What is the Superfour Challenge?
The Superfour Challenge is a Car and Driver inviation-only event. Thirteen vehicles were invited to compete in the 2 day competition, featuring 4 cylinder, highly tuned vehicles.

The first day is the street drivability evaluation. The vehicles are put through numerous tests to determine how drivable the cars are in an everyday setting. Things like suspension harshness, exhaust volume, seat comfort etc. determine the overall rating.

The second day takes place at the race track. This year the selected track was Michigan International Speedway. This track had a large NASCAR oval with an infield road course. The challenge tests vehicle performance against the clock. The vehicles are divided into 2 classes, FWD and AWD/RWD. Each vehicle has 5 laps to compete for the best overall time. Specific sections of the course are also measured: 0-60 mph,1/4 mile, 0-100 mph, 100 to 130 mph, the road course section and 130-0 mph braking distance. In the end, the fastest overall lap wins the event.

The Results
The competition was extremely tough this year, most of our competition had a 100+ horsepower advantage over the MINI, and most cars were more aerodynamic. The weather conditions were poor with 95 degree heat and high humidity for the track day, which put everyone down on power. The road course section of the challenge isn badly paved and poorly maintained. There was grass growing through the cracks in the road coarse; watch the video shudder during our best run and look for the nasty pavement. The MINI performed extremely well considering the whole scenario. We completed all 5 laps and recieved no cone penalties, off course penalties or mechanical failures. We actually had a 6th run because the GPS lap timer unit malfunctioned.

The track at Michigan Speedway favored the more powerful cars because of it's many straight speed sections. This allowed our competitors to make up poor road course and braking distance time on the straights. The MINI however dominated the road course section with the fastest time in its' class. When analyzing the statistics, we entered and exited the corners faster in many cases than the top prize HKS Evo VIII ! This road course time is what we were truely fighting to win. Knowing we are unlikely to beat a 400+hp Neon SRT-4 in straight line speed, our efforts were focused on having the fastest time through the road course section. We acheived the fastest road course time 2 years ago in the 2003 C&D Superfour Challenge and are pleased to retain this victory.

We acheived an overall 3rd place finish with our best lap time during run #5. Every consecutive lap , our times improved. We are the only team in class to finish without any "DNF" (did not finish) laps. Many of the cars had mechanical issues or time penalties that directly affected their overall rankings. Most cars finished at least one quallifing lap with the exception of the Cosworth Ford Focus. The Cosworth Ford Focus, unfortunately, could not hit the required 130mph mark and therefore received 5 DNF laps! Oops...