attachment 114274View attachment 114275View attachment 114276View attachment 114277View attachment 114278View attachment 114273
"On Saturday, there was just one car in GT2. But it happened to be an Acura NSX. I've been away from club racing for a long time, but I didn't expect to see an NSX. It looked very smooth on the track. It was no match for the sole GT1 Corvette that showed up, however. (The GT1 Corvette driver drove to the track in his new Corvette Stingray. He raved about that car. 28 mpg on the highway at 80 mph, he said. Oh, and one of his other cars is a McLaren MP4-12C.)
On Sunday, two GT2 Corvettes showed up. One of them didn't run any qualifying laps and the other qualified just behind the NSX. In the race, the second of the GT2 Corvettes quickly overtook the first one and the NSX and pulled away. The slower of the 2 Corvettes eventually got past the NSX and put about 100 yards on it. The NSX spent the rest of the race reeling that Corvette back in. By the last lap, he was within 10 yards, but could not catch him before the checkered flag. Looking at the results, the NSX turned a fastest lap that was only 0.3 seconds faster than the 2nd place Corvette, but almost a second down on the first-place GT2 Corvette.
Between qualifying and the race, I went over to look at the car. I ended up talking to the builder, John Vasos, who was crewing for the owner. John said he built his first GT2 NSX in 1995, starting with a 1991 NSX. He said the NSX is a great basis for a race car because it is so over engineered. In the 10 years the first GT2 car was raced, they did not tear down the motor. Stock suspension arms, ball joints etc could be retained and lasted a very long time. He said it did take them a while to come up with the best tires for the car. They ended up having custom made wheels so that they could run 18 inch front and rear and fit them with Pirelli tires. He said the Pirellis are much better than the Hoosiers they had tried, were available in the optimal sizes to fit the car--once they had their custom wheels. The only down side to the Pirellis as that they are horrifically expensive.
He built a second GT2 car sometime after the first, and then built this one, his third--also from a 1991--for the current owner/driver.
John was a long-time Acura employee when he built that first GT2 NSX. I don't know what he did for Acura, but he had the manner of an executive. His company is Asteri Motorsports in Glendale, Wisconsin (a north Milwaukee suburb), and according to their website, they specialize in "servicing, repairing and modifying Acura, Acura NSX, BMW and Honda Automobiles." Here's his website:
www.asterimotorsports.com
I took some photos of the NSX. I would have brought Janna's camera (FZ7) if I'd known I'd have such a good vantage point for on-track photos. As it is, I'm way out of practice shooting motorsports, and my camera was marginal for the task. I've downsized the attached photos quite a bit. If you'd like a higher res version of any of them, let me know."View attachment 114268View attachment 114269View attachment 114270View attachment 114271View attachment 114274View attachment 114275View attachment 114276View attachment 114277View attachment 114278View attachment 114273
