My Diaries

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

Saturday August 21, 1999

Race-modded '94 Impreza Wagon WRX Wins at Grand Valley

Well, since I'm contemplating buying an Impreza Wagon, I've been test-driving the Gran Turismo versions quite a bit lately, although I used Dave Connoy's FAQ to pick the one with the best statistics, which happens to be the 1994 WRX.

A nice "active red" tuned version won UKvsJP (although I did quite badly at Trial Mountain II), and also the Hard-Tuned Series twice (though I lost Autumn Ring II both times, but did nicely control and win Grand Valley II). A race-modded version swept all poles and races at the GT World Cup, just barely qualifying first at Deep Forest.

So, I decided to try that car in the Grand Valley 300.

Results:

So, I got the lead at the end of lap one, after bad negotiation of the first two hairpins. I never lost the lead after that. This was a relatively fast field, so it was lap 12 before I first lapped the last-placed car. I lapped the field by lap 20, and delayed my next pitstop by one laps in order to keep my lead (I had lost some time on lap 21 on the sharp corner before the first tunnel). The strategy worked. I ended up in a similar situation on lap 49, and staying out until lap 50 kept me ahead of cars I had recently passed, and probably helped me to lap the entire field three times just before the end.

Nonetheless, my time was not excessively fast, although it was my fastest time with any car except the North American Comcept Car or a GTO twinturbo. My usual laps times were 1:34's and 1:35's.

I won Cr300,000, and a black/blue Castrol Supra GT.