Camaro Z/28 Laps Like Lightning In The Hands Of C/D: Video
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Every year for eight years now, Car and Driver magazine has taken some of the hottest performance-focused metal out to set a hot lap at the Virginia International Raceway, for their annual “Lightning Lap.”
It’s Car and Driver‘s way of obtaining an American equivalent to a Nürburgring lap-time, if you will.
This year, the 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 proved without a doubt that American muscle is still alive and well, by performing far above and beyond its expense.
What do we mean by that? Well, the cars at Car and Driver‘s Lightning Lap are split into five different classes based on their base prices. Obviously, one expects record-shattering performance from the LL4 and LL5 classes of cars, those at the higher end of the budget range tested.
This year, however, the medium-price, $73,000 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 rocketed itself through a blistering 2 minute 50.9 second lap of VIR, coming in fifth out of all the cars tested this year. To put that into perspective, that’s only a second slower than the Ferrari 458 Italia tested at the previous Lightning Lap event.
Enter the YouTube video below. Following some throaty, big-bore free-revs in the paddocks, the Camaro Z/28 rolls out onto the track for its hot lap. Onboard video shows driver Tony Quiroga piloting the mythical, 7.0 liter V8 beast through the technical ascents, descents, straightaways and tight, hairpin corners of the Virginia International Raceway.
To lend another indication of just how furiously this car drove on the track, it beat out the Porsche 911 Turbo S, and lost to the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta by just one-tenth of a second.
Don’t believe that’s possible? Watch the Z/28 fly like lightning below:
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And before someone says it this was not because of the tires. How do we know this as it will turn nearly identical laps with harder compound tires as it has been tried.
Also this is not a Pony car or a Muscle car anymore this is a world class GT car by any measure.