Track Day

I love it when new track cars come to market to battle the likes of the Ariel Atom, BAC Mono, and others. This is precisely what the American-made brand Vandal want to do with the Vandal One.

Back in 2016, we got word that KTM was going to offer the X-Bow in the US. Apparently, it only arrived as a kit car though. KTM is now set to offer two versions of the ready-to-drive X-Bow in the US.

If you’re an Audi fan, you’ll soon have a chance to drive some of the German automaker’s most exciting vehicles at one of America’s best race circuits. The new Audi Driving Experience will allow drivers to test out some great cars at Austin, Texas’ Circuit of the Americas.

While test driving a car at the dealership gives you some idea of how a car performs and handles, it’s not exactly the ideal setting for seeing what a performance car is capable of. And now that Infiniti is making powerful and dynamic cars like the Infiniti Q50 and Q60 3.0t Red Sport 400, driving them on a track is the best way to really experience their capabilities.

Nissan is jumping on the bandwagon of offering free track driving training for buyers of its sports cars. Ford has done it with special edition Mustangs and other cars ,and Cadillac has too with its CTS-V.

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of track day cars like the Ariel Atom and KTM X-Bow. A new car of that sort has turned up from a Swiss firm called Kyburz. The car is called the eRod and it looks a lot like the Atom with a key difference – it is an electric car.

The market has a handful of low volume and high performance sports cars that are road legal, but really made for the track. There are cars like the BAC Mono, Ariel Atom, among others. There is also the Zenos E10.

I am a sucker for cars made specifically for track day abuse, that are also street legal so they can be driven to and from the track. One of the coolest cars of this sort to debut in a long time is the Zenos E10 R.

I have been an instructor at track days for half a decade, and when fellow car folks find out, the first question that comes up is: “What’s the best track car?” I always tell them the Miata.

Appropriately, Lotus used this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK to introduce its wicked quick new sports car, the 3-Eleven. Describing it, Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales explained, “We always say that to make a sports car better, you make it faster and lighter.

Currently in the prototype stages, this minimal track day car offers styling reminiscent of European sports cars of the 1960s. However, the Silvermine 11SR is a brand new vehicle. The 11SR is powered by a 329 horsepower, 3-liter Subaru-sourced 6-cylinder engine, tied to a 6-speed sequential gearbox.

A new British car company is about to throw their hat into the ring of lightweight track-day cars like the Ariel Atom, KTM X-Bow and Caterham 620R. The Elemental Cars RP-1 is another open-air track car, but if the preview teaser images are any indication, it looks to be much more aggressive in terms of styling than its competitors.

Exotics Racing is an on-track driving experience with locations in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They give us ordinary humans the chance to drive in dream cars at a high speed. I visited the Las Vegas location to get into some of the cars I’ve wanted to drive for some time.