At last. At very long last, a car with some proper tyres for hill climbing. Thanks to Subaru and the generous loan of a WRX STI, we were in with a shout of hassling the front-runners in the A2 class for production cars over 2,000cc. This was all down to Subaru supplying the car with a set of Toyo R888 tyres, which are pretty much the default choice for the roadgoing classes.
Not quite rallying, but not far off
With these tyres, all-wheel drive, 300hp, 300lb ft of torque and some very clever variable differentials, what could possibly stop us? Nothing the Primo PLC team could foresee on collecting the car prior to the most recent round of the British Leaders Championship at Prescott.
Perhaps we should have guessed things were going too well when we first noticed the clutch's biting point was quite high in the pedal travel. Still, the car drove perfectly well and burbled its way to the start line for first practice without a hint of trouble. Clutch in, first gear, lights to green. Oh. Oh dear. It's slipping quite a lot.
To begin with, we thought this might be a case of much more grip from the Toyo tyres and just required a different launch style. After all, the Mercedes A45 AMG we used last time at Prescott had a race start function that removed all of the guess work from such aggressive launching.
"Here, can you smell burning?"
There was also the condition of the track to consider. Neither dry nor wet, it was in that No Man's Land of greasy and unpredictable. Given this, we felt the car was going well and next practice would see it in the hunt for quick times.
Sadly, Saturday's second practice only served to confirm the clutch was slipping noticeably, though 51.58 seconds was well ahead of the first run's 56.16 seconds. It presented team-mate David Finlay and I with a dilemma: do we continue and risk damaging the car or abandon ship just as we finally have some sticky tyres to help us? In the end, we opted for a third way, which was to skip the final practice session on Sunday morning and just try to cajole the car into a half decent time.
Conditions on Sunday were excellent and almost every other driver in Class A2 was getting quicker and quicker. This included Mark Spencer, who went on to record another record-beating run in his Porsche 996 Turbo to set a new class benchmark of 46.08 seconds.
Our plan of conserving the car for the competition runs seemed to work, to some degree. David put in a 52.64 second run, though came back complaining the clutch was slipping ever more as the run progressed. If you watch the video, you can hear the engine revs soaring as Mr David tries to coax the car.
Up and running with drive the STI is great
In the end, a best run of 51.27 seconds was respectable, but to put it in context that is only 0.73 seconds ahead of the Vauxhall Astra VXR with a working clutch but failing gear selection we used two years ago at Prescott.
By the end of this run, the clutch was on its last legs and another driver said the burnt clutch could be smelt all the way up the hill on his run that followed our last. Whoops.
In the end, seventh out of 13 in the class was as much as we could hope for. It was very disappointing to have all the right kit for once and be let down by something as simple as the clutch. In defence of the WRX STI, it handled well at Prescott, pulled strongly when almost working properly and still made it back to be dropped off at Subaru HQ.
On a happier note, Subaru has since said it will provide a car with a healthy clutch for us to have a crack next year, so watch this space for some unfinished business. In the meantime, it's off to Doune in two weeks with a Honda Civic Type R to help raise more awareness for the Nationwide Association of Blood Bikes.
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