DC Sports' World Challenge Team: August '98
Within the Integra Type R community, there are few cars more famous than the ones campaigned in the Speedvision Touring Car series, aka the World Challenge. The ITR was introduced to the series in 1998 and it immediately stole the show. A three-way battle broke out between Michael Galati and Pierre Kleinubing in their orange and white Realtime cars and the DC Sports car seen here, driven by Lance Stewart. Lance went into the final round with four wins and the points lead, but dropped out with a mechanical failure giving the championship to Galati. We met up with the DC Sports Team at Buttonwillow Raceway during preseason testing. The freshly built cars were immaculate and the accompanying transporter was pretty sharp too. Those were good times.
Abel Ibarra's '72 Mazda R100: July '97
The RX-7s of Abel Ibarra and Adam Saruwatari may have been more famous and marketable, but this little rotary-powered R100 was running deep in the 8s long before Adam's head was plastered to the back of every issue of SCC. It was beautiful even while sitting still. The tinwork and paint were years ahead of their time, even in a car that was already a classic. The top tuners from the West Coast, East Coast, and even Puerto Rico all applied their knowledge and expertise into the build. It was a thrill to watch the tiny car with its massive slicks rocket down the strip. The turbocharged rotary and sequential clutchless-shift transmission screamed all the way from the staging lights through the traps. Years later, in 2003, Abel's R100 was the first sport compact car inducted into the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum.
Mr. Chen's Wild Ride In A Mig-15: February '08
Every respectable car magazine out there has done the jet fighter test. For example, the recent Bugatti Veyron versus Eurofighter shootout Top Gear did was pretty good. One problem though: All of our project cars are old junkers. The Veyron would smoke us. Luckily we found an old junker of a fighter to race against-a Korean War era MiG-15. Even better, Red Bull sponsored it. Before we knew what was going on, the guys at Vermont SportsCar had towed Travis Pastrana's Rally America STI across the country for us and Rhys Millen was doing donuts. Of course everything went horribly wrong. We duct taped our MaxQ Data telemetry system to Engineering Editor Chen's helmet and stuffed him in the back seat of the MiG. Unfortunately, the GPS system shut off at 200 mph since the government doesn't want it used for guided missile navigation. Still, it was pretty obvious that the MiG was much faster than either Rhys' Solstice or Travis' WRX. Next time maybe we'll just drag race Project Corolla against a freight train or something.
Mr. Holstein's Testdrive In An F1 Car
It's hard to complain about what we do for a living. We regularly get to drive really nice cars that we probably can't afford. One of us may always get the GT-R while others get stuck in the SE-R with goofy red seat belts. Life may not be fair, but we cannot be bitter.Except for when it comes to former Associate Senior Editor Jared Holstein. That dirty bastard got to drive a '97 Arrows F1 car. That inhuman swine! Yet who could possibly describe the experience more eloquently than him? Nikki Lauda's loose quote about sore balls was a good start, but Holstein's transcription from the Michelin engineer made the story. "Zees eez not a PlayStation. Shift slowly or eet won't shift... Zees car is more important zan you." Classic.
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