Conquering "The Kink" in a 550-hp Corvette GT3 race car, America's most feared corner

If there’s one racetrack, one circuit that I hadn’t been to but always dreamed about, it was Road America, located about an hour north of Milwaukee, Wis. I remember being in the U.K. watching on TV when a terrifying wreck occurred with Katherine Legge in a Champ Car back in 2006. Despite fearing the worst, she walked away unscathed. But the treachery of that racetrack has entranced me ever since.

There’s one corner that stands tall above the rest: “The Kink.” Lined with unforgiving concrete walls, it’s an infamous curve taken at triple digit speeds. There’s a dip in the middle that can upset the car, and if you turn in too early and pinch the exit, bad things happen. Simply speaking, if you make a mistake at The Kink, it’s going to hurt – your body, your pride and most definitely your wallet.

I had my first laps around Road America just a few weeks ago during a 2015 BMW M3/M4 review. I did 20 laps, which on a 4-mile racetrack isn’t insignificant. But when testing production cars for review purposes, you seldom push at 100-percent – it just isn’t necessary. I aim to drive as hard I can without ever feeling like I’m risking the car; you don’t want to be “That Guy” and there’s no prize money at stake.

Around a week or so after my BMW event, an email appeared: “Want to come race a 1978 Indycar and Corvette GT3,” it said. Why yes I do, and before I’d had time to think, I was strapped into Pancho Carter’s old ’78 Lighting, the first ever race car to be sponsored by Budweiser. The event was the “The Hawk with Brian Redman.” It’s a race for the cream of the vintage racing crop, and I was invited by Dave Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Carlisle Companies – a diversified manufacturing business that makes, among other things, Hawk Performance brake pads (hence, The Hawk).