Quote Originally Posted by Jun aka Pekto
Take a look at this which is the Silver State Classic (which I've watched yearly, except the last couple of times) race. It's an all-out pedal to the metal race over 90 miles of public highway. Notice the big majority of winners in big-engined cars. Even vaunted cars like the STi would be overwhelmed:
Silver State Challenge
Are you kidding me? First of all, the main winners are usually things like Corvettes. You're talking sub supercars here. And a vehicle that is completely non-representative of American cars or Chevrolet. You actually were shocked to see a Nissan 350Z trail the Vettes, Vipers, Porsche GT3's, and Ferraris?

Second, US highways are gigantic straight lines that maybe have a few kinks here and there. What little time the Jap and Euro cars could make up in handling is blasted away by the HP of the American cars. HP that they likely acheived with nearly double the displacement.

Put a Mustang on the Nürburgring against an STi and see what happens there.