2017 Corvette Grand Sport Nearly Ties Porsche 911 GT3 RS on VIR, Viper ACR Wins

With Car and Driver having now released tons of footage from its Lightning Lap 2016 adventure, we got to find out the Grand Sport can lap the said track in 2:47.1.

Interestingly, this puts the $79,930 Chevy just 0.1 seconds behind the GT3 RS PDK. You know, Porsche's $189,760 track attacker - in the second clip below, you'll notice the Rennsport machine comes with the uber-rare navigation and climate control delete options.

However, before jumping to track day conclusions, do note that VIR isn't nearly as technical as the Nurburgring, where, also thanks to the length difference between the two tracks, the gap between the two machines should be larger by quite a margin.

What about the final part of the title above?

As much as we worship Neunelfers, we're pretty sure some of the Porsche fanboys out there were ready to put on the keyboard warrior armor when Chris Harris recently ignored his own rear-engined fetish, stating that the 2016 Viper ACR is in a different league (as a track car) when compared to the GT3 RS.

Well, his feelings and emotions can now be translated into VIR numbers, as the ACR delivered a 2:44.2 lap, leaving the 2:47 Porscha staring at its bigger wing.

In a less than surprising manner, the ACR almost topped this year's Lightning Lap, only coming second to the Lexus RC F GT Concept - we already discussed the track-only side of the Japanese machine earlier today.

P.S.: If you're looking for a track car and need to stick to a tight budget, the 2017 Camaro SS 1LE might be an interesting alternative to the 2016 Mustang Shelby GT350R.