I can assure you guys of one thing, what
@Nismonath5 did to you guys by going 3 seconds faster has been dealt with...
I chopped 2.9 seconds off what he did.
So yeah, the sandbags were nowhere near the cars, although the inevitable flood of tears will put them to good use.
Having said that, I need to get these writes up done and there's no time like the present to do so.
Let's start with the car that I drove at my Induction to the COTW Hall Of Fame, the 1993 Nissan Skyline R32 GTR V Spec N1.
Now in the past I've mentioned the whole Japanese Horsepower Agreement which meant cars couldn't have more than 276hp (Which many cars ended up breaking anyway.) so I won't touch on it too much, But the R32 also had more power than advertised, around or over 300hp from the legendary 2.6 Inline 6 with twin turbocharging.
The engine, whilst high reving didn't like making power up there in stock trim so shifting through the 5 speed gearbox lower down the revs was the better option.
Handling was quite nice, Nissan made that its main objective when max power was capped so it was equipped with all wheel drive which had Nissan's ATTESA system and a light weight body(compared to its successors which weighed more than 1500+Kgs.) keeping the weight safely under 1500kgs.
As for the racing on the night, good battles up and down the field and of course the battle at Monaco in a battle of the hall of famers against
@Baron Blitz Red was a damn good race. 👍
We also took some time to race its championship dominating, blue race counterpart the Calsonic R32 GTR.
Packing well over 500hp in a stripped out body with all wheel drive, the Calsonic was fast and quite stable, admittedly that last part I didn't get the memo about as I was throwing that car around Fuji like nobodies business.
It was quick accelerating, handled great and had a set of brakes you could really jump on and know that it'll stop you rather rapidly.
Normally a cars reputation or iconic status can make it harder to claim Sleeper status because of the expectations you have going in for it, but both R32's hold up that very reputation very well.
Both R32's: Sleeper(s)
👍
Now on to the BMW 120i.
Put simply, not utterly terrible, but made pointless by its more superior Diesel brother which we reviewed in the past so a good number of things said there could be relevant to this too, only less powerful.
Verdict: Beater 👎
Now on to a F1 and a Honda, not an Honda F1 mind you as most of us wouldn't even finish a race.
I joke of course because Alonso did slam home a belter of a race before the F1 break and that was worthy of praise.
So we'll get the F1 rocketship out the way first, I opened up the tyre choices because I rather have guys/girls stay and race than not and not.
Packing a 3.5 litre V12 making nearly 900hp and capable of 18,000rpm, the FGT can accelerate like a rocket through its 7 speed semi automatic gearbox to its gear limited top speed of around 220mph.
Because it's being built from the ground up by PD it has a few banned options like ABS, TCS and even Launch Control.
Handling is one heck of a tricksy mistress, it requires your complete attention and even then it'll happily take a pool cue to your family jewels if your level of talent isn't enough for it.
Happily this is where many nights of sorta training you guys paid off for me, you guys didn't rage quit like I sorta expected to happen and were quite capable of holding it on the track.
We even ran a mini enduro race at Monza and again you guys held your own for the most part so for that I thank you, Thank you for paying attention and improving your driving limits that much further.
Also on the Saturday meet up, we had someone from on here join us and it turns out he runs or is part of a group that runs FGT races and from my racing time with him, a very capable FGT racer and his name was
@DestenDeath2.
As for the Formula GT, it's still an incredible machine, but the likes of the Lotus 97T and the RBX cars have taken the shine off its abilities.
Verdict: Neutral
And last but definitely not least, the 1995' Honda Civic Sir ll.
The car that's the butt of all the Ricer jokes and is the car most think of when the subject of Ricers come up.
Is there truth to it? Of course, stereotypes always have some degree of truth to them, but does that mean that it's a terrible car??
If the racings anything to go by, it's not even remotely terrible.
Powering the front wheels is a 1.6 litre 4 cylinder engine making around 170hp which is sent through a 5 speed gearbox.
Weighing in at just over a ton, it felt very agile despite a 59-41 weight distribution and it seemed to inspire one Kiwi to go hell for leather in it.
Anyone who saw the results from the Bathurst race will know the ending and how bonkers it was, but to the ones who reviewed it afterwards, you can see more and more details which made that battle that little bit more epic.
At no point could either of us relax, me because Nismo had a tyre advantage on me and Nismo because of me being tenacious as hell and also because both of us had to keep planning for all possibilitys.
Example A: I was behind Nismo going up the mountain on the last lap which meant I was up against it and he may well have pulled off the escape had I not cut the perfect line through Forrest Elbow and got back into slipstreaming range.
Example B: Last corner on laps 3 & 4, Nismo had the line and put me on the outside for the turn which put me in the risky spot of trying an outside pass, on the last lap we were in the same spot, but this time I jumped across to the inside and got the line for the turn.
Then it became a drag race to the line which ended in a literal dead heat, fun thing I noticed is each lap before the last one we were getting closer to each other everytime we crossed the finish line.
There's likely much more to notice in that battle, but here's the cliff notes, there's a damn good reason the EG Civic is well liked by tuners, it's a brilliant base for a project car and is a very capable machine when tuned right.
And don't take my word for it, just ask the guy who nominated it for this week.
Verdict: Sleeper 👍
This was one of the ones I really wanted, alongside the Challenger, R32, R33, RX-7 and Prius.
