08 STI Impressions - good driver / bad driver

2 in 1 off topic post about the thoughts in my head.

2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI
Car & Driver was back out at the Ice Races this weekend with the 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI. I've had mixed feelings about the new body style. At first, I jumped on the hater bandwagon - complaining is fun and the pre-release images of the new chassis definitely deserved it. After seeing the car in person, I had to quietly admit to being a closet lover of the new body style all along - sleek, practical, mature, and mechanically superior to the old stuff - how can it be bad?
I'll tell you how - no soul. Soul, in a car, is something that I have not seen any magazine or car show be able to clearly define. But to an enthusiast, soul is everything. Soul is the reason why we drive 20 year old heaps of junk that leave us stranded at most inopportune moments. Soul is the reason why Alpha Romeo's, DSM's, MR2's, and Porsche exist. Soul and character is something that all Subaru Imprezas up to the 2008 model had, and had a lot of. When I went for a ride with one of the Car and Driver guys, I felt like I was in a generic rental car - it was cold, solid, quiet... like a business class hotel room. Despite all of it's mechanical glory, the car does not stir the same kind of emotion I get sitting down into my car, a GD WRX, or an EVO8. I don't think I could ever own one.

Never the less, here is a C&D video of the ice racing goodness i.e. driving a Subaru the way it should be driven.


Good Driver / Bad Driver
I got beat pretty bad yesterday. Sure I still trophied, but 8th out of 25 is not good in my book. I was running times in the 2min range, while the guys in the new STI were in the 1.7's (Results). When I rode with one of them, he took the exact same line I did and was 20 seconds faster. The reason - most likely better tires and better differentials. Well, I think that thinking this way makes me a bad driver. It is very easy to write everything off to hardware, instead of sitting down and thinking about improving your own driving. If you insist on improving your own hardware, the nut behind the wheel is always loose!