My Diaries

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

Wed Apr 28, 1999

The Much-Maligned Prize RX-7 A spec LM Edition Wins at Grand Valley

It was with some trepidation I took the RX-7 A spec LM Edition (the rarer prize in the UKvsUS series; I used the green version) to the Grand Valley 300. I had seen it maligned in several places, and certainly its statistics implied it should come up short of the excellent special model RX-7 LM Edition. In my early test runs, the car seemed no better than the Chaser LM, or even an Eclipse GT.

Well, this is one car which you need to learn to drive specially. Even in the early tests this car, unlike the Chaser LM, gave an indication that it did have more potential which I was failing to unleash. I ended up doing lots of USvsJP runs with this car, partly to see if I could get another green-striped Viper. (It won all three other cars, but not the green-striped Viper). With all the practice I did, I think the race result represents, one might say, a "more than fair" evaluation of the car.

green RX-7 A spec Lm Edition (prize car) Grand Valley 300km Endurance Race

Results:

So, all-in-all, this car did quite well. Its worst problem was that it seemed to eat tires quite quickly, necessitating the five stop strategy, which worked quite well.

There was an early fight for the lead, but I basically kept the lead after lap 3. I lost the lead briefly after my first pit stop, but regained it quickly a couple of laps later, before the competitors had even taken their pit stops. The competitors then took their stops (late as usual) and from then on I was in control of the race.

I had a couple of disasters, especially when trying to pass stragglers. When I accidentally focussed on the competitor rather than my own car, I would lapse into habits appropriate for "more generic" cars, and, as a result, more than once turned too early.

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

To reiterate, this car underlines the fact that, in Gran Turismo, practising with one car can be "un-practice" for other cars. This cars steering was generally precise and responsive, and that took some getting used to when used to cars which I needed to turn early into turns, for instance.

Both before and after the race I substantially improved my time trial times with the RX-7 A spec, getting them down to the range of the better special models. at 3:14.xxx

The next Grand Valley 300 entrant will be the prize Viper GTS-R. This is not one of my favourite cars. I much prefer a race-modified normal Viper GTS, since it seems to have more spirit. I adjusted the 7-speed on the GTS-R so that all gears are properly in range and will see if I can make proper use of it for this race. (And in preparatory International Series warm-ups). Early time trials do not look promising as I'm having difficulty getting below the 3:20 time trial which seems to be an indication of the necessary competitiveness to win this event.

Oh well, I have taxes to do so I'll not do the GV300 until the weekend probably, and concentrate on practice in the meantime.