One more award to hand out at this weekend’s UTCC: the Knockout Finals.
The Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge Presented by Grassroots Motorsports filled Friday's card, leaving Saturday for the Knockout Finals presented by XS Batteries.
Here’s how it went down:
The fastest 20 cars from the UTCC competition–plus one staff pick–will receive an invitation to run in the Knockout Finals.
The field of 21 cars will be released from the false grid onto a green track.
After two laps, the four cars with the slowest best lap times will be black flagged and will immediately return to the pits.
With each successive lap the four slowest cars for THAT lap will be removed.
Each lap is unique and only serves to eliminate the slowest cars on that lap. This process continues with each lap until the field has been trimmed to the fastest five cars.
The top five cars will receive a white flag at the start/finish line indicating they are on their final lap. The fastest time for that final lap is the winner of the Knockout Finals.
Any car pitting, spinning or dropping more than two wheels off is disqualified and will be eliminated.
Incidents, weather, schedule changes etc. can change this plan at any time for any reason.
First after the eight-lap showcase: James Clay in BimmerWorld’s M4 GTMore, the shop’s street-legal take on the car company’s GT4 race car.
Second: JG Pasterjak, driving GRM’s Corvette Z06 project.
“Knockout was fun,” JG posted. “Very much a game of heat management after it suddenly turned dry. Still did alright, even though I cooked the starter.”
Thank you sponsors:
The Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car Challenge is presented by Grassroots Motorsports in association with Wilwood Engineering, CRC Industries, DeatschWerks, HP Tuners, SPA Technique and Volkswagen, with trophies from BimmerWorld, XS Power Batteries, The Sensor Connection, Track Advantage, Stifflers and Hoosier Tire.