What do get when you pair a professional racer, such as Andy Pilgrim, with a top-shelf supercar, such as a McLaren Senna, and set them loose at NCM Motorsports Park? You get a track record for a production car–well, until Steve Luca came with his 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500.
Why a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500?
Photo by J.A. Ackley
Steve didn’t intend to make the GT500 his time attack car. He previously campaigned a GT350R that he had stripped and prepared for competition. Steve bought the GT500 loaded with options, including the Carbon Fiber Track Pack, to simply serve as his track day car.
“It turned out that GT500 was so much faster than the car I already had put all this work into,” Steve explains. The GT500’s higher-cost consumables, though, steered him toward saving it for competition events: “The GT500 also eats a full tank of gas in a 20-minute session–15 gallons of fuel. It’d chew through a set of tires in two track days. The running cost of this car didn’t make sense. So, we put the GT350R back to a street car, and we built the GT500 into what it is today.”
So why not just buy a wrecked S550 and build his own GT500? “Do the math,” Steve advises. “A wrecked S550 is $10,000. I need a $40,000 engine package, including boost, and a $30,000 drivetrain. That’s $80,000. And what do I have? Somebody’s old, rusted S550–and I have to do all this work.
Photo by Tradd Slayton/Racing for ALS
“If you’re going to build one of the fastest time attack cars in the country, what’s it going to need?” continues Steve. “You’re going to need to make a lot of power. You’re going to need one hell of a transmission that can shift lightning fast. The GT500 was $100,000. I sold the [carbon-fiber] wheels and seats for $30,000. So for $70,000 I was racing it immediately–with slicks, some baby aero, took the seats out of it, and I was already winning events.”
The Record-Breaking Build
Photo by J.A. Ackley
Steve brought the GT500, still running its stock drivetrain, to last year’s Ultimate Track Car Challenge. He finished second overall to Ghais Khaleghi’s Stohr 01D sports racer by less than 2 seconds.
“It may be one of the fastest cars that still has a stock engine, stock transmission, stock rear end and stock axles,” Steve acknowledges.
Photo by J.A. Ackley
The GT500 comes with a seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission from Tremec. Off the showroom floor, its 5.2-liter V8 is rated for 760 horses and 625 lb.-ft. of torque. Steve has had it tuned for maximum performance on track, though, with two 62mm Hellion turbos added on, helping the engine push 1000 horsepower.
Certainly power’s not a problem. Weight is, though. The Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 comes from the factory tipping the scales at 4171 pounds.
Photo by J.A. Ackley
“To make the car competitive, you got to make it lighter,” Steve explains. “Ours came with the Carbon Fiber Track Pack, so it was a little bit lighter. We now have a full carbon-fiber body, aside from the quarter panels. When we put in the 180-pound cage, we actually lost weight because we had to cut out so much metal in preparation for that cage. It weighed 3400 at NCM.”
Photo by J.A. Ackley
Steve added a huge, Mustang GTD-inspired rear wing and an equally huge splitter. He also upgraded the suspension with MCS coil-overs, SPL control arms, solid bushings and solid motor mounts.
“We could go far with the stock suspension–it’s built for the track,” Steve says. “It comes with a MagneRide electronic suspension, so they’re quite sophisticated. The problem is when you add a whole bunch of downforce to the car, it starts freaking things out. The car’s lowering itself the faster it goes, and the ride height sensors are going, ‘What is going on? Did we lose a spring or something?’ Then there’s the sheer problem of getting it stiff enough so the car doesn’t hit the ground.”
The Record-Breaking Weekend
Steve had just one focus during last year’s UTCC: “We went to NCM to break the record. That was our only goal.”
Early on in the weekend, though, Steve broke his front splitter, which set him behind on his target.
Photo by J.A. Ackley
“We had a massive issue with aero the whole weekend,” Steve continues. “Aero is a balancing act. When that front splitter failed, we now had a massive amount of downforce on the rear and nothing on the front. The car wouldn’t steer at anything over 90 mph. I had to hit the brakes just to get the car to bite in and turn.”
Steve had more problems. He also found metal in his oil–and carbon fiber, too.
“We had the titanium skids on the bottom of the splitter,” Steve explains. “When we broke the splitter, it threw titanium up into the turbos, because the turbos are underneath the car. Once it got through the titanium, it started shredding carbon.”
Despite the setbacks, Steve ignored what he saw in the oil and his team grabbed his old, smaller splitter from his nearby Serpent Stangs shop.
“We had to take away as much downforce as possible from that rear wing,” Steve says. “It still had serious understeer at anything over 100 mph. When we set the record, it was very much a compromised setup.”
Photo by Chris Tropea
Nevertheless, his setup was good enough to eclipse Andy Pilgrim in the McLaren Senna to become the record holder of the fastest lap ever for a production car at NCM Motorsports Park.
“It’s special that a Mustang holds the lap record at the Corvette track,” Steve says. “That track is our home track, and that’s the place we want to hold the record.”
But the record for Steve Luca means far more than beating a rival marque.
“You don’t see all the stuff that goes into it,” Steve says. “Crying in the garage for 20 minutes. Falling asleep on the lift. We’re up to 5 o’clock in the morning screaming at each other in the shop. Nobody sees that stuff. They’re just like, ‘Cool car.’
“It’s a life commitment,” Steve continues. “You try your hardest. It’s a lot of heartache. It’s a lot of, ‘Why am I doing this?’ When it comes together, it’s a special feeling.”
