2015 Acura TLX Makes Competition Debut at Mid-Ohio

The 2015 Acura TLX sports sedan made its debut earlier this year at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) that Chris and I attended. Weirdly, despite tweeting about it frantically and taking a few pictures of the car’s advanced engine, we didn’t write an article about it then. Consider the car you see here, then – the 2015 Acura TLX GT race car – a lesson in taking Acura seriously.

Set to debut at this weekend’s Mid-Ohio World Challenge GT race, a support race for the IndyCar “main event”, the 2015 Acura TLX GT will compete in the top category of the Pirelli World Challenge, facing competition from the like of the Audi R8, Bentley Continental Supersport, Dodge/SRT Viper, Ferrari 458 Italia, McLaren’s MP4/12C GT, and the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

Serious machinery, in other words.

RealTime Racing owner/driver Peter Cunningham will be behind the wheel of the new Acura, and hopes the flexible engine and willing chassis will help him overcome his more powerful competitors. “The Pirelli World Challenge has a lot of strong competitors in GT, but the TLX is the only all-wheel-drive car in the category. For our four-door sedan to be racing head-to-head with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini … is pretty cool,” he said.

Developed from the production Acura TLX by HPD and RealTime Racing, the Acura TLX GT features an HPD-modified chassis, Honda’s Super-Handling (SH) all-wheel drive system, and aerodynamic performance parts approved for Pirelli World Challenge competition, and is powered by a direct-injected, twin-turbocharged V6 engine similar to the one used by Honda in the IMSA DP category.

“We’re excited to debut the Acura TLX GT race car in front of our ‘hometown’ audience of associates from the many Honda facilities in central Ohio,” said Art St. Cyr, President of Honda Performance Development and Vice President of Auto Operations for American Honda. “The competition in the Pirelli World Challenge is fierce … (but) Acura has never shied away from a challenge. Instead, we seek it out, both on-track and in the marketplace.”

Big words from everyone. Here’s hoping the Honda guys and the RealTime Racing 2015 Acura TLX GT can deliver!

Source | Photos: Honda.