From a Grand-Am Ferrari 458, a Stirring Wake-Up Call in Lower Manhattan

By NICK KURCZEWSKI

Stronger than any coffee from a curbside vendor, a V-8-powered jolt was recently provided to commuters in Lower Manhattan by a freely revving Ferrari racecar.

Aim Autosport Team FXDD idled its rosso Ferrari 458 Italia GT on Tuesday morning outside of 7 World Trade Center to celebrate earning the manufacturer's title in the 2012 Rolex Grand-Am GT Sports Car Series championship. Dressed in their race suits, team drivers Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato greeted passers-by and debated the prudence of performing a tire-smoking burn-out for the crowd of curious onlookers.

“It's not possible,” said Segal who, at 25, is already a multiple champion in the Grand-Am Series. “It'll get crazy,” he said, laughing at his older co-driver's enthusiasm and willingness to flout the rules.

Assentato has been racing for more than three decades, lately balancing his time in Grand-Am with his role as chairman of FXDD, a currency trading firm that, not coincidentally, happened to be based at 7 World Trade.

Between answering questions from the crowd and posing for photographs, Assentato occasionally shared a joke and shook hands with his colleagues heading to their desks. Meanwhile, Nick Longhi, the team's project manager and co-driver during endurance races, provided this Wheels correspondent with a street-side tour of the low-slung Ferrari coupe.

At a glance, the Grand-Am car looks remarkably similar to the midengine 458 Italia production car, and with reason. The road and racing models begin life on the same production line in Modena, Italy. Michelotto, a Ferrari-endorsed racing and development company, finishes the build of the racing version.

“It's essentially a street car,” Longhi said while offering advice on how to enter the cramped cabin. A steel roll cage bisects the door openings, making entry a balancing act best accomplished by leading with the feet before sliding i nto the heavily bolstered driver's seat. Once inside, Longhi indicated the car's major controls, like the paddle shifters for the 6-speed semiautomatic transmission, the brake bias adjuster and a small lever positioned to the left of the seat used to adjust the front antiroll bars.

In accordance with the rules of Grand-Am, there is no antilock braking system or electronic traction control aides, and the engine has been detuned to produce fewer horsepower: about 500 compared with 563 in the street model.

Grand-Am employs an equivalency formula to keep the racing close between vastly different models. Second place in this year's Grand-Am GT championship was earned by a front-engine Chevrolet Camaro GT.R.

Last month, the two leading sports car racing series in the United States, the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am, jointly announced they would combine into a single series. The merger was “fantastic news for the sport,” Segal said, because it combined the best driving talent and race circuits from both series.

It was not until the final race of the season that Aim Autosport helped Ferrari clinch the manufacturer's championship at Lime Rock Park, in Connecticut. The team's eight-place finish matched its worst finishing position since the first race of the season, but it was enough to help Ferrari nudge Chevrolet for the title.

The team will next ready its racecar for a test session in November, in preparation for the 2013 season. “This car has 12,000 racing miles on it,” Longhi said. “That's more than some street versions do in a year. It's just getting broken in.”