Pre-race recon laps in our One Lap Elantra N: Nothing big fell off

Golden-era Honda vibes with a modern turbo DCT drivetrain. That’s how our new Elantra N felt to us, especially now that we had a real performance wheel-and-tire package and alignment.

Before we tackle next week’s One Lap of America, though, some recon at Nashville Superspeedway. It’s the first stop on the Tire Rack One Lap of America Presented by Grassroots Motorsports.

As such, this track would seed the running order for the whole week, so doing well there meant more sleep each day.

Nashville Superspeedway isn’t a hard track to learn but it’s sneaky fast in places. It also has severely jarring pavement transitions on and off the banking where confidence yields pace.

Most of the curbing is rough but usable for advantage. One particular curb, however, is known to bend wheels. Practice helps build muscle memory as to which is which.

We got on track courtesy of an SCCA Track Night in America. It was the perfect setting as the events are low key, well run and inexpensive. Three sessions were all we needed to refresh our memory and dial into our new ride.

It was also plenty to shake loose parts off the car. That’s why they call it a shakedown, right?

After the first session, a fellow Elantra N owner came up to us with a bag of zip ties and a pair of side-cutters. “Here, you’re going to need this–your undertray is dragging.”

Sure enough, we succumbed to one of the Elantra N’s weak points: The plastic attachment rivets tend to pop out when hopping curbs. Five minutes with the gifted supplies and it was ready to run again–though a little worse for the wear.

There were five Elantra N owners running at this event–which speaks to the popularity of these cars among track junkies–but just a sole Honda Civic, the Type R of Bridgestone employee Will Robbins.

To get a head-to-head read on relative performance, Will gridded behind us and followed on our quickest timed lap, 1:09.6.

Will’s in-car footage–sorry, it’s a little shaky–shows that the Type R is quicker in the slower, twisty bits, but the Elantra N pulls away entering each of the straights. Once at WOT, it’s a dead heat.

Both cars run the same tires–the 265/35R18 Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RZ–but the Civic Type R can run a 10.5-inch wheel, so an inch wider than the Elantra N can readily accept. That extra inch makes a big difference in grip in the turns.

Nashville Superspeedway can be described as a second- and third-gear autocross followed by a dyno run. Slowest turns are 30 mph 180s, while our Elantra N sees more than 125 on the tri-oval.

Our AiM data trace shows the uncertainty in the braking as the car transitioned down off the banking and we rolled into the brakes. We can do better there, for sure. But the most important part of practice sessions is to not hurt the car.

Here’s the GPS map with the banking-to-apron transition marked: Lift, transition, brake.

Another positive takeaway was tire clearance–we have just barely enough. Both rears ever-so-slightly touch inside the fenders under load, while the fronts make no contact at all. We’ll monitor, but we’re not worried.

Next up is another SCCA Track Night in America recon day at Blackhawk Farms on the Wisconsin/Illinois border, northwest of Chicago.

A massive severe weather system is moving across our route north, so we opted to hang out in Nashville another night for it to pass. That also gave us a chance to gather supplies and rebalance the tires.

What’s that?

We noticed a minor vibration. Since Discount Tire did the mounting, we brought the car to one of its stores near our hotel in Nashville and the folks there checked the balance for us.

It’s not unusual for tires to benefit from a rebalance after they’ve been run hard the first time. So we were not surprised when two of them needed slightly different weights. But one of the fronts was off by 0.75 ounce–which is a lot. And enough to feel in the steering.

And the crew at this store in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, was super efficient: 10 minutes from start to finish with four people working across two balancing machines. Impressive.

Next update later this week as One Lap competition starts on May 2.

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