From what we can see in the videos posted on the Internet by MINI, the event can be entered in the “your average amateur trackday race” category, as it included a small crowd, a few unnecessary comments and a lot of cones. Ok, it also came with some great babes wearing the MINI logo on their chests...
The 911 beat the MINI by two seconds. The tiny-car brand used a marketing gimmick, saying that the time can be translated into $38,000 per second. But that doesn’t sound so smart if we consider that, in his pre-race interview, the MINI driver offered one of the lamest excuses in the world when asked why the race didn’t take place on the full Road Atlanta course. He said that the aforementioned version of the race track would’ve allowed the cars to reach high speeds and therefore it wouldn’t have been safe.
Let’s see if we got things straight here: MINI did this as a publicity stunt (this may be the reason why it didn’t even bring the most powerful version of the car), with the event having the final aim of any marketing scheme: to sell more cars. But we have a little question: if we want a MINI, why should we opt for anything else than the basic 1.4 liter engine (or the diesel one) if the beefy versions of the vehicle are not safe for high speed driving?
Anyway, MINI got the free coverage it wanted. And speaking of $/second, we have to see if Jim McDowell (MINI USA’s boss, the man who threw the gauntlet) has the b..ig heart to accept Hyundai’s racing offer.
You can check out the videos bellow to see the race and the pre-race interviews with the cars' drivers (hilarious MINI eplanation included):
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