2xM3 vs 911 vs 944 vs Vette vs Mitsu vs RS2 - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

raceme · 3rd August 2002, 22:19

2xM3 vs 911 vs 944 vs Vette vs Mitsu vs RS2

Today I visited Bilsport Action Meet, at Mantorp Park, Sweden. Not my usual kind of "crowd", my girlfriend was the only girl without a very very tight top on... Anyway, the crowd likes cars (and it was only a 15 min drive from my flat) that's the main thing.

They held 4 main events. Great, you could choose to compete with any car your own if you wished.

*1/4 mile, boring, cars are too modded, the roads i usually drive have curves + most gas stations only have 95 and 98 octane unleaded fuel ...

*dB-dragracing, well, I've alreadey got tinitus comming, nothing for me

*"Car show", more money spent on plastics and paint than engine and chassi. A nice Viper, but the looks of that car is not its greatest asset...

*"RS-course", a small circuit, with cones. Took about 1 minute for the winner. This was the best event. Only thing missing was a part were people could find some higher speeds, a little too curvy (like previously mentioned girls :-), probably to increase security (not like prev. mentioned girls :-).

(when I write slower it is regarding acc., not around the track)

I'll tell about my impressions here, under the impression that the cars were unmodified, they looked and sounded rather stock anyway. And because I'm not a complete car nut, the identifications are somewhat vague, and might be slightly off, sorry. All the drivers seemed rather skilled, but of course they played a great role in the final contest of fastest time. Here the 180 deg. turn in the middle of the track showed who could drive and who couldn't.

*Chevrolet Corvette early '90s
Looked rather big and clumsy compared to the others, somewhat bad handling in tight turns. Though its engine impressed in the accellerations, a majority of the cars seemed to run the course on 2nd gear, and here it cought speed rather well.

*Some japanese road version of rallycar, perhaps a Mitsubishi Evo (?), late '90s, big rear wing. This driver seemed keen to hit the cones = 3 seconds time penalty. Handling seemed very good = it looks as if the car is going slow. But, I'm quite sure that's what it did. This car seemed to miss some "go", a little slow.

*Audi RS2 station vagon ca '95 Inline turbo 5 cyl ("tuned by Porsche")
This car had the greatest punch. I know it does 0-100 km/h in about 4.9 s. But, beeing a curvy track, the turbokick came at about the same time the driver had to brake, too sad. Chassi was, not that impressive. But I guess this is a great family car!

*Porsche 944 S2 ca '90 (= 3.0 litre 4 cyl non turbo)
Rather good handling, somewhat quick, but no killer.

*Porsche 911 Carrera ca '85
Slower than the Audi, perhaps slower than the newest M3, it was close I think. Great handling, rear wheels firmly onto the ground all the time, had the best time.

*M3s
Both was somewhat of rear-inner-wheel-lifters in turns. The early 90's model with big wing was quite a bit slower than the ca 2000 one, which perhaps only came second after the RS2 in punchability. Both seemed to handle about the same, perhaps was the early '90s one a little stiffer and did not lift a rear tire that much in the curves. The newest M3 produced the second best track-time.

The traffic on the E4 Motorväg after these events are known to be race keen..., though with rather much traffic (including a lot of full packed summer-holliday-cars with warm, stressed and tired dads and heavy trucks (LKWs)) and driving rather slow car I stayed cool in the slow lane. Though my clean SAAB 900 S is rather cop like (= stealth cop car with video camera onboard), so looking rather mean with sun glases I made at least a Opel Calibra wit BIG rear wing drive very slow and leagal after it had passed me, it switched from fast to slow lane and keept 110 km/h = legal. Pathetic but fun!

Anybody that are going to visit "Sports Car Show"
http://hem.passagen.se/sportvagnsklu...arshowinfo.htm
or
"Sportbilens Dag" (no known WWW site)
here in Östergötland? Allthough I doubt anybody will doubt me having a SAAB 900 S:-), I could prove it there. What do you say AlexRexV8V?, I've got an extra bed!

For some Swedish gumball wannabees, look at this page for video:
http://www.zatzy.com/hc2002/HC_directors_cut.mpeg
and Swedish website at
http://www.highway-challenge.com/

(I'm sorry that my english is not perfect, though "speaking" 4 languages (swe, eng, ger, fren), please don't complain if you only know eng "and some spanish" :-)

Whyt does the rear inner wheel lift?, read about it in this quality text:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.g.bower/PoM/pom/node30.html

Freesock · 4th August 2002, 08:28

It's funny that all the people on this board with English as their second language think they suck at when they are probably better than a lot of Americans...

raceme · 4th August 2002, 16:20

Sure, talkning to somebody of the BEATERz crowd or watch some sitcom, I feel like a

. But if I read FT, Economist or the better half of the posts here I feel somewhat lacking.

Bear in mind that many of the jobs with good income in .se demands a good english, and at times of promotion, you may be compared with natually born english speakers.

But anyway, any comments or questions about the RS track? I could add that each of the cars did several runs, so there were many possisbilities to study theire behaviour.

Danish · 4th August 2002, 17:05

raceme, nice writeup

I visit Sweden from time to time (mostly Stockholm) and would like to go to some automotive events over there. Mantorp sounds like fun even though it probably isn't my kinda 'crowd' as well. I attend a few of those event every year and it is usually fun.

I find it funny that people think you were a cop...

And it sure sounds like the Swedish police focuses a bit too much on speeding. I mean the roads are very good over there and the traffic isn't as congested as in Germany.

Michael

raceme · 4th August 2002, 18:09

The event I visited was held by the magazine Bilsport, which is a little "Redneck".

One of the comming events is held partly by Auto Motor Sport, a more upmarket magazine, and this too uses the Mantorp Park area, they will also have GTR racing there too, fun to see some Vipers and 911 go for it, although again those cars are much to modded for my taste.

A competition class far worse, those "touring car championships" was commented by a Volvo spokesperson something like this: "we find it rewarding to race with cars that LOOKS like the products we sell", Wow, see my 1.6 litre V40 go!

Police, yes, like "everyone" else in Sweden, for good and bad, follows the law in every detail. And they are so caught up with speeding. I belive that not using your turning signals changing lane or in roundabouts are more dangerous than speeding in safe conditions, but not the police. I even know people who lost thiere licence when they overtook cars! Doing 130 in a 90 area, just to make the overtaking safe. By law, you may not drive faster than 90, even for overtaking. Imagin overtaking a 24 metre truck, who is doing 85, if you may only do 90, this takes 17 seconds....

But as you say, the roads are good, there isn't a lot of cops around, and you can use a Scanner.

There is also the Elks, having seen a car that made contact with them gives you respect for theire size and mass. I often drive 80 in a 90 area where I know many elks "live".

Freesock · 4th August 2002, 19:49

Yeah the Economist is probably one of the highest level reading magazines published in English, short of all the medical ones. It would be tough for a lot of native speakers. I'm suprised they don't publish it in every Euro language. Meanwhile I can't really speak any other language, I wish I could

I really want to study abroad in North Europe/Scandinavia when I get into college though

raceme · 4th August 2002, 21:20

B8 Guru: It would be fun to meet you (and some other people too?) at Mantorp, I know I'm going. Mantorp is situated very close to the E4, c:a 200 km south of Stockholm, so you've probably passed this racetrack many times going to Stockholm. The date is 24-25 this August. I just can't find any schedule of this event, I've looked everywhere. But I guess it will surface later.

I've found a page describing the cars that you could watch last year, it's impressive! Scroll down for images.
http://www.zon.se/bil/mantorp/index.shtml
This are the official pages that I've found, in swedish:
http://www.motorevents.com/mevweb/fl...dermantorp.htm
http://www.zon.se/bil/mantorp/index.shtml
This time of year are "critical" for us studying at "technical universities/institutes" here in Sweden, exams + taking care

of new students, but since this is a once in a year thing I want to go at least one day.

Freesock: If I was born in USA, I don't know if I would know any other language than english. With 300'' people in your country and only 10% export, it is fully understandable. Sweden, with 9'' inhabitants and 45% export it's another situation. (these numbers are very circa!!) If I was in your situation I would learn german or french. (sorry for what stood here, it was not well thought over and wrong all the way, sorry!) French to be classy, impress on girls

, or german to be able to get closer to german automakers

. When you know german, the Scandinavian languages are easy, well quite :-) (Note this does NOT include finnish)

Vince5 · 5th August 2002, 12:22

Thanks for the post and all the cool links

. I had noticed this meeting at Mantorp end of August but unfortunatly I can't make it(holidays abroad)

Do you guys really think Swedish roads are that good ? I find them overall pretty bad... especially when it rains, the water stays in the sometimes huge marks left by all the traffic during winter with snow tires.

raceme, may be you could send me your plate number so I can avoid slowing down if I ever meet you on the road

, I almost always slow down when I come on a not too old volvo or Saab.

raceme · 5th August 2002, 15:28

Have fun on your holiday!

Quote:

Do you guys really think Swedish roads are that good ? I find them overall pretty bad...

They are better than danish roads, but worse than they were about 8 years ago (...) when I started driving. One of the reasons, as you say, is that many people use studded (with metal spikes in them) winter tires.

Quote:

raceme, may be you could send me your plate number so I can avoid slowing down if I ever meet you on the road , I almost always slow down when I come on a not too old volvo or Saab.

I do the same thing!! I usually hesitate to overtake a clean Volvo or SAAB too fast.

And this lists seems to confirm that this is a good strategy:
http://home.swipnet.se/j_n/civila.htm
http://home8.swipnet.se/~w-86348/civila.htm
I don't think you'll need my number to add to this list :-).

But you would go crazy trying to use these lists! Perhaps they could be useful if you automated them with character recognition or something.

Another thing I would like to know if you also agree in, is that here in Sweden the "hell drivers" most often drive Volvo station vagons. These people always makes the most stupid overtakings and drive with the most testosterone.

Vince5 · 5th August 2002, 15:56

Great list

, you are the man !
Agreed, about volvo drivers. If they don't drive agressively just to show what their T5 can do they just tend to stay in the left lane at the speed limit just to prevent you from speeding, very dangerous attitude IMO !