Kia Optima GTS Race Car

Kia Optima GTS Race Car

RACING HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PROMOtional tool for automakers, mostly to advertise a sports car’s bona fides. Kia’s pursuit is more interesting. In addition to the obvious performance aspect there should at least be an effort to deliver on the visual promise of its sporty looking products Kia’s main goal is to change the perception that the Korean firm builds half-baked cars.

Like its corporate cousin Hyundai, Kia entered our market with inexpensive, uninspiring vehicles. Its first U.S. model, the 1994 Sephia, was the Yugo of the Nineties it cost less than 10 grand and wasn’t even worth that much.

Consumer Reports called it “noisy, uncomfortable, and shoddily built.” But Kia learned quickly, first beefing up its engineering and then, in 2006, radically improving its cars’ looks by hiring designer Peter Schreyer away from the Volkswagen Group.
Kias are now credible alternatives in their respective segments, but how does a brand with a bad reputation communicate improved quality?

Kia’s decision was not just to go racing, but to go racing without its cars ever breaking down.
Kinetic Motorsports built Kia’s first race cars, a pair of modified Forte Koups, for
the Continental Tire series in 2010. The maiden race was a two-and-a-half-hour event at Daytona. Any-one who’s built a racing car knows there are always bugs to work out, but for Kia, the stakes were higher.

“The disaster scenario,” said Kia’s communications director, Scott McKee, “was the car coasting to a stop, dead.” But while the team sat on the pit box, biting their nails, both Fortes finished. And kept finishing. Over the next two years, they would go on to finish all but two races they entered and win both drivers’ and team championships in 2011.

There was substantial effort behind those results. The cars were torn down and inspected after every race. Each car’s assigned mechanic “spent more time with the car than his wife or family,” said Kinetic Motorsports CEO Russell Smith.

Like all racers, these guys eventually wanted to go faster, which prompted a step up to the World Challenge GTS class. As a production car based series, the regulations are adapted so a variety of cars are competitive. The Optima is an unlikely candidate: It’s a long-wheelbase, front-wheel-drive sedan in a class of sporty coupes, and so is allowed extensive modifications. Most of the suspension arms are stock, as is the engine block and head it retains direct fuel-injection and variable valve timing but it makes a decidedly un Kia like 368 hp.

From the driver’s seat, there’s little evidence of the car that originally rolled off Kia’s factory in West Point, Georgia. Directly ahead, a MoTeC digital  dash  displays  engine  rpm,  lap times, and other assorted engine parameters. Your right hand falls to the tall and beefy metal shifter, a  gorgeous  piece  of  race-car  art.  It  controls  an English-made six-speed Xtrac gearbox that costs more than the Optima’s $22,450 base price. The transmission is sequential: Yanking the lever rearward shifts up one gear, pushing it forward, down  one.  The  clutch  is  only  required  to  get moving from a stop; otherwise, a brief breathe on the throttle and stab of the lever does the job.

If that sounds alien, out on the track in this case, R&T’s Motown Mile airport course the shifter proves gloriously mechanical and satisfying. It’s so simple you don’t need to think about it after the first lap.

The Kia spits and pops like a proper race car. And the sound of  it spooling up is a signal that things are about to go haywire.

The main challenge is keeping the Optima’s front tires from spinning. Front-wheel drive is a hurdle for a race car. Under acceleration, a car’s weight transfers rearward, unloading the front wheels. The Kia has a launch-control system that attempts to limit wheelspin from a start, but there’s only so much it can do.

When whistling down the straight, all is relatively normal. The Optima pulls with authority.
Braking for the corners is likewise effortless, with an adjustable anti-lock system that’s set up perfectly the transition out of ABS is barely perceptible when coming off the brakes entering the Mile’s sharp second corner.