The garage door lowered behind me in a deliberately menacing pace, making all the precise creaking and squealing noises to unnerve even the bravest of men in the ensuing darkness—not that I'd know anything about that.
My name is Lee. In my off time, I whine and moan about performance cars on the internet behind the veil of anonymity and the nigh infallible security of my home country, Singapore. The problem now is that I'm not in Singapore, and the near 130kg frame of mine is hardly covert in person even if I weren't in this bright orange hazmat suit hooked up to a 20kg oxygen tank. I've been a little ill in the past few days, which is the only reason why I've had the luxury of taking a break from my real job to focus on my side hustle for the first time in a while. Yes, I'm Asian, and unfortunately this is just how we all are. And no, before you ask, I usually write my car reviews in just my underwear on the cooler days in tropical Singapore, not adorned in hazmat suits within point blank range of several bazookas here in the Honda Collection Hall in Twin Ring Motegi.
"Ready!" I hear a man shout in rather funky Japanese. For a while, nothing happened—the only sounds I could hear are my own irregular breaths and embarrassingly rapid heartbeats. The room has been enshrouded in complete darkness after the garage door has choked all light out of the room. Unsure as if the man was addressing me, I voice out: "are you tal-"
Out of nowhere, an explosive force knocked me clean into the air! The impact of which sought and found my body right down to my every bone with equal ferocity, the pain of which at least was indicative that I had yet to be dismembered by the explosion. As a moaning, limp heap on the ground though, I can't say it made much of a difference either way.
"Disinfection Complete!", I hear the same voice shout before the lights flicked on. My blurry vision desperately tried to focus on my new world, cloaked in foaming yellow liquid. It might be semi erotic if consent had been sought beforehand, or if, you know, I knew who did this to me.
"It's been a while", came another voice. It was Esther, my editor.
"ESTHER WHAT THE HELL", I bellowed before immediately regretting using what little breath I could take in to shout. A bout of coughing fit followed, though I'm certain this one didn't have anything to do with me being ill.
"I'm doing fine, thank you", she replies in her unwavering business tone, as though I were the only one who went off script in a play I had no idea I was playing a part in. I suppose that's her way of saying, "I don't care about you or your life threatening predicament, we have work to do". Urgh, Asians. And we wonder why we have problems with declining birth rates in so many of our countries.
"I trust your flight went well", she continued nonchalant to my plight and suffering. "As per our discussion in emails, this is Andrew, the new employee here at Car of the Week. Andrew, Lee. Lee, Andrew."
Wiping the liquid from the visor of my suit, I can barely make out a tall, Caucasian man with a HUGE, dripping rod in his arms and an even bigger grin on his gnarly face. "San Diego Fire Department at your service! I hear you like the taste of piss, eh?!"
San Diego?! Piss? What? Aren't we in Twin Ring- WHAT?!
"Aw come on, get up. It's only Tiger Beer! That stuff's couldn't knock out Obelisk's weakest rabbits!"
"Ahh... yeah... Yard... We've met... on the start line of Suzuka- OOF!", I mumble as I heaved and ho-ed my deadweight carcass off the ground, only to slip on the sea of a floor and fall again, the BOINK of the oxygen tanks behind me only helping highlight my misadventures further. I really have become a comic book character, haven't I? "He's the guy that revs out a diesel Demio. Can't say I know him very well."
"And he's the guy that passes out after 2 large Sakes."
"After you said that it was just water!"
"It was! ...basically!"
A sigh. It was Esther, who wasn't very bemused with our bickering. "Is this how men communicate?"
"Basically"
"No"
"We have a car to test. Get to it. Chaperone Andrew, show him the ropes, and maybe teach him how to write an email properly." With her signal, the firetruck adorned with Tiger Beer livery reversed away to reveal the awaiting Honda. Could it be a fourth generation Fit Hybrid after I fell in love with the third gen while testing it on the public roads of Singapore? Perhaps Honda is going to do me a solid and provide us with the Modulo S660 that I've been chomping at the bits to test after having reviewed the base car? Or would they pass my newly bought 2002 NSX Type R around the crew, some of whom can be very crude and uncultured, to test and review as a way of flipping me off for bargaining the price with them?
Oh you have got to be kidding me.
It is an NSX... well, technically speaking, anyway. The Gr.3 variant of the third generation "nsx", the NC1.
"Ahh yes, finally, a racing car! None of that slow commuter A to B crap!", exclaimed Andrew, visibly beaming with excitement even through his flame retardant suit.
"Are we not done with this turd yet?", I protest. I've written off the 2017 base car and even its fire breathing GT500 counterpart, going as far as to say that the NC1 "nsx"es are always destined to play second fiddle to the GT-R because of how terrible they are. And so the thought of reviewing yet another isn't exactly setting my pants on fire. Even Tiger Beer would do a better job of that... not that I'd want to prove that right now drenched head to toe in it, even in the presence of a fireman.
"An open mind, Lee, please. Don't cloud the judgment of Andrew here, who isn't as biased as you."
"Have you read his Demio review?!"
"Of course. That's my job as an editor. He came around in the end."
"How much arm twisting did you have to do?"
"Less than the three bones it usually takes you."
Sweet Baby Buddha this woman...
"Well, get to it. Load the cars up on the trucks and prepare to leave for Narita Airport in an hour. First race is at Maggiore, Italy."
"Wait, what about MY NSX?! The actually good one?!"
"Payment is being delayed I'm afraid. The Honda reps say March 4th is the earliest you'll get to see it—and that's if the stars align."
Urgh. Just my luck. I fly all the way here to see my newest baby, but instead I get blasted from head to toe by a ruffian and now have to leave saddled with a "nsx" that is neither my own nor a fraction as good. I sigh as I turned to face Andrew. "I hope you brought enough Quiksteel for us all. This car is uncontrollable. And if not then, well... maybe Esmerelda could use a friend after all this while."
"Quiksteel, incense sticks, Red Horse beer, and my buddy's flatbed are all ready to go!"
"No drinking on the job!", Esther and I explode in unison, inciting a resigned head toss from Andrew. Maybe we will get along after all.
***********************************************
The NC1 "nsx" is perhaps one of the most contentious cars in the modern era, and you probably can already guess my stance on it by now. It was too heavy, too complicated, drove like a pig, looked like a clown, and costs twice that of an R35 GT-R while barely being any faster—and that's if you spend enough time learning its odd at–the–limit quirks and behaviour and get used to them. Of course, a lot of that can be attributed to the onboard computers doing wizardry on the move that can only be understood by the geeks at Acura and no human being, along with the gargantuan mass of the batteries and motors that are needed to facilitate that nonsense. In short, it's way too complicated for its own good, and so one would think that being homologated into a racing category that puts a fixed price on all cars, hovers around 1.3 tonnes, mandates RWD and disallows hybrid systems would be the magic bullet of simplicity that transforms the NC1 from embarrassing to exciting.
In theory, it does somewhat. I mean, there's no fixing the look of the car unless you're a plastic surgeon, but everything else is actually quite peachy! The 3.5L Twin Turbo V6, despite having lost no less than three electric motors, still has a very flat torque curve, and it's not exactly laggy, either. The power loss of losing all three electric motors? 2HP. Pumping out an ample 568HP (424kW) before BoP takes its 3% cut, it really does make one wonder what exactly the hell the electric motors bring to the table in terms of spirited driving. Having lost the weighty batteries, motors, and sound deadening of the road car, one can finally hear the V6 of the "nsx" truly sing without autotune, and I daresay that it sounds the best among Japan's big three supercars!
As for cornering, well... that's where the other shoe of the NC1 drops. I mean, sure, it slices into corners well, and it's stable... up to a point. The NC1 has a very odd issue much like the 4C Gr.3 wherein the car doesn't very linearly approach its limits: it feels stable and reassuring up to maybe about nine tenths, and then the last tenth of its handling envelope goes by SO stupidly quickly, transforming the car from stable to slippery in split seconds in the worst of times. I theorise that the usual culprit of the car's default wheel alignment is at fault here for making the car lose grip in a hurry, and the stiff diff in the NC1 very quickly makes the other wheel follow along as well. This makes the NC1 a very nervous, unpredictable, and explosively moody car along rumble strips, and is horrifically allergic to having even half a driven tyre off the asphalt. It's a car that I have never felt comfortable bringing near its limits, which, needless to say, makes wheel to wheel racing with this very snappy and unpredictable NC1 more chaotic than most demolition derbies.
It's not even fast, either. One may posit that me and the NC1 just don't share the same wavelength, and that's a fair argument. I therefore thought to try racing other MR Gr.3 cars against the NC1, and Baron suggested to me to try the Renault Sport R.S. 01 GT3 and the Audi R8 LMS, supposedly because I'd learn to love the NC1 if I drove those cars. I did just that, and lo and behold, I grew to despise the NC1 even more, because driving other tail happy MR cars just made me realise just how utterly garbage the "Honda" is.
It took just half a lap of getting a feel for the Renault around Suzuka for me to uncharacteristically assert during race day, "I will slay you all in the Renault". Helps that Vic wasn't in attendance this week, heh. During the Renault's first race at Dragon Trail: Seaside, I quickly dispatched the field of NC1s, leaving only my countryman and fellow weeb, RX8, to catch, some four seconds up the road, with only three and a half laps to close it. An impossible feat for two drivers of roughly equal skill, as our driver ratings would suggest. Not to mention, he had three previous races in the NC1 to get to know it, and I was driving my Renault with only 5km on the odometer.
You... don't need me to spell out what happened, do you?
I took the lead from him on Turn 1 of lap 4, and never once looked back. At the last corner of the race, I had opened up just about a whole second to the 2D mobile. It looked like a dominant victory for me until I kinda mucked up the last corner, losing the car on the kerb on the corner exit of the last corner of the last lap and almost wound up in the pits, or even the pit divider. I managed to save it, but limped across the line in a close 2nd between Rick and RX8. I know I screwed up and it makes my argument sound more flimsy but just bear with me for a while, okay?!
Then I tried the R8 LMS, which, truth be told, is one of my personal favourites when it comes to Gr.3 cars. At Red Bull Ring, I just about started last on the grid, being boxed in by the slow af NC1s off the line. I went on to win the race.
Again, I want to stress: I don't have THAT much of a skill gap between my peers. Can something as simple as "wavelength" and "chemistry" account for such a ridiculous pace difference? Or is the NC1 simply irredeemable garbage? The truth most likely lies somewhere in between the two, but I'd wager it leans much more towards the odious latter.
Yes, of course, both the Renault and the Audi are very tail happy cars. Moreso than the NC1 in fact. That's why Baron thought that I'd learn to appreciate the NC1 after driving them. So what is it that makes the R.S. 01 GT3 and R8 LMS so good, while the NC1 revels in its awfulness? The difference I find is simply that the Renault and Audi are simply more linear in how they approach their limits. They're more communicative. That makes wrecks easier to avoid and anticipate, and gives me more confidence in bringing them up to their limits. Their looseness can actually help rotate the car into the apex of a corner, whereas the snappy NC1 will make you break a limb if you break its grip because of how snappy and unrecoverable it is. The other MR cars felt fun and at home even when sliding, whereas the NC1 is deeply upset by it. That I find is the main difference that makes the NC1 so awful to drive. I mean, it could also just be slow in a straight line as well, but at this point, highlighting more flaws of the NC1 would be beating a perfectly dead, completely decomposed, and happily reincarnated masochist of a horse at this point.
On the other end of the slidey spectrum, you have the Peugeot RCZ Gr.3, which we tested back in Week 158, when I fell in love with its delightful neutrality and unshakable stability. Even when it similarly dislikes sliding, the RCZ also nonchalantly whooped the NC1 around Red Bull Ring when driven by Baron! The lesson here is simple: if you want stability, make sure you aren't easily upset. If you want to be slidey, embrace it! Build up to it linearly! Let the slide help you! Don't try to straddle between the two extremes! It's almost like the road car trying to be a luxury car and a sports car at the same time; it simply doesn't work! Or like trying to be an all new supercar boasting innovation while bringing nothing new to the table, and then having to use a resurrected name and nostalgic paint offerings as a crutch to sell more units.
It is complete, utter garbage that no one should ever have to bother with. The road car and racecar both.
***********************************************
"No Esther, no matter how many bones you break this time, I am not changing my mind on the NC1", I greet her with as soon as her tiny frame emerged through the doorway.
"Hm? No, your bones are quite important, boss. I'd need you healthy to sign my paychecks", came her nonchalant reply as she set her files down on her table and pulled a chair for herself across me.
I sigh. For that moment, I felt incredibly stupid. "I guess all the legal prowess can't get you answers from beyond the grave", I spout, laid back against the hard restaurant chair facing the ceiling.
"We'll keep trying, but in the meantime, it does look like you'll be taking over if no one else steps up."
"I don't think I'm right for the job, Esther".
We've had this conversation before, but I've ran out of protests despite not coming any closer to acceptance. She knows this, and just keeps her silence, maybe waiting for something new, maybe thinking of another solution, I don't know.
"Who even reads this crap? These awkward exchanges. Our work lives. It's all so... cheesy. Stupid. Such a waste of time. It's got nothing to do with the cars."
"Nat, and now Andrew reads them. Heck, you're the most animated I've seen you when you read their stories and reviews."
"Car of the Week is bigger than me, Esther. I don't want to dominate it. I feel so... unworthy, you know? What about the vets, like Vic and Nismo? I just walk in here one day and I fall ass backwards into becoming the organiser of the world's most expensive car magazine? Does that look right to you?"
"We all have to take advantage of what life gives us, Lee. You have hardly any lemons in your hands. We all fall backwards into roles we didn't think we'd do. A lot of us normal folk don't end up with careers relevant to our field of study. I'm someone that wound up as an editor in a car magazine despite knowing nothing about cars. I'm having to learn about cars, about breaking bones, about being a chaperone, a lot of times from you, a lot of times because of you."
"It just... isn't me. I'm not funny. I'm not social. I'd die if I have to come up with these exaggerative Tiger Beer scenarios every week for the hell of it. I'm not even that good behind the wheel. I've never had anyone critique my writing before! How do I know if I really am that good, or if it's simply because no one else is writing?!"
Her reply was silence this time.
"I feel like I'm... having to play pretend. Like I'm having to wear a name someone else built before me. Having to straddle between many extremes. And that... doesn't... work."
"Would you rather see this end, then?"
"NO!"
"Then try. For us all, please."
I sigh. The meal we had was probably the most silent one in recorded human history, with neither of us speaking a word, highlighting the frustrated clinks and clangs of the crockery against the plate. After submitting my draft to Esther in person, we walked over to my Honda Fit to ferry the editor without a driving licence home.
"Should I sit in the back?", she asks after opening the passenger side door.
"What? Why- OH! One moment...", I mutter before remembering my cargo, rushing over to her side and damn near breaking my back lifting the 4.5kg brick out of my passenger seat.
"What is that?", she asks curiously, unable to retain her strict work demeanor.
"A receipt... urgh!", I reply as I toss the thing into the rear of the car. It was so heavy that it bounced more than once on the soft leather seat upon impact.
"A... receipt?", she asks, even more puzzled than before I answered.
"Look, I don't get it either, okay? But it's a storage device containing a receipt for my thousand SGD deposit for my 2002 NSX-R. Honda must've ran out of paper in the pandemic or something, I dunno."
She gives one last look at the curious oddity before deciding to hell with it, and sat down in the front.
"Just call it an investment into COTW", I said with a smile as I joined her in the front, buckling up.
No comments:
Post a Comment