Racing my WRX at Sendai Hi land circuit

the team

Today I took my ver 5. STI out for a spin at Sendai Hi-land circuit with Stu and some mates who work at my gym. These guys are all pretty serious and driving some real weapons including 2 r34 GTR's, Imprezas, RX-7 FD and an EVO 4. With horse power ranging from over 500 down to my lowly 280 pony's.Our cars all lined up gettin ready for action

Tanakasan's r34 gtr. 450hp eye candy!

The circuit is about 2 hours drive from my place here in Fukushima and quite high up in the mountains. As we got there the place was in thick fog and visibility was sometimes down to around 100 meters and a little rain. After signing up and a quick briefing we were out on the track. Unfortunatly the strict rules of this circuit don't allow passengers to ride along in the car, so poor Stu had to sit on the sideline and take photos for me.

me coming in for a pit stop

The track itself is very wide and great fun, with two main straights and lots of tricky corners. As I'm more used to racing/drifting my rx-7 fc this was quite a different experience for me. But the car handled pretty good all day. Didn't have any engine problems, although I would prefer some tires with a bit more grip and better breaks oh and a bit more power wouldn't go astray either. But plenty good enough to begin with and provided plenty of fun.Perfect example of why photo's are better than video!!
me kickin that gtr's ass to the finish line! what? no, he's not overtaking me!...

The cost for a full day of racing here comes to about 8,000yen or about $80 aud not including petrol of course. It's $10 to get in then another 10'er for a lap time counter, then 3 bucks per lap. My best lap time for the day was 2mins 28sec and the GTR7s running somewhere around 2min10sec. Later in the day, Stu's mate Kanazawasan rocked up with his monster r34 gtr. He was getting a bit of practice in before a race here in a couple of days. The beast made an awesome sound as it roared up behind me on the track and spitting fire out the exhaust at me as I was getting past.
Hopfully next time Stu will bring his wrx so we can have a bit of better matched performance competition. Or I could always just drop 50k into my wrx and take on the big boys. hmm...