Parker Johnstone on Driving the Spice Acura GTP Lights Racer - Automobile
The 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance , Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion , and other associated events are over, but we’re still sorting through our favorite sights and sounds from Monterey Car Week. Right at the top of the list: The Comptech Racing Spice Acura IMSA Camel GTP Lights race car that ran in reasonable anger for the first time since it claimed the 1993 Lights championship. Piloted around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca by its original three-time title-winning driver, Parker Johnstone, the car -- powered by a modified version of the original NSX’s 3. 0-liter VTEC V-6 -- claimed a pair of second-place finishes in the... Pushing out about 425-440 hp and a scant 275 lb-ft of torque, it wasn’t quite a match for the turbo-boosted, Bruce Canepa-driven Porsche 962, but we see 962s all the time. In contrast, Honda/Acura has warehoused its old prototype racer for the past 22 years. We had a quick chat with Johnstone about the Spice Acura and his experience behind the wheel after all these years. Parker Johnstone: Lots of club and vintage racing. This is my eighth event in 10 weekends, and I’ve done 18 vintage race weekends so far this year. We’re the largest Airstream retail network in the world, we sell 38 percent of all airstreams worldwide. PJ: I had done Lights for the Spice factory team and other privateers, Nissan, Porsche, Jag, lots of GTP experience. Source: www.automobilemag.com
