Jack Olsen doesn’t do things half-way. If you’ve seen his garage you know that, if you’ve seen his car you know that. His 12-Gauge Garage DIY homebuilt shop has become famous in itself, and even has its own website. That garage was built to house a seriously capable street/track machine that is equally cool, if not even more so, lovingly known as ‘Black Beauty’.
Since he bought the car fourteen years ago, his primary focus with it has been to produce lower lap times, while keeping it streetable for weekend driving. He’s spent most of his track time at his local Willow Springs Raceway gradually decreasing his times. Over the years, the driver, and the car, have gotten much faster. His first outing at the track, he was turning 1:56s in the car. Earlier this year, he set a 1:26, dropping 30 full seconds from his lap times. To put that in perspective, Porsche’s 918 Spyder cracks off a lap in 1 minute 23 seconds.
The car has been optimized over the years, gradually gaining speed, and it is now lighter, powerful, has more grip, and it’s been aerodynamically improved. Of course, over all those years of track driving, Jack’s skills behind the wheel have likely improved a bit as well.
The video was produced by AutoBild.de originally in German for their viewers, but also produced the video in English for Jack to post on his own YouTube channel, which is what you are seeing here. Jack would like everyone to know that he is aware that the track record is actually held by Michael Andretti in an CART car, but the Germans thought that their audience would be more familiar with Formula 1, so had him reference Nigel Mansell’s time instead.
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