My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Thu Apr 22, 1999

RX7 LM Edition can give the Cerbera LM a run for its money

Well, the RX7 LM Edition is both pleasant to drive, and reasonably fast. It didn't seem ideal at the Grand Valley 300, taking slightly longer than the Cerbera LM did, with 12 lap pitstops being a bit of a stretch.

red RX7 LM Edition Grand Valley 300km Endurance Race

Results:

I had two spinouts, and a couple of near ones. (wheels in gravel) As you can tell, I lapped the entire field twice, and the Lantis five times. (Lantis average lap time was 1:48 or so, i.e. 108 seconds; 5*108 = 540 seconds, so it still had five laps to do when I was done).

Of course, I won Cr300,000 plus a black/blue Castrol Supra GT.

Note the strength and competitiveness of the field. Previously there have always been two or three "turtles" or near-turtles. The finishing time was actually over twenty seconds slower than the Cerbera LM had managed. (1-38.03.8)

As an additional note, after observations during practice I began running this car with 5F/4R stabilizer settings. It seems to help prevent tail-slides.

Encouraged by this, I felt the RX7 should be able to set some more records in the UKvsJP. Here's the results, in a session with minimal practice runs.

This won the series, 45 to 30, and won a green Cerbera .

The next Grand Valley 300 contender will be the Mitsubishi special model, the GTO LM. This is a tubby, heavy, 4wd model with lots of torque. In Time Trial practice at Grand Valley, it had trouble beating the Mitsubishi Eclipse ghost. But it seems more promising than the NSX-R LM GT2. It recovers nicely after bumps, etc. So this seems to be a car which might come between second and fifth in the GV300, to help me fill in the prize money grid.

The GTO LM swept the UKvsJP, setting no records, winning 45 to 28, and winning a green Cerbera LM.