For those of you not still living in the 1980s, eating Wheaties and playing Nintendo — IROC stands for the “International Race Of Champions” and as you would expect the GTM version was an utter… epic… stressful… bowl of soggy shredded wheat. The Commish’es, well Brad… mostly, thought it would be amusing to torture the league with a 25 lap race at Lime Rock in bone-stock, custom liveried TG-edition Vauxhaul Astra’s.
I must say that there is no sound better than a 90hp 1.6L being downshifted into 2nd gear and over revving to 8200rpm. There is no Porsche, no Ferrari, or Lambo out there that can match that sound… it haunts me still.
As was expected the race was quite adventurous at T1 on the opening lap, dull – dismal and depressing until lap 22 when the action started to heat up throughout the field. The outcome? Who cares! Despite the lack luster performance, the over all adrenaline induced by anxiety and stress of f*ing up was quite overwhelming. I also believe my right index finger now suffers from early onset arthritis thanks to the entire ordeal.
So what does this mean for the rest of the GTM-FM6 series?
Well, there are two more exciting IROC races peppered throughout the series. An “all Miata” C-Spec limited race at Sonoma *Infineon Raceway* and an “all E36 M3” race at Watkins Glen. Even though the Miatas and BMWs won’t carry the same kind of earth shattering performance of the Astra’s, we feel that the races will be exciting and may change the balance of points for the season. So stay tuned for updates!
