Race Day: The Pink Mini against a 48V eSupercharged GTI

MAHLE Powertrain Ltd. pitted one of their demo cars against the Pink Mini on the racetrack. Here’s what happened…

The day had finally arrived… today was the day I got to check off a big Bucket List Item: Be a Race Car Driver for a day! And it was all thanks to our Sponsors at MAHLE. They hired two separate race tracks and Christian and I drove to the first one in our completely stickered-up Pink Mini.

We met the team that were helping us and shook hands with our competitor driver for the day. He was to be racing us in MAHLE Powertrain’s fancy eSupercharged demonstrator vehicle: A Golf GTI which is equipped with MAHLE’s unique 1.2 liter 3-cylinder engine an a 48V mild-hybrid system. MAHLE’s version of the GTI achieves the same 260 horsepower as the normal version you can buy with a 2.0 liter engine. In layman’s terms, it had an engine that purred a deep, glorious purr, like that of a Tigress. He revved the engine a few more times, just to show us what exactly we would be up against.

Christian and I jumped inside the GTI and strapped on our seatbelts. We were on an old runway which was sectioned off specifically as a race track to test cars top speeds. We were prepared for an adrenaline rush. We counted down, “3, 2, 1…GO!” And I started my timer as the driver pushed the pedal to the floor.

When the car jumped over 100 MPH I stopped looking at the speedometer. I checked the time on the stop watch. Although the driver backed off a little, after all it was my first time in a 48V eSupercharged ANYTHING I stopped the clock at the 23 second mark. In our test drive with the Pink Mini, it took Christian and I 23 seconds to jump to our top speed of 60 MPH and cross the finish at the 1/4 mile marker.

I looked at the marker where the GTI had reached in the same amount of time and was surprised to discover that it had LITERALLY traveled DOUBLE what the Pink Mini had traveled in the same amount of time. 1/2 a Mile in 23 Seconds. Not too shabby considering that had been the driver’s “practice run” with me sitting as a passenger.

After our fun at the test track we moved to our second track of the day. This was a go-karting track but don’t let these karts fool you. These zippy little speed-demons were designed for optimum speed around the sharp, tight turns and rollbacks found on the racetrack. Christian and I wasted no time and jumped in the Pink Mini and blasted around the track. The GTI also had his fun around the track and between the two cars the sounds of the screeching tires could be heard from the distance.

The sun began to set as the Pink Mini was pitted against it’s last and final nemesis for the day…a go-kart. Christian was up for the challenge and began utilizing his lack of power steering and loud rocket ship like sound effects from the Classic car to rev up his own driving abilities.

I’m pretty sure we could have been the next episode of Tokyo Drift…

I also felt myself getting a bit sick from all the tight turns so I was glad when the sun set and our time on the track was done. You can watch the two videos below: