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The only problems I have with Ring times in general is that.....
1: .....there exists no governing body to determine who is playing by what rules and not every manufacturer plays at all. And, even when they do, how seriously they take knocking down the fastest possible time varies.
2: .....I think the average speed is too high to give a good indicator of how the car is going to perform in the vast majority of owner's hands, even at the typical racetrack. The Ring finds cars capable of the same spending time well into triple digit speeds for a relatively large percentage of your trip around the circuit. Even most guys who get track time in their cars won't see speeds that high for any length of time, if ever, at most tracks in the U.S. It made sense to me when Porsche did it because their cars were, on occasion, genuinely driven at those speeds by enthusiasts in Germany at the time (the Autobahn is so crowded now things have changed somewhat) Then Nissan decided they wanted to show how great the GTR was by running it against the Porsche times, and then other manufacturers started to play.
I just don't get the fascination. Of course, an increasing number of manufacturers are running the Ring now. Even Ford has gotten into the act of late.......so it goes.
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