I just found this picture from when I raced the Suzuki Canada NTN Bearings Trak Motorsports Factory Suzuki Swift in the old Firehawk Series. The car only had 100 HP and we had to beat on the car like a rented mule to go fast. The series was for showroom stock cars, including full interiors!

This shot from the old Turn 5 at Mosport (before the track was widened and flattened) is great. I just love the angle of the car with the rear end over the outside curbing the front end countersteering and if you look closely at about the 5 o clock positionou can see rubber being shaved off the front tire by the body work or maybe the track.

Man we pounded on those cars for a whole season. We had them upside down, we knocked down the concrete wall in Turn 1 at Mosport, we pounded the tire wall in Namerow at Mt. Tremblant and we finished every race except for the race where one of my co-drivers buzzed the thing to about 15,000 rpm and bent some valves. We used to run the car in 3rd gear all around Mosport with out shifting other than going to 2nd for Moss. We were hitting 10,000+ going into Turn 8.

The car was absolutely bullet proof and super fast for only 1300cc.

Eric

 

You need to watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOASjjpRnXk

 

Ha ha, that's great. One of our local competitors used to have a Swift GTi like that that he campaigned; I took it out once for a couple of laps, and it was surprisingly fast (he also had NOx, but I didn't try that). I had a daily driver/winter beater Firefly for a number of years - so even less power, but I had grabbed the bars and springs out of a junkyard turbo to beef up the handling - that was pretty fun too - all about conservation of momentum in that car. It was a tin can, but light weight forgives much.

I hear you about being tougher than you'd think, too. I t-boned a car that ran a light in front of me, and I drove home, got a new hood and headlights from the boneyard, and drove it for a couple more years, while his car was totalled.

 

are you serious? Thats so cool man. my first car love was a 90 GT (i) swift. I loved that car...so much character. haha. i had cams and a rally chip that removed the rev limiter, but i never went north of 9 grand. thats where the factory tach ended (the euro one i had installed anyways) and i had also heard they were prone to valve float (probably never mentioned before on a rotary message board....lol) around 9500rpm. hearing you taking it over 10 habitually makes me regret chickening out. lol

what a blast that car was to drive...and the gas mileage...unbeleiveable for the amount of fun the car offered. I didnt do much in suspension though, just an underbody brace which saved the cars life actually. i had an incident with some snap oversteer on a cold rainy day and met a curb. bent the knuckle where the tie rod end attaches and ripped the strut off the knuckle...but the car didnt fold up like you'd expect in a hit like that.

alas, 3 transmissions in 2 years or so and i had had enough.

great picture to see, thanks for sharing that man.

 

i use to do that in mx3 in the snow, when you get it sliding you can give it gas and keeps it drifting.
it saved me once when i hit a big ice patch after a freezing rain storm on my way home from work , i was fish tailing in my lane for over 100 meters.

I knew some guys out east that use to put baking sheets under their rear tires and lock the ebrake lol.

 

I really loved that car. You could pound on it all day long and it just kept coming back for more.

The only real concern with it was that at Mosport, you were foot to the floor for most of the lap. If anything stepped out of line, there was nothing left to save it. I can remember being flat to the floor in 4th going through Turn 2 and the car bunny hopping (back end bouncing from side to side) at around 160 kmh and having to ride it out. Any fliching and you were done for.

I still get some night sweats over that experience, LOL. I am glad some of you guys enjoyed it.

Eric