Systematic shouting and rhythmic beeping backed by a constant, low hymn of a diesel engine chugging along tells me that work is about to begin for the second time since I moved to Seven Haven, and hopefully it'd be something much more pleasant to sleep in than a weathered and wrung 1990 Mazda.
Clawing the sand from my eyes, I felt my way around the walls of the pitch black, unfamiliar garage, trying to get the door. The year long moving process has taken its toll, and embers still remain from the utter train wreck—
"Good morning, XSquareStickIt!", came Sarah's cheerful voice from the other side of the door before it was even fully open. Her usual, uncanny excitement meant she barely even had to raise her voice to be heard over the trucks and truckers. The morning sun pierces my ill adjusted eyes, causing me to recoil into the familiar, yet fleeting darkness of the garage. Urgh, why'd they have to build the door facing the freaking sunrise...
"Morning, sleepy head! The next car's here! Aren't you excited? I can't wait to see what it is! Why don't you go take a look?"
This is already too much adrenaline in the morning for my retired racing driver bones to handle.
"Mnng...", I mumble in feeble attempt to return her greeting. It's always tiring trying to match Sarah's tempo, and so I decide to do as she said and mosey on over to where the cargo had just been lowered. It was still covered in a tarp way too big for it, with the whole thing looking no wider than a Queen size bed and not much taller than a kiddy pool. I guess it's another week of sleeping in the Mazda, then.
"Shall I?", Sarah eagerly lifts a corner of the tarp to her chest with both her clenched fists, glimmering eyes locked in my direction and beaming her sun rivaling smile squarely at me. I gesture for her to just "get on with it", and she tears away at the tarp with a twirl of her entire body, wrapping herself up with it in the process, which does nothing at all to hide her boundless zeal. "Ta–daa~!"
View attachment 1248065
"Urgh Esther WHAT THE HELL?!", I awake with a furor. Of all the colours and liveries she could've sent for testing, reviewing, and photo shooting, THIS was the best she can do?!
"What's wrong, don't you like it?" Sarah quizzically quips. It's really annoying how bad she is at reading the room and situation, but at the same time, it's impossible to hate someone with a pure heart and smile like that. I try my best to not drag her down, but as you can probably tell, I'm not very good at it, especially when I'm exiled out here to the purgatory that is Seven Haven, and my office keeps sending me stuff like chip computers and exhaust pipes for cars I don't have with me, expecting me to review them. Am I supposed to smash them together and tell you how well they function as a loudspeaker?
And this was the last straw the broke the camel's back. "IT'S ****ING PINK!"
"Hey, it's got a four cylinder engine—rare for a Kei car. And I love the fully automatic roof of this Active Top model!"
"That adds thirty kilos to its kerb mass!"
"It's got a five speed manual!"
"Geared to the moon!"
"It revs to 9,000rpm!"
"It dies past 7,000!"
"
Hmph! You have no idea how much attention you'll get parking this at the GT Café—
the gathering spot for enthusiasts the world over, mind you!"
Sarah, "Hmph"ing me? That's... so out of character for her that it's downright eerie, despite her cartoonishly playful pout, like a pissed off caterpillar in its cocoon. I wonder if it's something I said?
Trying to find something nice to say about the car, I open the driver side door to find...
"
EWW! It's an automatic?!"
"Well, this is a surprise! I can't say I've seen one with an automatic gearbox before in Seven Haven. Wouldn't it be good to review one in automatic, after your initial review of a manual two years ago?"
After a prolonged, exasperated sigh that was more a cry for help than a sigh, I whimper, "if I have to".
********************
View attachment 1248066
Race day came as it always does, and one thing very quickly became clear simply by listening to the cars from the pit lane: my peers were mostly driving manual Copens, including but not limited to Obelisk, who brought his darling spec cup car to the meet, and Vic, who may or may not be a malevolent AI coded with a singular purpose of destroying any racer on the track with humanly impossible pace. Still trying to figure that one out after three years.
I'm no stranger to losing races to such stiff competition, but if we are to test for the pace difference between an automatic and manual, shouldn't the faster guys be saddled with the automatic instead? "An Automatic Win! Retired Racing Driver Tries To Beat The Algorithm: Lap Number 5 Will SHOCK You!!!" is a title that practically writes itself. As stated earlier, Vic is a malevolent AI whose literal and singular purpose in this world is to humiliate us with equal machinery, and you'll have to surgically remove the 5 speed manual gear lever from Obelisk's rectum with a plasma cutter to seperate him from his beloved Copen, and I doubt even our handy fireman, Yard_Sale, has either the hardware or expertise for that.
I might be a retired racing driver, but one thing that refuses to get left behind is a competitive fire: When I see someone else doing what I do, but better, it burns me up inside. It could be anything: driving, writing, being happy... doesn't matter: I want to win. I can't explain it. That's all there is to it.
"ESTHEEEEER!", I bellow out the moment the call connected, the pit walls adding a demonic echo to my agony. "WHY'D YOU SEND ME AN AUTOMATIC?! EVERYONE BUT ME AND BARON HAS A MANUAL!"
"We ran out of manuals", was her calm to a point of dismissive reply.
And that was that, really. What more do you want me to say to that?
"If you insist on a manual...", she unexpectedly continues after my dejected silence. "You'll have to source one for yourself in Seven Haven. You should have about 4 minutes and 27 seconds before race start. Your best bet would be to ask the locals."
"What are the chances that someone here just
randomly has a bone stock 2002 Copen with the rare 5 speed stick, charitable enough to loan it to a total stranger that has 0 Credits in his racing suit?!"
"I don't see how I can help you with that over the phone."
Translation: I don't see how that is my problem.
"May I hang up now? I have my job as an editor to attend to."
Translation: Shut up and leave me alone.
"Hello, XSquareStickIt!"
"
YIIIIAAAARGH!"
click
"Would you like to borrow my Copen?"
"Can you please stop calling me by my full— wait, what?"
Sarah leans in towards me, ripping my radio earpieces from my ears, and playfully raising her voice, "WOULD YOU LIKE TO BORROW MY COPEN?!"
I clamp down on her forearms in sheer excitement and likewise lean in towards her face, bringing us closer than we've ever been. Shouting even louder back at her, "
YEEEEEESSSSSSS!!!"
********************
View attachment 1248067
Debuting in 2002, the diminutive Daihatsu Copen was almost a lone lighthouse in a very dark time for the car enthusiast. With stricter emission laws that year dealing the final blow to beloved classics like the Supra, RX-7, GT-R, GTO, and Silvia, the light, cheap, cheerful, peppy, and very agile Copen proves that not all sporting spirit is dead in Japan. As history has now shown us with various martyrs like the AZ-1 and S660, sporty Kei cars are a packaging paradox that don't tend to sell, but the Copen defies this trend by still being in healthy production today, some 21 years after its debut, out–lasting its sporty brethren regardless of size. Clearly, Toyota has gotten something very, very right with the Copen that other manufacturers aren't privy to. But what is it exactly that makes it so special?
View attachment 1248068
To me, it's the fact that the Copen is sensibly front wheel drive, instead of its other sporty Kei companions that try to adopt rear wheel drive like a full sized car. With a wheelbase that short, the cars inevitably become incredibly snappy and tail happy things, and that's before some manufacturers go the extra inch to sling the engine aft the cockpit or freaking turbocharge them, turning them into widowmakers wearing a Kei car smile that would even
cause seasoned racing drivers to express concern over driving on the public roads. The sensible front wheel drive layout coupled with the meticulous reliability and build quality Toyota are known for results in a safe, cheap, economical, fun, agile, and solid car that reliably puts a smile on its driver's face, on or off the track.
View attachment 1248069
That is, if you spec your Copen with a manual gearbox.
The most immediate thing that strikes one when driving the Copen is, well, how slow it is. With only 62HP, I could slip into and wake from a several boredom induced comas before the Copen hits 100km/h from a downhill standing start with tailwind. But, there's a slight trick to that 62HP;
said 62HP only happens at 6,400rpm, and so you think, "wow, that's high up. It's a rev–it–out engine, then?" Except, you'd be wrong, because 6,5 is mere middling range for the minuscule JB-DET engine, which can spin all the way up to a Supra surpassing, S2000 rivaling
9,000rpm before fuel cut! Not that there's much of a chance anyone experiences fuel cut in the Copen, as the high revving engine isn't rev happy at all, terminally hyperventilating past 7,000rpm. With the rather wide ratios of the 5 speed gearbox, 7,500rpm is the highest the engine will realistically see on the racetrack before the clutch pedal is pressed in. The power loss is so severe that first timer drivers who rev their Copens to near redline will get gapped by several car lengths by a driver who shifts the Copen correctly. Well, several Copen car lengths, but several car lengths, nonetheless.
View attachment 1248070
Even when specced and driven correctly however, there is nothing a Kei car can do to hide its lack of speed on a racetrack. While full sized cars with their full sized power look to smoothly connect out–in–out lines to maximise turning radii and minimise speed loss, the to–do list in the Copen is instead to simply find the shortest distance through a ribbon of asphalt, as its low speed and narrow body often mean that it will have turning radius and grip to spare through many of the turns of the wide, smooth, sanctioned racetracks meant to facilitate battle among GT3 and LMP1 machines. If
the 203HP FC RX-7 from last week found most of these sanitised racetracks way too wide and smooth, then putting a Kei car on them feels like putting a paper plane on an actual runway. In fact, it's only at cumbersome, undignified bottlenecks of certain circuits where racing drivers have to damn near stall their racing cars, like the pit entry of Autopolis, that the Copen feels in its element. Suffice it to say that the Copen doesn't give that sensation often, and it's such a shame. I can only hope to imagine what these Kei cars must feel like at racing pace going door to door with each other in more confined spaces, such as the GT Arena nestled inside a stadium, or even the claustrophobic streets of Citta di Aria. Even Tsukuba feels too big and wide for these cars!
View attachment 1248071
One track that did feel a good fit for the Copen is the rallycross layout of Catalunya, and driving the Copen there was a real eye opening experience! Simply equipping Dirt tyres on the Copen shoots its PP value up from 292.88 to 338.58, and that's because those Dirt tyres are much, much more grippy even on the paved asphalt than the car's default road tyres! I could crank the wheel so much farther and with so much aggression that the car almost felt like it'd tip over before the tyres let go in the tightest bits of the circuit. Even on loose dirt surfaces, the Dirt tyres offered such an abundance of grip that one could Scandi Flick the car with the smallest amount of brake input. Between the short wheelbase, supple suspension, and gobs of turbocharged low end torque, the Copen felt remarkably like a pint sized rally car!
View attachment 1248072
On paved tarmac though, that soft suspension setup can become a slight problem, even with miserable Comfort Medium tyres. Under hard braking loads, the rear end can easily become rather detached from the road, and aggressive trail braking can transform the Copen Active Top into the Copen Hyperactive Rear. While this is very helpful for tight, low speed corners, it can be quite a harrowing experience at higher speed turns taken at triple digit km/h speeds. Of course, the car can't possibly carry a slide elegantly through to the corner exit, being FF, and so what tends to happen in these scenarios is that the car can go from oversteering into the apex of a corner to suddenly understeering into the outside barrier of the turn. Obelisk has already mentioned this in
his deep dive into the Copen, but I'll restate it here because it really is that damn important: Do most of your braking in a straight line and only chuck it into a turn when you're almost fully off the brakes. In a momentum car such as the Copen, preserving speed through corners is tantamount to a good time, and nothing bleeds speed quite like snappy weight shifts or a meeting with the barrier.
View attachment 1248073
Annoyingly for a car with notably soft springs, the Copen is confoundingly bad at dealing with bumps and kerbs on the road. With a car this small, you'll often find yourself riding rumble strips whole to maximise the course, but the Copen has a very pronounced pause after being flung airbourne by these rumble strips before the springs and tyres find grip back on terra firma, instead of simply wafting past these road imperfections like most cars I complain about being soft. I'm guessing this is the one case wherein a car's lightness works against it? This problem is most prominently felt at the Inner Loop of Watkins Glen, though other tracks like Alsace Test Course can also bounce this problem into the limelight. I'm not saying to avoid these bumpy shortcuts; they're very much still the fastest way around the corners. Just make sure to leave a bit of buffer room in the "landing zone" to give the car some time to find its footing.
View attachment 1248074
Overall, the Copen is an inoffensive, solid all rounder of a sporty Kei car. With just a few tweaks to its engine mapping and a bit of beefing up to its suspension, I think it could've been something really spectacular. As it comes from the factory though, I think it's better for cruising around a tight city than it is tackling even the narrowest and winding of racetracks.
View attachment 1248075
********************
"You beat Vic in the race! Well done! I knew you could do it, XSquareStickIt!", boomed Sarah's voice on cue with the sound of the door bursting open. Good thing I was taking off the top half of my suit and not the bottom.
"Eh, I got lucky. I started near pole and he got caught in traffic."
"I think you really might have what it takes to be someone really special here in Seven Haven, XSquareStickIt!"
"A-are you... listening to me?"
"How was the car? I bet it was great, wasn't it?"
"It was alright. Fun for one make races, but I don't think it'd be something I seek out again in the future."
"Ehhhh? But why not?"
I sigh. "You remember the day I first got here and you pulled some tendons out my socket dragging me around town? The Honda Fit I drove that day would run circles around it. And the events in Seven Haven have only gotten faster and faster since then. I really don't know what I ought to be doing with a car slower than that Fit."
"Why, enjoy it, if course! Cruise around the beautiful nature with the top down, soak in the sun and the attention you get when you roll up at GT Café, connect with new people..."
Yeah, maybe I ought to. It's just ironic how cars have become a stressful, transactional thing ever since they became my jobs. I suppose the surefire way to make yourself hate something is to make it your job. Maybe I ought to learn to relax a little before I burn myself out.
"...make you a millionaire, you know, the list is endless!"
"Yeah, maybe one day... hey, uh, are you... free? To grab... a MILLIONAIRE?!"
"Mm hmm! You heard me! There's this annual endurance series for Kei Cars held at Autopolis for Kei cars up to 400PP. The top prize is a cool 1.2 million Credits!"
"What's the competition like? Moves, Storias, Wakes, Midgets?"
"Beats and S660s."
"You're insane."
"...oh. You too, huh?"
Uh-oh! This conversation got real serious, real quick! What did I say? What did I do? I feel like I've accidentally put out the sun by sneezing or something, WHAT IS GOING ON? How can Sarah be sad? What did I do? What do I do?!
********************
"Well now, ain't that a cute sight, that is, right there. What can I do yer for, stranger? Turn it into a top fuel dragster?", said the big, bald, burly man in betraying blue under the company's really red banner as he chuckled at the sight of a fat old man tumbling out of a car way too hip for him.
"Argh! Oof! Ahh... Ugh, seriously? Calling a tuner shop 'Understeer'? What next, a tyre company calling themselves 'Triangle Tyres'? An insurance company named 'Ham Kah Chan'?"
"A rose by any other name, son. Ya here to pimp yer ride, or pick a fight? I've got High Lift Camshafts lubed up ready to stick up yours and grill over anti lag flames."
"I'm here to tune a car
to pick a fight."
"Music to my ears either way, sonny. You got a benchmark or budget?"
"I'm told... to get this car as close to, but under... (I'm getting pranked, aren't I?) 400PP"
"
Iiinnnnteresting, son. I think your best bet would be a power build, being a FF and all."
"Unfortunately, nah. I need a more frugal setup. It's going to have to last an hour on full tilt."
"400PP for a whole hour, eh? I'm startin' to get the picture, son. I'd recommend you start with weight savings, yeah. Weight is the main enemy to longevity, see-"
"
Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah, I know. How much can you take out of the car?"
"For Stage 1, we swap the car's batteries for a lighter variant. We also remove the car's weighty air con and stereo systems. Once we do this, the changes can't be undone, so make sure-"
"WHAT?"
"Ya hard on hearing, son? Need me to speak up?"
"Which
goon of a mechanic can't put back batteries and air con after they've ripped them out?!"
"If you have a change of heart, son, you can always buy a whole new body for the car at... 21,600 Credits."
"
THAT COSTS MORE THAN THE WHOLE CAR WHEN IT WAS NEW!"
"Logistics don't always work out for the end user for a small company such as ourselves, who hire only the most talented technicians that take the utmost–"
"Y-Y'know what? Nevermind the weight. 830 kilos is plenty light enough. Can I have a cage and some lightweight wheels?"
"Them's GT Auto's bidness next door."
"What? They're a car maintenance shop, and you're a tuning shop, why are you—"
"Them's the breaks, son."
"An AWD swap?"
"Only at our Mexican Branch."
"God's sake... Tyres. You have tyres? Comfort Softs? Do you weld them to the wheels and driveshafts? Can your mechanics take off a worn set, or do I have to buy a whole new car at inflated prices for fresh tyres?"
"You're looking to enter the Autopolis One Hour Kei Endurance for lil' Sarah, ain'tcha?"
H-how did he... That came out of nowhere!
I stood there, still with a dumbstruck look on my face. One moment this guy looks like a complete moron, and the next, it's like he has psychic powers. "You know Sarah?"
"Ain't a person here in Seven Haven who dunn' know her, son. But at the same time... hardly anyone here in Seven Haven
knows her, either."
"What... are you talking about?"
"Lil' Sarah's not that good at talking 'bout herself. Unless you got special treatment?"
"N-no, nothing of the sort. I know nothing about her, either."
I never did stop to think about it.
"Well, either way, have a good package tune for the Copen, actually. Low ratio manual transmission, sports suspension, a smarter chip, freer flowing exhaust, more resilient brake pads, lighter flywheels, a fuel controller, and Stage 1 weight reduction... basically, what the spec car folks run. Battle tested base tune, easy to build further upon. We've done this for a great many folk."
"Hmm? Nah. I want full customisability for the Suspension, Diff, and Gearbox."
"You sure that's not overkill, son? We have 'em, sure, but they'll
'COST MORE THAN THE WHOLE CAR WHEN IT WAS NEW' y'know?", he says with a chuckle. Sigh. And this is why the end user loses out in a monopoly.
"You get what you pay for, right? They're more worthwhile in the long term in case she ever gets serious about this."
"Ain't your first rodeo, I hope?"
"It's been a while since my last."
"You got the Credits?"
"No discount for the Understeer decals on the car?"
"I'll throw in the fuel controller and your second set of tyres for free."
"Fair enough."
At checkout, this is what my shopping list looked like:
ITEM: | PRICE (Cr.): |
| Comfort: Soft | COMPLEMENTARY |
| Comfort: Soft | 1,120 |
| Fully Customizable Suspension | 12,000 |
| Fully Customizable Differential | 5,250 |
| Full Customizable Computer | 3,500 |
| Fully Customizable Manual Transmission | 11,000 |
| High–RPM Turbocharger | 17,200 |
| Racing Intercooler | 3,100 |
| Racing Air Filter | 2,000 |
| Racing Muffler | 7,000 |
| Racing Exhaust Manifold | 2,450 |
| Racing Brake Pads | 1,000 |
| Brake Balance Controller | 1,500 |
| Power Fuel Controller | COMPLEMENTARY |
— | — |
| Grand Total: | 46,420 |
| Power: | 62HP→115HP |
| Weight: | 830kg (1,830lbs)→830kg (1,830lbs) |
| Performance Points: | 292.88PP→399.80PP |
— | — |
| THANK YOU AND PLEASE COME AGAIN. | |
| Understeer Engineering |
...plus another 4,000 Credits for a set of lightweight 14–Inch Yokohama ADVAN Racing GT wheels from GT Auto. Yes, downsized from the stock 15s. I hear large wheels aren't that good for fuel economy. Wouldn't want a puncture at the 59th minute, either. I think 14s are much more proportionate to the rest of the car, anyway. I wanted a roll cage, but I literally cannot contort my fat body enough to get into and out of the Kei car with the cage, so I guess the strat come Sunday is to "just not crash". Or get crashed into. My experience tells me that's more often than not the optimal strat to win races.
With this being someone else's car, I wanted to make sure that I only did bolt on mods, so that they can be easily removed or undone if not to Sarah's liking. With this being her only car as well, I wanted to retain the car's usability as a road car, which meant that the air con and stereo had to stay, and I opted for the adjustable manual gearbox instead of the sequential, keeping the car's stock clutch and flywheel so it doesn't stall easily. It's also for this reason that I didn't opt for the carbon ceramic brakes. That, and, well, the OE brakes on this thing work just fine, honestly. I think putting carbon ceramics on this thing is liable to fire off the car's airbags on full braking. Only change to the braking system are uprated pads (because they're cheap) and a brake balance controller to shift as much braking load to the rear as possible to preserve front tyre life. And after that, all that remained was adding power while keeping within 400PP... whatever that means. To this end, a high RPM Turbo kit replaces the wanting stock blowers. The full racing, straight pipe exhaust looks stupid as a single exit pokes out of a rear bumper with cutouts for two, and it sounds like a sexually aroused moose with anal cancer passing gas, but it's a necessary part with the big turbo. I'm definitely taking them off first thing after the race.
"Ain't every day I get a nutjob cruise up to my humble shop ready to drop BMW i3 money on parts alone, lemme tell ya! Whoo! This calls for a drink!"
"I don't like half assing things. Often works to my detriment."
He turns his back to me, half bottle in one hand and grabbing tool after tool off the wall with the other, knowing full well what his next job would entail, and exactly which tools in which sizes he'd need for said job. "Ain't my tale to tell, but if you're dropping this much money to risk life and limb for her out on the track, I figure ya oughta know."
"Know what?"
"That it ain't easy being a car girl. She used to get mocked a lot in school by the hardcore kids for liking the Copen. You know, the Skyline, Supra, VTEC crowd. They think she says she likes cars just to be popular with the boys. Kids are cruel like that."
"I know."
"But Sarah liked what she liked. No a'changin that. Kids have a way of fixating on the first thing that catches their attention, y' hear? Sometimes it even ends up definin' their whole lives."
"I know."
"She had a rough go at it, growing up. That's why she's so bright and bubbly, y'know? She dunn' want no one to feel what she felt. You could tell her you like a total toilet of a car like the MiTo and she'd be all like,
'Oh, that's a great car, I'm happy for you! I'm sure you'll have many special moments and memories with the car!' Or some generic crap like that."
"I know."
"But, see...
hrragh! That there's the problem if you ask an old tuning shop fart like me. You don't recognise faults and fix 'em, you never improve."
"I know."
"S'ppose you can see it in her car: it's her ideal Copen; perfect the way it is. Just the way she saw it in magazines 'n blog posts way back when. Her keepin' it bone stock must be like a middle finger to the pops and bangs crowd. It's one thing standin' up for yerself and what you love, but lil' Sarah—maybe it's not my place to be sayin' this—I think she's stuck where she stood firm in the past. Ain't no way to be livin' life, 'specially not a car life."
"I know."
"I don't know who you are, stranger. But I'm glad you sparked sumthin' in Sarah. Girl's been radiating a million watt smile from a dead battery for years. Can't even imagine what it's been doin' to her soul."
Just as he finishes saying that, a trolley full of boxes; big, small, and everything in between, is pushed up to the side of the Copen, along with a bevy of tools ready to intrude. "Competition's got its way of forcing change in folk, lemme tell ya. High time 'lil Sarah grew up a little. Methinks this Copen's been waiting to have its cherry popped for a long time."
"I kno—wait,
WHAT?!"
"
GAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't worry too much 'bout it, son. I think she'll be plenty happy just to have someone stand by her and take 'er seriously. Just don't crash and you'll be fine."
"At Autopolis? In a Copen? Not likely."
"Ahh haha! Those're fighting words backed by pro experience, ain't they."
Aw crap, now
I'm the one who spoke too much.
********************
View attachment 1248076
I'll be extra honest when saying this: I have severe doubts about this whole shebang from the start.
Strolling through the pits, I feel like I've somehow mistakenly driven into a S660 vs Beat grudge match: those were all the cars I've seen in the paddock thus far. Is there a clearance sale for these cars I missed, or what? It's enough to make me doubt my sanity and check again and again the official paperwork that I've shown up at the right time and the right place with an eligible car. Then again, I'm showing up to an endurance race with an FF car—almost literally the one legged man in an ass kicking contest. I don't think sanity is quite in the cards for me.
View attachment 1248077
The Honda Beat, despite being a brilliant car in its own right, I'm not so worried about; those damn things are death traps even with fresh tyres. Rather, it's the Honda S660 that concerns me: Not only does the Copen weigh the exact same as the much more modern midship, but the damn thing has a 6 speed mated to a highly versatile powerplant. Plus, most of these cars have GT Wings and sequential gearboxes from the sound of it. Seriously, a GT Wing, on a Kei car that struggles to hit 160km/h on the downhill back straight of Autopolis? Anti Lag in a fuel constrained race? Had the event regulations not limited our cars to 400PP and Comfort Soft tyres, these guys would have thrown their souls into the bin if it meant making them a car that looked or sounded faster.
In other words, I think I rolled up to a typical Honda meet with a Daihatsu Copen.
And, of all the tracks to have this Kei car grudge match on, Autopolis was their great idea? The track that's renowned for boring, impossible to overtake races even with the blistering, incomprehensible speed of Super Formula cars? Yeah,
that track, and not even the mercifully self aware shortcut course, either, but the full 4.7km bonanza of boring. This is a track with a million different feasible lines through its non flowing corners, and
none of them feel right.
All of that works
perfectly to my advantage in the Copen.
View attachment 1248078
Due to the handling deficit of being FF, my Copen was allowed to have more power than the rest of the field. Being a full sized course usually hosting faster machinery, this track is WAY too long for Kei cars... which means many, many prolonged seconds of full throttle simply waiting to get to the next corner, during which I effortlessly sailed past the sequential Hondas with the full force of 400 primed peepees pinning me to the back of my seat... whatever those are.
View attachment 1248079
The car as a whole felt immense! I'm not sure what Sarah or Understeer did to the steering of the Copen, but it felt WAY stronger with much more granular feel than the last Copen I drove two years ago, which allowed me to feel almost literally with my fingertips the condition of the front tyres as the event wore on. With the uprated springs and shortened ratios, the Copen felt like a lighter and angrier supercharged Mini. It's one of the very few, if not only FF car I've driven that genuinely wants to rotate mid corner instead of simply turning and dragging its arse along. I hardly even did anything to the default settings of the fully customisable parts I bought, either; they're set up out of the box to give a comfortable, capable base, one that only requires tinkering to suit personal tastes, but it's plenty good enough for me as it is.
View attachment 1248080
The only slight complaint I had during shakedown was that the only thing high about the High RPM Turbo Kit was the person when they named it; peak power is still squarely in the stock car's region of ~6,500rpm, and the car still dies past 7,5. And to think, this stupid snail is almost the cost of the entire car when brand new! However, those complaints quickly evaporated when the COTW technicians told me that the turbo was generating its peak boost of 0.5 Bar from as middling as 5,500rpm, though it's a shame that neither Toyota nor Understeer had a turbo gauge to fit in the car. With torque that far down and gear ratios that short, I was even taking the slowest corner of the course, the hairpin turning away from the Shortcut Corse, in 3rd. Because my car retained the 3 pedal setup, I could even skip shift from 3rd to 5th on the downhill back straight to save fuel, and the car's stupid mid range torque just made it seem natural.
View attachment 1248081
All this meant that I kept the revs low and could save fuel where the peaky Hondas had to rev out their VTECs, and they still couldn't match my pace on the straights! The quickest of those even had to make two stops for fuel within the hour, whereas I made do with just one stop with a slightly lean fuel mix. Yes, I was getting out braked and out cornered. Yes, my front left tyre was almost completely out of tread when I pit for a new set. But after a dominant few opening laps, the Honda drivers fell back, almost as if they gave up. Even as my lap times went off a cliff witb my front tyres, they never did catch up. They just could not cope with the Copen.
And, you know what? I'd be lying if I wrote that I didn't have the goofiest smile on my face the
entire time. The 1.2 million winning prize was just the cherry on the Active Top
********************
"ES! ES! ESSSSSSS! HE DID IT! HE WON! MY COPPY WOOOOOON!"
"I was watching. Congratulations are in order!"
"C'mon Es, I just got 600k for that! Lemme treat you to some Affogato at the GT Café. You HAVE to come! You can't say no to Affogato!"
"I'd love to, Rahrah, but I... ah sh—
YARD! PUT THAT PLASMA CUTTER DOWN! We have procedures—
OBELISK! OBELISK RUN!"
"Heehee. Is everyone at Car of the Week like this? Es? Es, you there?"
"
Haaaah... god's sake... No, no not really. Honestly, if you just wanted your Coppy to win, I'm sure all you had to do was to ask Vic. Would've been way easier than doing all this."
"I just hoped that the ride in the Copen was what he needed, Es. I've never seen someone so sad in Seven Haven before. I mean, gosh, it's right there in the name, isn't it?! It's illegal to be that gloomy here!"
"Still can't stand seeing people sad, huh?"
"Yeah, but honestly, how did you do it? Everything went exactly like you said it would!"
"I've edited that man's diatribe for 3 years now, I think I know the way his brain works."
"You're so evil, Es!"
"I'm just good at my job, Rahrah. Lee—XSquareStickIt—is a critic. He tends to see the negatives first. Sometimes he doesn't get past that. I think that's especially true for how he sees himself. He often needs those around him to pull his head out his ass to see the bigger picture. I... probably shouldn't have sent him alone to Seven Haven, in retrospect. It's just... this new writer, he..."
"Maybe... maybe I'll tell him to... um... 'get his head out his ass' next time we meet. Did I say that right?"
"Y–you will? Sarah, that's... wow."
"I know. I need to change. As do you, and everyone else."
First thing on my to-do when I get home from work.
