James Glickenhaus wants to put an end too controversial Nürburgring lap times by creating a sanctioned competition at the famed German circuit to discover what is the fastest street-legal car around ‘Green Hell’.
At the Geneva Motor Show, Glickenhaus told Car&Driver that he wants to hold the competition immediately after qualifying at the Nürburgring 24 Hours from 2018 onwards. He proposes that carmakers will have to drive their vehicles from Cologne to the Nürburgring on a single set of tires and then use those tires during a flying lap.
“They have to be real road tires, not those special tires that get dropped off in a safe. They have to be tires you can buy from [a place like] Tire Rack. Then everybody drives and sets a time, and whoever is fastest is the winner. That’s it.”
Glickenhaus says that he has yet to receive approval from Nürburgring authorities about his proposal but is serious about making it happen and dubbing it the Glickenhaus Road Cup.
“They don’t even know about it yet. They’re reading about it in the press and they’re going to be [saying], ‘F—king Jim, what the hell is he doing?’ But I’m serious. I’m going to make this happen. I can’t get it together for this year. My idea is to have them yell and scream, ‘How can you say you’re going to do that? You’re an idiot and an asshole, and we hate you.’ Then they’ll get over that, and we’ll come back and race at the Nürburgring for next year. We’re going to do it.”
Perhaps the driving factory behind the proposal is Glickenhaus’ belief that his road-going SCG003S will be able to lap the circuit in just 6 minutes and 30 seconds, almost half a minute faster than the Porsche 918 Spyder.
While Glickenhaus seems confident this could be the solution to lap records, we have a difficult time imagining any automakers would be willing to participate purely out of fear that they’d be beaten by rivals. With that being said, we hope it happens.
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