No-prep racing has been the rage for a few years now, thanks to the Discovery Channel’s hit TV show, Street Outlaws. And to be fair, it takes a lot of tuning and patience to get one of those high horse-powered cars to go down a track or road without a traction compound. If a driver misjudges the surface, it can lead to disaster, which we have witnessed repeatedly. 

This Vs. That, which is produced by the Hoonigan team which takes place on an abandoned road somehwere. If you haven’t watched an episode, you should. The guys will line up two vehicles and race them on an unprepped asphalt surface, and you never know what they will run. We’ve seen imports take on domestics, off-road trucks versus street cars, and rally cars versus super cars. Emelia Hartford even raced a four-wheeler in her twin-turbo C8 Corvette on the show.

There’s a lot of races that make sense on an unprepped racing surface. However, in our opinion, this race shouldn’t have happened. And we made this decision before we even watched the Corvette and the GTR line up. Sure, most people want to see a wicked American-made car take on a high-end import. However, the Corvette was outgunned from the start. The Nissan was stripped to the bones with carbon fiber doors and weighed in at 3,600 pounds which is a tad heavier than the C6 Corvette. It also had twin turbos and made 500 more horsepower than the single-turbo LS. The most significant disadvantage for the Corvette was the fact it’s rear-wheel drive with only a ten-inch wide tire outback. The GTR, on the other hand, has slicks on all four corners and would take advantage of every inch of rubber in this race.

Despite our suspicions, we had to see what would happen as the two lined up. During the first race, the LSX-powered Corvette jumped the gun and got out on the GTR by a car length. But it didn’t take long for the turbocharged AWD rocket to reel in the traction limited Corvette, beating it effortlessly. Race two was more of the same, but the move was planned for this time as the GTR waited on the ‘Vette to launch before it would go.  Once again, the Corvette hazed the tires, and the GTR flew around the C6. For the final race, the Vette would get two car lengths on the Nissan. Even though the car seemed to launch better off the line, the Corvette almost immediately smoked the tires and gave the GTR the win again but not before throwing the parachute to signal its dominant performance. 

Our suspicions about this matchup were confirmed. All-wheel-drive and more horsepower is superior to rear-wheel-drive on an unprepped surface. But then again, this isn’t rocket science. Despite the results, this was a fun race to watch, and we would love to see this happen again on a prepped race track someday. Would the results be any different? Maybe, or maybe not. While the Corvette would still be the underdog, at least it would have a fighting chance.