The car is a one-off build – which looks like a reimagining of a Group B rally car – and was conceptualised by the engineering brainboxes at Honda Performance Development in Santa Clarita, California.
Built at Honda’s Automotive Development Center in Ohio by the Honda of America Racing Team, ‘The Beast’ is being unleashed in the wild at selected IndyCar events this year, and we took our turn at the most fabled of all American street circuits – Long Beach.
At the front end, ahead of the cabin, are the suspension and brakes from an Acura NSX GT3, so there is plenty of front-end grip to balance the compact SUV. In the middle, atop the tubeframe chassis, is a standard, sixth-generation CR-V steel body straight off the production line – it even has a sunroof!
At the back, it’s pretty much an entire IndyCar rear end in terms of engine, suspension and gearbox, with the hybrid’s supercapacitors (positioned on top) and motor generator unit bolted on to the back.
Having admired the engineering, Autosport got racesuited and booted with helmet and HANS device on, and it’s quite a squeeze through the butterfly doors into the passenger bucket racing seat to get strapped into the safety harness. Hinchliffe then jumps on board, and after a handshake and pleasantries, we’re good to go.
Just like the Hybrid GTP cars in the IMSA SportsCar Championship that are also racing at Long Beach, we start rolling on electrical power only – which acts as a starter for the 600hp-plus twin-turbo V6. At the flick of a switch, the ICE fires and Hinchcliffe nails his right foot to the bulkhead and, simultaneously, the back of my helmet to the headrest.
To keep the race organisers happy, he’s not taking this mad machine to its top speed, but Hinch is still booting it for all its worth through the gears to fourth and then cruising along Shoreline Drive and the back straight. But that’s a good opportunity to regen that hybrid system for added punch off the corners!
Source: Autosport