Pontiac's Triple CrownWhen General Motors pulled Pontiac out of NASCAR a couple of years ago, it may have seemed odd that the company's purported performance brand was no longer involved with America's most popular motorsport. Of course the Pontiac whatever-it-was that ran in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series was distinguishable from its Chevy whatchamabob siblings only by the name on the valvecovers and a sticker on the hood of a sheetmetal body that had already become so homogenized that it's hard to know how many fans even noticed.
However, Pontiac has by no means abandoned motorsports competition. A recent press event organized by Pontiac and GM Racing dubbed the Pontiac Motorsports Triple Crown reminded us the brand had a bang-up year in 2005, winning manufacturers' championships in the NHRA Pro Stock category and the Grand American Rolex Sports Car series' top Daytona Prototype class. So what was the third jewel of that triple crown? Rhys Millen won the Formula D Drifting series championship last year in a GTO. The point Pontiac wanted to make is that it's still heavily involved in, and successful at, professional motorsports.
Speaking of Pro Stock, Greg Anderson, who three-peated as NHRA Powerade Pro Stock Champion in 2005, is beginning to remind us of Bob Glidden in his prime. Anderson switched from the old Pontiac Grand Am Pro Stock body to a new GTO body last July, and in the final 10 races of the season he qualified No. 1 seven times and advanced to nine final rounds en route to six victories, starting the GTO off on an impressive career footing. The championship was the third in a row for Pontiac in Pro Stock and its eighth overall since 1996. Anderson has raised the bar in Pro Stock and he's brought Pontiac along with him.
Closer to stock than either Pro Stock or Stock Cars, at least in terms of their engines, are the Rolex series Daytona Prototypes, which run 5.0L Gen III small-blocks derived from production LS2 and LS6 V-8s that are branded as Pontiacs. Pontiac-powered Daytona Prototypes captured the series' Manufacturer, Team, and Driver Championships, including an overall win in the prestigious Rolex 24-Hours of Daytona, which opened the '05 season last February.
Pontiac engines powered over half of the Prototype field and remarkably did not experience a single mechanical engine failure all season, a testament to the durability of the GM design. Further testimony to the small-block's ability is the fact that the LS2-based engine that powers the GTO.R, which like its Pro Stock counterpart also debuted in July mid-way through the season in the Rolex GT class, was actually detuned from its stock 400-lb-ft torque rating to be eligible to run in the class.
It was this Pratt & Miller-built, GT-class GTO.R, one of two entered in the GT series in 2005 by The Racer's Group of Petaluma, California, that a handful of journalists were invited to drive at the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving during the Triple Crown event. The first thing that struck us as we belted into the tube-framed, carbon-fiber-bodied GTO.R was just how tight a fit it was, considering that it retains the basic external dimensions of a stock GTO, which is a pretty roomy car. Having about 20 extra pounds around the middle compared to the slim-and-trim pro drivers the car's seat was designed to fit doesn't help, and squeezing into the custom-formed carbon-fiber seat shell was an interference fit. But the layout of the controls was miles ahead of a production GTO, which seems to have lost something in the translation from righthand to lefthand drive in terms of pedal and shifter placement. Where the stock sedan is nearly impossible to heel-toe downshift, making upshifts and downshifts with the GTO.R's Xtrac sequential manual gearbox is as close to automatic as it gets. The power, grip, and brakes on the purpose-built GTO.R are a quantum leap ahead of any converted street car we've ever driven, yet the car was surprisingly easy to drive after just a few familiarization laps around Bondurant's tight, mile-long west course. After a too-short 15 minutes behind the wheel, we wanted one. And if we could come up with $275,000 to buy one, plus at least another half-million to run it for a season in the Rolex series, we'd consider it.-Matt King
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