It's a little underwhelming...
Tom's Toyota ChaserView attachment 601728
Asher's choice of colour this week has inspired me to purchase all the TVR colours so I have them on hand if needed. Some of them look so good!!!
This was one of those weeks where I had no prior knowledge of the car, so I didn't know what to expect
at all. The Tom's Chaser has been sitting silently in it's dealership for years, and it's never really been used. By anyone. Of course every car has it's fanbase, so no doubt a few people will race about the X540 and it's superior dr-ah blah blah blah, but for the most part it seems noone gives it a second thought.
It's proudly stated as a "tuner car". But with no base model Chaser to compare it to, it's hard to tell what work's been done on it. Your guess is as good as mine, but I reckon it's got a bodykit, a small helping of extra power, possibly some mild weight loss and a bit of suspension work? As I said though, without any base Chaser, it's hard to know for sure.
View attachment 601729 Palette swaps...
View attachment 601740
300C can't help but think maybe it's adopted..
How does it feel on the track? Well, it's still quite a bulky car, so it needs extra room to navigate corners. Not good for close pack racing...
The turbo provides quite good assistance, though it's not going to snap any underwear elastic anytime soon. You can hear it doing it's job, but you're left wishing it would give a bit more punch. Cos frankly, it needs it! Still, it does well to hold on to the track, even on sport hards, but the bulky weight means you need to really slow it down to do this. And you'll need plenty of space to do
that, cos the brakes aren't exactly top-notch equipment.
We had some awesome races on both Tuesday and Saturday. Some more newbies joining us, good to see this gig's still growing! On Tuesday, I tried to rival the Chaser in the Ferrari 250 GT, but at Apricot Hill it ran out of gears down the front straight, and was overtaken relatively easy. On Saturday, I tried again, this time in the 250 GTO. But
I forgot about it's ridiculous camber settings, and it was again, easily beaten.
View attachment 601735
"You so much as scratch me, you'll owe me millions!!!!"
I had a great battle with
@Niku Driver HC at Mid-Field, me in a Chaser, him in a Commodore. Despite having V8 torque, the Chaser kept right behind him, through means of the turbo, combined with slipstream.
So its got some redeeming qualities. But is it enough to save it from a beater status?
Nope. 👎
The X540 is just too bland a car to be exciting. It's got average acceleration, average speed, average weight... nothing about it makes me want to use it in any particular race. Can't really complain for a mere $50k, but still, Beater.
Rest of my pics!
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IN OTHER NEWS...
Firstly, I'm under the assumption Brad's got someone lined up for next week's pick and he'll reveal it like he normally does, but of course I've no way of knowing for sure... I'll give it a few days, and if we're left without any word, then I'll ask someone.
Secondly, there was an incident at the beginning of the Mid-Field race on Saturday I wasn't too happy with. And that was relative newbie MadEdward007 blatantly sideswiping both
@Vic Reign93 and
@Baron Blitz Red as they overtook him on the front straight. They gave him plenty of room, stuck to their lines, had plenty of speed to safely make the overtake, and he still went out of his way to give them both a smack on the right side.
All while driving on a straight bit of track.
I watched the replay, and I'd encourage anyone else who might have saved it to view it themselves and give me their opinion. So at this point in time, he's under investigation for unneccesary deliberate contact. I'm all for giving someone a bump to let them know you're there, but there's a difference between a bump and a blatant smash. We're a clean, fun racing club, not a free for all smashfest.