As the Pirelli World Challenge Championships heads to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for Rounds 11 and 12 of the GT, GT-A and GTS seasons, as it will mark the arrival of one of the series’ most anticipated new cars at the Honda Indy 200 weekend.
The RealTime Racing squad, which had been GTS stalwarts the last several years with the tried-and-true Acura TSX, is now transitioning into the GT class with the new Acura TLX-GT. As Acura looks forward to the 2015 production car’s debut, this gives the RealTime squad a chance to present the car over the final few races of 2014 to build the anticipation.
The car had been set to debut at Detroit, but was delayed following a testing issue. But now, the car has been officially confirmed for its debut this weekend.
For seven-time PWC GT champion Peter Cunningham, the challenge of debuting a new car is one he doesn’t take lightly.
“It’s certainly been a very exciting program, very challenging program,” Cunningham told MotorSportsTalk heading into the weekend. “We’re doing it on a timeline that’s quite compressed. That adds to the challenge and the excitement of this Acura program.”
In what’s been an eight-month period, the Milwaukee-based RealTime team has launched, assembled and tested the TLX-GT. It jumps into a GT class that also includes entries from Cadillac, McLaren, Ferrari, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Dodge, Mercedes-Benz and Reiter Engineering Lamborghini, among others. The TLX prototype and TLX-GT racecar were premiered in Detroit earlier this year.
“It’s been nothing short of fantastic,” Cunningham said of the GT field this year, since he’s been in the abnormal position of a spectator during races. “For us to take a new car and get thrown into it, is going to be a whirlwind for sure.
“We’d never intend to come out of the box with anything but a good level of performance, but we just need to manage our expectations because the field is so incredible and competitive,” he added. “We can’t expect to just come out of the box and set the world on fire. But we seek a decent, reliable weekend.”
Part of the excitement surrounding this car is the activating and marketing aspect, something which has also included Verizon IndyCar Series driver Simon Pagenaud in an ad earlier this year.
“There’s some really exciting things going on with that car; a good power band with the twin turbo added to it,” Pagenaud said. “I’m really interested to see it against Cadillac and the rest of the field. You’ll see the handing with four-wheel drive – I’ve always been a big four-wheel drive fan. I’ve never understood why it wasn’t more in play. You get to see that a lot in rally, and I’m really excited to see it stack up against the competition.”
Although it’s a bit of a challenge, Pagenaud tries to watch other races on site over the course of the weekend. Pirelli World Challenge has already run on five IndyCar weekends this year; this will be the sixth of seven Indy/PWC shared weekends in 2014.
“I try, but it’s such a busy schedule every weekend, especially for a doubleheader,” he explained. “But usually when we’re done, PWC is on track in the evening. I try to follow as much as I can – obviously I’m interested more now with Acura in the mix, and I’ll check. It’s such a very early time for RealTime. But it should be interesting to see in the first few practices. If it rains, they should be in good form.”
After Mid-Ohio, the next stop on the PWC schedule is August 23-24 at Sonoma Raceway.
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