Yesterday it was the Focus ST Owners Club run out in the dales. I took the WR1 along to show them which they were impressed at.
The subaru is an amazing car on the back roads and having got used to the car I was taking it for granted. I wasnt driving at the limits of the car or myself but still the guys behind me in the ST's were all over the place trying to keep up. The power is there when you need it if you keep it in the right gear. Many of the turbo conversion ST drivers said that by the time their turbos had kicked in, that I had gone and was already braking.
I had a play with a Cayman S that joined us which was a very nice car to look at. It wasnt quite as quick as the WR1 but held its own very well and was noticeably better than the focus's.
There was an Astra VXR that had been tweaked to 320bhp that looked and sounded okay compared to a standard one. Although it had quite major torque steer.
After lunch a guy joined in the rest of the run in an Audi. He was right behind me when we set off so I gave it some stick to see if he could keep up. On the straights the car was very quick and closed up on me quite quickly. On the corners it didnt do very well as it seemed to understeer quite a lot.
When we stopped i said tell me thats not a diesel quattro audi. He said no its an 07 RS4. I looked at the back and under the bonnet and sure enough it was an RS4. He said that subaru is bloody quick on these roads. He said like the others that his power came in too late. He had to ease off just as the power came in whilst i was gone and braking. The car apparently revs to 9k RPM and was standard. It has a second kick at 5k rpm which kept throwing the car out on country roads as when it came in he was having to slow down for the next corner.. Interesting to hear his views on it all. The car looks a lot heavier so might explain some of the understeer. All in all it was a nice car but sadly for a 4.2 V8 very quiet even at higher speeds. I was hoping to hear the roar of a V8 but it didnt happen.
Here are the pics from the day - enjoy.
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