Picking a Winner: Gabe Gutierrez’s 2018 AIX Mustang

When NASA Great Lakes racer Gabe Gutierrez wanted to add to his stable of racing Mustangs, he looked no further than Poe Motorsports, which had built the lime green 2018 Mustang GT you see here fitted with the GT350R front end on it. Gutierrez already owns one of 50 factory-built 2017 FP350S Mustang racecars, so this was a perfect addition to the Ganar Racing stable.

The Ganar Racing team name comes from his first initial G, combined with Ana, his wife’s first name and her middle initial R, to form the Spanish infinitive “ganar,” which means “to win.” And isn’t that the whole point of racing?

Guttierrez has been putting the car to good use in American Iron Extreme, and because there is less competition in that class in the Great Lakes Region, which is often because there are only a few AIX cars in Great Lakes, he’ll be sliding over into Super Touring 2.

“The competition in ST2 two is going be tough because there are some people that have been doing this for, for many, many years, but that’s what I’m looking for. Right? I’m, I’m looking to, to learn and improve,” Gutierrez said. “I think my car will be capable to be in the front, but it’s just a matter of driving.”

“When I look at his times versus my times, we were close, but it is just a matter of me working on the starts,” said Gutierrez, a native of Colombia. “The starts are my biggest pain point right now. During the start of the races, I got behind slower cars. And that just killed me because I just didn’t have a good position. And when I did that, then a lot of cars passed me and it was just playing catch up after that. But that’s part of the learning process, right? This is my second year racing.”

Of course, Gutierrez is a racer and he’s always looking for that next car, and another American Iron Mustang has caught his eye, so this lime-green Mustang has gone up for sale for $55,000 since we photographed it in 2021. He said his wife won’t let him have three racecars, so this one will be sold, and he’ll be keeping the FP350S.

“This car is awesome. I’m really enjoying it. The car is very reliable, Gutierrrez said. “I haven’t really had any issues with it. I was telling you about me playing with alignment last year. I just had to do something. So I contacted the Capaldi Racing guys and had them do the clutch work and I had them do the alignment and corner balance because we were changing some of the weights around the car.

“Once we got that work done, the car just came to life, and I was able to focus on my confidence level in the car,” he said. “I’m very happy with the way that it drives and the way that it handles at the racetrack. And it’s really quick. I mean, it is really, really, really quick. I was able to, based on lap time, I’m able to keep up with the guys in the front. So I just need to work on my  starts and my racecraft, but the car is capable.”