Early this morning (Saturday) I took a drive north up Interstate 15 from San Diego to Riverside. The road conditions where great as there were hardly any other vehicles on the road and the shark was performing beautifully. So I turned on some tunes & settled in for a relaxing hour & a half ride.

Anyway I was tooling along at about 85-90 mph enjoying myself and was about a quarter of the way to my destination when I passed this guy in black VW Passat that started to pursue me. At first the guy tried to pull out & pass me on the right. As my car was hardly even breathing hard at this point I smiled & simply down shifted into fourth and rolled on to the accelerator and leaving the Passat standing still. After a bit I’d slow and allow him to catch up and again just as he’d try to noise pass – I’d repeat the same process again. This same scenario repeated it’s self about four more times before I tired and just ended it by rolling back on the accelerator again but this time I didn’t ease up until I couldn’t see the guy in my rearview mirror anymore.

Well about a mile or two down the road I reined in the Shark and continued my casual clip as before. But just as I crested a hill I noticed two Subaru WRX STI's driving in formation a couple lanes over. As I passed the one in the rear pulled out to pursue me like the V-Dub before.

My first thought was – “WTF! Do I have a sign on my butt that says chase me”?

The guy was coming up fast & hard on my left and started to pass – but having read up on the WRX, I fully expected him to make easy work of my 30 year old shark. But as the road was still open ahead - I decided I wasn’t going to make it easy for him and wouldn’t go down without a fight. This in mind in preparation I preemptively down shifted into forth as I did with the VW and was waiting for him. But this time there was no rolling into the accelerator – I punched it!

Well, as tempted as I am - I won’t say exactly how fast we where going – just in case big brother is checking up on us here in Rennlist.com, but I must’ve over estimated my opponent - A lot!. Because I was totally surprised that as hard as the Subaru tried he could never pass me. In fact he kept pace with me for a while but *I* gradually started pulling away from him. So he eventually backed down and eased off - leaving the road to me. Truthfully I would’ve thought the STI should have been able to catch me with a top speed in excess of 155mph. Maybe I scared him?

Oh well - five minutes after I last saw the Subaru I was at my destination. Almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

 

There is just nothing like a nice relaxing Sunday drive. :>)

 

Somewhere on a Subaru board there is a pimply faced teenager telling his story of how he smoked a 928 today.

 

Never even spilt my coffee.

 

He better hope his buddy in the other WRX behind us doesn’t belong to the same board.

Edit: I re-read my post and as it was origenally written it looks as if I led you to believe that I was passed by the WRX. I corrected this (sorry). While he did get close the WRX never actually passed me and *I* eventually pulled away.

 

What's better than some open road and a nice clear morning drive?

I find that 3rd gear is a little more responsive when passing at 80mph, but that's just me .

More likely some pimply faced teenager asking WTF was this fat-backed Porsche called?

 

Good to hear a sane ending Bret. I have done a few Sat/Sun morning runs north and have found plenty of cars looking to test their metel, and lots of CHP waiting to catch the action. One morning I counted ~7 cruisers and 4 bikes, one entering the highway as I was wrapping up a gtg with a Talon. I don't know how CHP missed that one!

 

Hey Kevin,

Yea, I was highly aware that Kalifornia’s finest could have ended my day on a sour note. But I was surprised I didn’t see any cruisers or motor units at all that morning. Because light traffic & an open road usually makes it easy for them to pick off offenders.

But there where a couple of factors at play in my situation.

The first as you probably know already was that Saturday morning had a particularly low & heavy overcast ceiling. This meant that “Sky-King” (CHiP’ie air patrol) was grounded that morning. Air patrol along that corridor normally accounts for most of the high speed stops.

The second factor was the traffic. It’s kind of hit & miss but “sometimes” (not all the time) traffic can be extremely light before 9am. In this case - once I passed highway 78 (where I picked up that silly V-Dub btw) it really opened up – with periodic bunching or waves of 5-6 vehicles here & there. But the rest was pretty much open.

 

Probably a WRX, and not an STI. An STI would blow you out of the water! Still impressive that our almost 30 year old cars are as fast as they are.

 

And that’s what I thought too. But I know the difference between a STI and a vanilla WRX. So unless it was an elaborate ruse on the part of the owner – it was as best I could tell a stock STI.

You got to remember we didn’t actually pair off from a standing start or on some twisty back road. We where traveling at *speed* when this all started. This is IMHO the 928’s element and while the STI is more than capable of driving at those speeds I don't think it was really intended (designed) with high speed open road driving in mind.

Had we been on a back road or doing the stop light grand prix – I’m sure the Subaru would’ve made easy work of my 30 year old vehicle.

That said I know the STI has a higher advertised top speed (155mph) than my 78’s (144mph) as quoted in early publications, but I’d be interested to know what the STI’s time is from say around ~90 to 130mph compared to a 1978 928?

 

I have a few friends with STI's both stock and modified. It has a lot of grip so winning a drag race is out of the question but when they tangle with anything like our 928's above the speed of say 80mph, they just don't have the punch up high that is needed.

 

Bret I have been saying this for years >yawn> yet some continue to haggle just relax and enjoy the drive

 

LOL. Nice.

They always start out as "relaxing" drives don't they?

 

But don't we all love to just relax?

 

LOL! Yea, the funny thing is – after all that I arrived at my destination calm & collected. With no adrenalin crash or withdrawals, like I used to get with any of my other vehicles under similar situations.

Got’a love the way our Sharks never fail to deliver.