Utah Grand Prix


Well this Saturday will be my first time to visit the Miller Motorsports park in Tooele. As can be read in the Life and Times of an Insurance salesman part of my daily routine is to check the daily updates on F1 racing.net so I hope I can safely assume that you all know that I love racing. I especially love open wheel racing. Well this saturday I have the opportunity to go watch an American Le Mans series race.

While this race will not have any open wheel cars it will feature cars from my most favorite car company of all time that of Dr. Ing, h.c. F. Porsche. I always root for the Porsches to win in anything they compete in.

In April I attended a Champ car race down in Long Beach California. After the champ car race the american le mans class that the Porsche 911 races in had a race. Now let me set up this race class for you.

Cadillac STS 320 hp 4.6L Engine (possibly a 4.4L 469 hp engine)
Corvette, a 505 hp aluminum block 7.0 L V-8 engine.
Dodge Viper, a 510 hp Aluminum block 8.3 L V-10 engine.
There was also a Nissan Skyline, and a Subaru Impreza WRX Sti that got their butts handed to them.

The most impressive, big block, sports cars that US has to offer are in the same class as the Porsche 911 GT3. Now lets look at that...

Porsche 911 GT3 3.6L flat six engine with 415 hp.

The Corvette is almost double the size of the engine, the Viper is over double the size and, the STS is a full Liter larger. This little car is competing against some of the biggest powerhouses in the United states. That is world class engineering.

The Porsches stayed with all of those cars and more likely than not that was because of the driver and not the car. Whats more is that there are more Porsches than any other car in that class.

So, this Saturday I get to see several different classes of cars race those cars and others. Racing is why I want to be a mechanical Engineer. I want to give the US a car that can almost beat a Porsche on its own terms. I say almost beat because, Hey Porsche is my favorite I just don't want to see the US so far off.

Off the topic of the main post...

If I was in a room with one of every street legal car in the world and the keys were in the ignition of each one and I could drive away in whatever car I wanted. I would chose the Porsche 911 Turbo. I would chose that over any Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bugati, or any other "super car" you could think of. With that being said I am going to lunch.