The third round of the national circuit racing championship makes its way to Port Elizabeth this weekend. Headlining the bill in the Windy City will be the Production Car brigade, comprising the big-banger four- and rear-wheel drive cars in Class A and the front-wheel drive Class T machines.
Among the those competing in Class A are the supercharged Audi S4, turbocharged BMW 335i and all-wheel drive Subaru WRX STi. The Class C contenders are some of the usual hot hatch suspects that fuel the boy-racer dreams: Ford Focus ST, Golf GTI, Mini Cooper S JCW and Renault Megane RS265.
Just to give you an idea of how quick these race machines are, here is a schematic outlining speeds and lateral G-forces generated during a lap of the tight and twisty 2,48 km circuit. In comparison the BMW M3 M-DCT that CAR featured on the January 2010 performance shootout managed a best lap time of 1 min 12,565. And the best time we recorded that day was with a Lamborghini LP560-4 (1 min 09,512).