Magazine Articles ... Michael Crowley's Subaru WRX Impreza
This story appeared in the Dec 99 Performance Car Yearbook.
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The text is real hard to read on this background so here it is ...
If you're writing the story, you'd better go for a drive ... so said Michael Crowley, the owner of this tasty STi WRX WRC replica. I clamber over the roll cage and squeeze into the racing seat, and do up the heavy duty race harness.
The engine rumbles into life with that burble Subarus are famous for....this thing is loud - no interior lining and a whopper exhaust so to that. As I burble along in the Auckland traffic, I feel everybody staring at me ... or maybe the car.
Taking the chance as I pull away from traffic lights, I slam the "go" pedal to the floor. The revs build past 4000, and the giant T04 turbo cuts in. All four wheels loose grip on the slightly damp tarmac, and the engine howls to 7000. Here I chicken out going any harder, seeing as it's rush hour (and Michael is only a hundred metres behind me in my car!)
You'd think a standard 1998 Subaru STi RA (the lightened race version) would satisfy anyone's appetite for a killer car - around 5 seconds from standstill to the legal limit, 13 second quarter mile times, four wheel drive traction and roadholding equal to the best. Not so Michael Crowley and the team at Crowley Racing Developments.
Taking Barry Tomlinson's old circuit racing car, the entered last year's Targa with high hopes. Teaming up with co-driver, father Graeme Crowley, things were going extremely well until they lost steering on a corner ... the road (continues next page...)