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Well, I went to Autosport 2007. Took a boat load of photos as per normal - name a car and I've probably got a photo of it.
Anyhoo, it was the usual affair really, pretty much the same as last year, though a few notible nice additions were the BP Ultimate 102 Rolling road where they ragged a GT3 on a set of rollers running two different fuels showing you the improvement.
However, the real highlight for me was on the Subaru stand. The RB320 - absolute beast of a car. Whilst drooling around it, I noticed a sign on the top saying you could test drive it if you made a £50 donation to the Richard Burns Foundation. Well, it'd be rude not to...
So, I find myself in a coach with 30 odd other people on the way to Prodrive. As well as being given the keys to the RB320, you get to drive the current Legacy, Forester and Impreza STi on various tracks and surfaces with a Prodrive instructor driver.
First of all I was shown a strip of road about 4 car widths wide, and a couple of hundred meters long. It's an unusual surface which when sprayed with water changes into something resembling black ice... I strapped myself into the Forester and was told to try and drive around a set of imaginary cones, and to try and drift down the strip. Well, it took a couple of goes to get the hang of it, but once you get the control right, what a laugh that was!You can really hang the rear out though it's damn easy to go that little bit too far, and 180 it.
That's when it goes scary though, should you slide off the skidpan section suddenly you get a whole lot a grip, and there were a couple of moments when I thought I was going to stack it!
After that we took the Forester onto what can only be described as a circular skid pan, only this time the surface is 3 times more slippy than black ice.... The idea is to drive in a circle clockwise getting a feel for understeer. Then, when you're not expecting it, the instructor yanks the handbrake on and you have to deal with the resulting oversteer. Get it right though and you can hold the slide though it's not long before the cars idiot light comes on and starts sorting things out for you. Boo
Next up it was the bad boy... the RB320. We were taken over to the track itself. I say track loosely, it's two white lines on what can be only described as B road surface tarmac. It's got potholes, bumps and lumps, no braking markers or corner lines - just two white lines and a few cones. It's a fun yet fairly simple track but more than enough to give you a real feel for what the RB320 is about without fear for your driving licence... and I tell you now, take one on the road and you might as well rip it into pieces and cast it to the wind...
It's... A... Bullet...
Once you hit the magic 4000ish RPM the turbo really comes on song and you get nailed into the seat with the rush of torque, and before you know it, the shiftlights flashing and it's time to grab the next gear and do it all over again. On the circuit I personally never got any higher than 4th gear, though we were seeing speeds way in excess of 3 figures. The ride was firm yet it was never intrusive despite the poor surface at points. Corners might as well not of existed - it's very forgiving and somewhat unnerving as to how much corner speed you can carry in initially without it breaking traction. The huge Brembos up front deliver plenty of stopping power should you need it, and they stood up to being battered around the track pretty well with no sense of fade (though they stank after pulling up and getting out!) The noise was interesting - not the normal burble from the Scooby flat 4, but instead a lot more of a roaring/rushing noise which I think was mainly the tyres on the poor surface. None of the other cars made that noise so I can't be sure if it was tyre noise really - but either way it's addictive and you can't help but grin whilst listening, and it positively encourages you to push on harder.
After a few high speed laps we pull in to let things cool off, and hop into a Legacy to do more of the same. This particular example was an auto which was a slight disappointment, since the autobox had a noticeable lag when asking the car to make progress. You had to predict the lag and factor this in on corner exit when trying to get the most from it. Still, it was a comfortable cruise that didn't hang around though to be honest after the RB320 a ride on a cruise missile would seem sedate.
The final drive for the day was in an Impreza STi on a twisting track which is set up to replicate a tarmac rally stage. There's virtually no straights apart from one which only a couple of hundred yards long at best, instead it's all tight corners so you're mainly spending all your time in 2nd and 3rd gear. There's no doubt about it, this was a challenging track which I personally had difficulties learning the correct line on. As it happened I was just about getting confident with the lines when I had to come off, but in the meanwhile I did get to appreciate the skill involved in navigating a testing set of corners, trying to keep the steering to an absolute minimum and keep your corner exit speeds high. There was also a mini jump - I managed to injure my rear passenger by banging his head on landing.
The car drove pretty much like it's limited edition stable mate, only the 4,000rpm surge was less pronounced. Afterwards the instructor took me out on the stage to show me how hard you can really push the car. Again the grip was amazing - you just keep putting the power down and somehow you end up around the corner in one piece.
Anyway, congrats for making it this far. I've got some pics of the RB and the other stuff if anyone wants to see them. I'll have to resize them and post them up in a bit.
All in all, a top experience for £50 - and if you're ever offered a drive in one of those silly Scoobs, definately take it!
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Wish we had events like that round here, there's Mercedes Benz World, and I'd love to get behind the wheel of an AMG SLK, but it's about £100 
Originally Posted by The Quentos
). Still, will be fun working with them!
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