CJ Wilson Racing
The Cayman GT4 Clubsport on Daytona's famous banking.
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When we last met CJ Wilson Racing, the team had just won the 2015 Street Tuner championship in the Continental Tires Sportscar Challenge. For 2016, this racing team led by the Major League Baseball star of the same name has stepped up to Grand Sport, the top class in the Continental series. And it's doing so with a brand-new race car—the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport.
With the Cayman GT4, Porsche finally did something most of us have been waiting for; it built a track-focused Cayman. The company has always said that the 911 is the flagship, and until the GT4, it was fairly obvious that Weissach did not want to cannibalize sales of track-biased 911s by letting its mid-engined younger brother upstage things. But Porsche has a habit of making a stripped out version of models that have reached their end of life—The Cayman (and Boxster) are now part of the 718 family, and from here on out they will use turbocharged 4-cylinder engines. The naturally aspirated 6-cylinder Cayman GT4 is a prime example of the breed.
Those who've driven the road car have come away breathless and delighted, and if you want one be prepared to pay a big premium over msrp. A racing version showed up at November's LA Auto Show, complete with 911 GT3 front suspension and a PDK gearbox in place of the road car's conventional six speed manual. Even though the team is in its early days with the new car, Wilson seemed impressed. "It's amazing how capable this car was out of the box," he told Ars. "We slapped Continental tires on it, put it at the right ride height, changed some springs around and went out and whacked it on the track. We put up some good times. We have have two really good drivers but Porsche did everything they needed to do."
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