Tiago

the LFA that ran the time was not a "street friendly LFA" if you're going to go there, it had a full roll cage, who knows what else?

Guibo

Nothing suspicious about it. If you watch the 7:22 video, you can see where the driver misses shifts, get hung up between gears, and blows a few lines. On top of that, they had only like half a day of testing and in not great conditions. There was a strong headwind on the final straight. You can have 5s difference even in the same conditions. You can have 10s difference in the same car/driver combination (Walter Rohrl in the CGT, for instance) in dry, sunny conditions, but done on different days. Factor in the revised gearing and that 10s difference is completely believable IMO.

Notch

Based on the "honor system"? "Should" use the same start and stop points? "Should" provide a video? No independent verifying body?

There IS no agreed on set of rules. There is no governing body. There is no independent verification. There is no official competition.

Guibo

Incorrect. It appears you know very little about why Lexus built that car. Just look at the specifications of the really big hitters on the 'Ring: 6-8L naturally aspirated, or turbocharged (great for higher elevations), fat Cup/Corsa tires, or lack of standard equipment. The Lexus has none of these. Its tires are the slower of the 2 summer tires available on the old GT-R. Tires that Nissan gave up on for 'Ring times three years ago. The LFAs spotted on the 'Ring recently even has the nav system with back-up camera, and very likely the head and knee airbags, etc, of the standard LFA.
Lexus built the 'Ring edition for those who wanted something more track-oriented than the standard LFA. It's like Porsche's version of the GT3 (vs the standard Carrera).
Sure, you could buy an ACR and a Bentley. Just like you can buy a pizza and a burger for the price of a really good steak. Don't be deluded into thinking you're getting the same exact experience. Most realistic LFA customers aren't making the value for money judgement that you've just made. Plenty will have that Bentley already.

The LFA had a cage, but this is not totally unusual for test cars. Consider their history: last year, the chief LFA test driver was killed in an accident on a road in Germany while driving the LFA.

4-Sho

Again, you never brought any of this up when the ZR1 had the record.

You're right, there is no official competition... but there is still a competition going on. All the cars we've been talking about having been using the same "standards". The last car that I remember that didn't follow the rules was the Porsche GT2 RS which is rumored to have run the ring in segments and compiled the times to produce a 7:18xx. Porsche never provided a video and that's why many people do not consider that time to be valid.

http://bridgetogantry.com/2/index.ph...&Itemid=300090

Notch

My comment about there not being an official competition has absolutely nothing to do with any manufacturer.



Now you've got it.

Notch

What rules??

Dominic Toretto

Drive around track as fast as possible I thought. Guess we're both confused.

-Alex

4-Sho

If you don't know the rules, you probably shouldn't participate in threads about Ring times. But I just searched back in some of the previous threads and you've participated in all of them. You even spent quite a bit of time trying to defend the GT2 RS's time.

Guibo

The rules, specified by whom? There's no official timekeeper. No sanctioning body overseeing whether any of these cars are indeed stock when they run the times. If the rule is that a video is provided, well, a lot of good that did when forums everywhere still erupted with claims of cheating when Nissan released their multiple videos.

FNBADAZ06

I think it's fair to say that many of the manufactures who test, validate, and engineer their cars on the Nurburgring track, publish the times their car's have run.....some, including GM, use them in their advertisements as a "bullet point".

I think we can all agree that there is no "official" organization or sanctioning body that administers, promotes, or polices, these timed events. There is no tech shack for pre and post run analysis, and no official calibrated timing equipment.

The runs are based on the manufacture honor system, and are as close to an "official" system as we are going to get.....and while these reported times (supported by some video evidence) may not be "official", they are recognized (and debated) and accepted as a valid record.

4-Sho

Whether or not you trust the manufacturers are being truthful is up to you. There is no official competition but the Nurburgring is being used to show the potential of performance cars. What we are supposed to see is stock production vehicles being pushed to their limit around the track. The cars have been using the same rolling start format with the same start and stop points.

There is no sanctioning body nor any tech inspections... nobody is going to win any trophy either. Fact is, the manufacturers are competing... unofficially.

Notch

I do know about the "rules". I know there are none.

4-Sho

Spoken like a true Porsche fan.

Notch

True statement.

In the end, manufacturers claim Ring times purely for advertising purposes.

Notch

Have I mentioned Porsche anywhere in this thread?

BTW, I am a "car" fan.

4-Sho

You mentioned it back in the ZR1 Ring time thread.

Even without official rules, GM and Dodge (I believe Lexus did as well) followed the same format to produce their lap times.

Notch

Mentioning or talking about Porsche on this forum makes one a Porsche fan?

And are you opining that there is something wrong with being a Porsche fan, a Ferrari ran, a Vette fan, a Viper fan, and a Lamborghini fan? There's something wrong with being a fan of all these sports cars?

And you're saying that somehow makes the lap times "official" and/or air-tight?

4-Sho

It was a jab at the GT2 RS's undocumented claim of 7:18.xx. If you think that's a valid time, then you certainly believe there are no rules (official or unofficial).

Actually it does make the lap times official for the vast majority of car enthusiast. The same argument you're using for lap times could also be used for manufacturer HP claims. Does a ZR1 officially produce 638 hp?

Dave68

Not if consider that other track car runs have easily beaten that number. Yes, their "streetability" attributes, like those of the track-only ACX are limited, they still pulled some incredibly low times. See below to access the latest list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%c3%bcrburgring_lap_times