INITIALIZING
No production based car has lapped Circuit of the Americas in under two minutes. Louis Gigliotti Racing and driver Allen Patten are building toward the first, one development round at a time. The attempt comes this December.
LGR · PATTEN · COTA · DECEMBER
THE GOAL
A builder who never stopped building, a driver who never stops driving, and the car that carries the number for both of them.
Raised in the paddock by a father who raced Corvettes, Louis was welding race car chassis at ten and building headers by hand before he left high school. World Challenge, Grand Am, IMSA, decades of it. Today he runs LGR, one of the last shops in the country still building complete race cars from raw material. This record is the idea he has been circling for years.
Allen came to the sport late and closed the gap with seat time. He races IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and SRO full time, tests in between, and drives more laps in a season than most see in three. He gives the car everything it asks for and reports back with precision. He and Louis built an entire race car on a single phone call. Everything since has been text messages and trust.
It began life as a street car with a VIN and a warranty. It is now 950 supercharged horsepower through a MoTeC managed LT4, an Emco sequential, and aero developed one event at a time. Undefeated in Street Mod in 2024. Swept Track Mod in 2025. Now it runs Unlimited, where the only opponent left is the clock.
A stock bottom end LT4 under an LT5 supercharger, sending 950 horsepower through a sequential gearbox. MoTeC runs the engine, Bosch handles the ABS, Penske carries the corners, and the aero was developed one event at a time. It is a race car by every measure except the one that matters here: on paper, it is still a production car.
"Time attack is just a number. It's a lap time. You're in a race against yourself and the track. There's no one else."
Purpose built race cars have gone under two minutes at Circuit of the Americas. A production based car, a car that began life with a VIN, never has. Sledgehammer follows Louis Gigliotti Racing and driver Allen Patten as they chase the first, a supercharged Corvette against 3.41 miles of track and one number that refuses to fall.
The road there runs through a development season disguised as a race calendar. GRIDLIFE Unlimited Time Attack at Watkins Glen. SCCA at Eagles Canyon. NASA at Virginia International Raceway. None of it is about trophies. Every session is a test, every failure is data, and the Glen made sure there was plenty of data.
Between rounds the film lives inside LGR, one of the last shops in the country still doing full car builds under one roof. Fabrication, engine management, aero, all of it in house, all of it pointed at one run in December. Everything before that run is preparation.
Twenty turns in 3.41 miles. A 133 foot climb into a blind apex at Turn 1, an esses sequence that punishes hesitation, and a back straight long enough to make every horsepower claim honest. Breaking two minutes here means averaging better than 102 miles per hour over the entire lap. There is nowhere to rest and nowhere to hide.
In an era of catalog race cars, LGR still builds from raw material. Tube, weld, wire, and math. The film documents a kind of shop that is quietly disappearing, run by a builder who grew up welding race cars before he could drive one.
Watkins Glen, Eagles Canyon, VIR. Events entered not to win but to learn. When the car breaks, that's the data. When it doesn't, turn the power up and find the next limit. The season is a lab with grandstands.
December. One car, one driver, one lap under two minutes, or not. There is no championship to fall back on and no second season planned around it. The number either falls or it doesn't, and the cameras will be there either way.
Sledgehammer is filming now, through the December record attempt. Members follow the build as it happens and see the film first.
