Road & Track's 2017 Performance Car of the Year

THE SUN HAS BECOME STACCATO, a stippled Dopplering twinkle through a fast-forward canopy of trees, accelerated from a single scene into a 24-frame-per-second motion picture by the Porsche 911 Turbo S and the politely muted howl of its 580-hp twin-turbo flat-six.

We are on a road that seems to connect no two particular places in the most serpentine manner possible. There's a sharp crest ahead, and the Turbo's front wheels briefly skip-squeak as they settle on the back side of it before I pick up the throttle once more. At the bottom of the next hill, halfway through a fast fourth-gear right-hander, a dip in the pavement sends a dampened whomp through the cockpit, and I'm required to briefly cross wrists first to the left then the right, canceling this unscheduled oscillation before it flings me into the woods at a velocity sure to be terminal.

Distant in my mirrors I see the Lotus Evora, its gaping maw hunting creases on the broken pavement under braking, then lifting just a bit as it finds grip at corner exit. There are rules we follow on these drives, and one of the rules is that you maintain visual contact with the car behind you. So far, I have followed the spirit of the law, if not its letter. But the teenager in me, the afternoon-detention troublemaker who surreptitiously thumbed through the pages of this magazine when he was supposed to be paying attention in his high-school literature class, chafes at this and every other rubric laid upon me by entities as diverse as the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and Newton himself.

Wordsworth tells us that the child is father of the man. So how can I reject the demands of that careless, causeless 16-year-old rebel whose ancestral decisions set me on the path to being behind the wheel of this very car at this very moment? With the flick of a left-hand paddle, I snag third gear, pin the throttle to the stop, and let the Turbo's locomotive torque complete the jump to hyperspace. Goodbye, Evora. Goodbye, rules.

Fifteen minutes later, I come to a stop in the middle of nowhere and step out. Smoke billows from the carbon-ceramic brakes, swirling all around me. Up to the trees and past them, up to the light that shines dappled on me and the yellow fastback that pings and pops as the superheated metal within cools down to the temperature of the forest floor. Then I'm back behind the wheel and moving again, waiting for the Lotus in the mirror. I put away childish things, as the apostle Paul said. I am ready once again to abide by the rules. There is work to be done.

THIS IS PCOTY, our Performance Car of the Year group test. Entrants must be new or significantly revised for 2017, and they must be traditionally shaped cars that push the limits of high performance on both road and track. That means no high-power crossovers, no hot hatches, and no rally replicas.

The test spans four days, two of which are dedicated to the fast back roads of Kentucky and Tennessee and two of which are spent on track at NCM Motorsports Park.

Although we invite every car that fits the criteria, some manufacturers are unable to meet our scheduling requirements and others are unwilling to expose their products to the harsh light of open competition. This year, we had nine contenders answer the bell (Here's what happened to the 10th contender). We chose the winner through two rounds of balloting among our 10 editors. Although we record lap times at NCM and take a few other performance measurements, this is neither a fastest-lap contest nor a battle for spec-sheet supremacy. Our goal is to find the car that best stirs the emotions, captivates the driver, and boldly faces the future. We measure with the stopwatch, and we evaluate with the mind, but in the end, we will choose with the heart.

OUR DRIVERS' MEETING takes place at sunrise, in a small parking lot just outside Kentucky's Berea College. After deputy editor Joe DeMatio gives us marching orders for the day, we fire up, form up, and prepare to head down the main drag out of town. Any of these cars would draw attention on their own, but as a candy-colored convoy, they draw a steady, antlike stream of interest from the sweat-shirted students and reluctantly caffeinated faculty on their way to class. There's plenty to catch the eye, from the bewinged cobalt-blue Jaguar F-type to the wasp-waisted Lotus Evora in bright orange, but for the college crowd, the wine-red Acura NSX is definitely primus inter pares, the belle of the ball.

I pull out of the parking lot behind the wheel of Honda's long-awaited supercar redux, electric on the avenue as the casual crowd crackles with anticipation, iPhones held high on both sides of the street. The familiarity generated by the NSX's continual presence in the media over the past year has clearly not bred any contempt in these eager young faces. Nor am I personally daunted by the odd combination of the wide-body interior and the workaday switchgear, much of it familiar from the Acura TLX sedan.

It is difficult to be the target of 50 cameraphones and not feel an urge to perform in some fashion. I don't know how to engage the NSX's Launch mode, but I can twist the center-stack knob to Sport Plus, floor the throttle against the straining brakes, and chirp all four tires from a standing start. There is a cacophony of mechanical inputs and interrupts, followed by a cheer from the people who have instantly receded into the rearview.

A few minutes later, with the town safely behind us and clear air ahead, the pace quickens, each of us stretching the legs of our mounts on the straights, then testing for grip on corner entry. It's soon apparent that at no point today will we be troubling the outer limits of the Acura NSX. Tellingly, there is no eco mode in this hybrid automobile, just three different sporting selections and a "quiet" program in which the exterior noises are muted and the engine will occasionally shut off, with seemingly little effect on forward progress.