In the interest of getting to know the readers a bit better (and have them get to know me a bit better), I wanted to pose a couple of questions:

What was your first race car?  (If you have never raced, what was the first car that really captured your imagination?)

My first race car was a 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS.  This was the first generation chassis, and it was a 4-door manual.  I beat this car up at autocrosses, rallycrosses, off-pavement TSD rallies, and track days.  It was put into service at the end of 2000 and retired from service at the end of 2005.

This car was pretty darn gutless, but it was also incredibly stable on-throttle.  Even on packed snow, you could just stand on it.

It was a great starter car, but it also taught horrible driving habits.  The only real incident the car suffered was the result of a miscommunication between my co-driver and I on a winter rally (oh… turn here!)… I put the car into a snow bank, but backed right out and kept on going.

If Subaru would sell me a new one of these, I’d buy it.


What is your favorite race car?  (I’d prefer that we stick to cars we have raced if possible, but like above expand the horizons if necessary.)

My favorite race car is a tough one.  I’d call it a draw between the Honda S2000 and the 82 Reynard Formula Ford, except I bought the S2000 already set up and I’ve developed the Reynard myself.

Thus, the Reynard gets the nod.  Formula Fords were a starting point for F1 drivers for a reason.  The cars are agile, offer good grip, and don’t have enough power to really get yourself in trouble.

The lack of power rewards good driving habits making the car a bit of a “trainer”.  I’ve had friends drive my car and compare it to a video game, which really is kind of true.  You give an input and the car makes it happen right now.  It is therapeutic to pull over 1.5g’s on flat pavement and this car is an inexpensive way to do this.

Even after a full season of driving it, I still sometimes have so much adrenaline running through me that I can’t stand up after I get out of the car.

Those are my answers… what about yours?

2 thoughts on “Memories.

  1. My first race car (if you could call it that… i didn’t do much more than autox) was a 1989 mazda rx7 (non-turbo, that would come later) i joined up with a couple local autoX clubs and did some runs. the suspension wasn’t anything to call home about out of the box. but if you wanted to get competitive there were lots of options available. not to mention mazda has a great motorsports support system in place. the thing i particularly loved about the car was how smooth the power was.. it WANTED to rev to the moon and back. i had a friend comment on the rx7 they had just bought, that they weren’t sure when to shift because the power was so smooth. i later got a turbo model of roughly the same year, and had planned to do lapping days and hopefully get into some race series with it, but the motor had other plans, and packed it in early.. i couldn’t afford a new one so i parted the car out unfortunately..

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