There’s a lot of “stopping” going on in the latest Grassroots Motorsports (GRM) installment of its “Path to the Podium” YouTube video series, where GRM builds a Club Spec Mustang with eyes on attending (and hopefully finishing on the podium at) the 2026 Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack National Championship. There’s also collaboration in this video, since GRM is working with SCCA on the project; and listening, as you listen to GRM analyze before-and-after data they captured at the track.
With Time Attack Nationals coming up quickly (Oct. 22-25 at Eagles Canyon Raceway in Decatur, TX), GRM is hard at work prepping its car for the event, with past video installments including the installation of a seat, half cage, and differential. The most recent upgrade the GRM team has completed is a Brembo big brake kit off a Ford Mustang GT500.
“You know, to go fast, sometimes you have to slow down – that is why, today, we are in the shop installing a big brake kit on our 2006 Club Spec Mustang,” GRM’s Tech Editor JG Pasterjak says in the video’s introduction. Pasterjak then compares the stock setup to the Brembos, explains why the Mustang benefits from this brake upgrade, and shows how to bolt up the new parts. The GRM crew then heads to the track to gather “after” data to show what better brakes translate to in the real world.
The initial comparison saw the stock brake calipers and rotors with performance pads vs. the big Brembo setup with OE-equivalent pads.
“What we found out is the base Mustang Club Spec brakes … stop pretty good with some good pads, they just don’t do it for a very long time,” Pasterjak said after they returned from the track. “It was very easy to cook [the stock brakes] from a thermal perspective, and what we see is at the next-to-last corner section [at the track] we start losing braking effectiveness.”
GRM then installed aggressive brake pads on the Brembo setup and the results were stark.
“We picked up almost two seconds by the time we got our braking squared away,” he said. “We’re seeing the ability to go way deeper into the corners before we’re hitting the brakes, and hit the same entry speeds at the end of those corners. We’re seeing the ability to come off and back on to the brakes in corners that require a little more nuance. We’re also seeing a lot more thermal capacity because we’re not seeing any evidence of fade on our best lap.”
GRM then gets into how it staggered brake compounds to dial in braking performance. If you want to know how, watch the video:
Photo courtesy Grassroots Motorsports YouTube Channel
