Honda Legend SH-AWD on/off
As a sidebar to our visit to the oval, there was a little infield track setup where we were invited to circulate for 3 laps in a Honda Legend (Acura RL). In Japan, the Legend has a "Snow" switch on the dash which defeats the torque vectoring function of the SH-AWD system, which makes it behave much like the standard VTM4 AWD system (the system from which SH-AWD is derived). Our first lap around the circuit was performed with the SH-AWD system disabled, then we took a lap with SH-AWD engaged, and then we disabled it once again for the final lap. This little demonstration went pretty much as you'd expect - with the SH-AWD system off, the car understeered rather profoundly. With it enabled, the manner in which the Legend can be rotated with the throttle and wheel is actually quite amazing and a lot of fun (though the threshold at which you can experience this almost certainly limits exploitation of these capabilities to the controlled environment of a track). On another note, like most of the Japanese market Hondas I've driven, the Legend's motor feels a bit more potent than the lump that's found in our RL, as if the US-version has been corked up quite a bit. Indeed, the exhaust and intake notes on the Legend seemed quite a bit rortier - this Legend felt at least a half-second (or more) quicker to 60 than a comparable Acura RL. And why do Japanese market Hondas get auto up/down windows for all four doors, while the most we see in the 'States is 2?

Video Clips

In this clip, you can see some footage of our time at the tri-oval, including the new i-DTEC diesel prototype, FCX prototype, and others.

In this clip, I'm seated in the rear of a priceless Honda FCX prototype as it laps the tri-oval at near triple digit speeds.

On to the East Course
I honestly don't know how NASCAR drivers can bear driving in circles all the time, but I guess 7 and 8 figure earning potentials tend to make things more palatable. Fortunately, Twin Ring Motegi also features a very fun road course, which can be run as a full circuit or split into two sections, and following our session on the oval, we once again piled into the motorcoach and drove over to the pit lane of Twin Ring's East Course, where two Civic Type Rs, a pair of S2000s, and two racecars (a Hybrid Civic and an i-CTDi Accord) awaited our flogging.

Civic Type R
I've already filed the report on the Civic Type R experience, but if you missed it, you should click on over. In short, this car embodies the spirit of Honda and is near perfection in the eyes of the Temple of VTEC.

Civic Hybrid Race Car
As I approached this car, while strapping on my helmet I noticed a picnic-sized Igloo cooler sitting in the back seat of this gutted Civic hybrid. I asked if I could go ahead and grab a Sapporo, but I learned from their response that it was actually part of the cooling system for the battery pack. Cute. Quite honestly, after driving the street version of the same car, the notion of making a race car with a hybrid powertrain is flirting with absurdity. On the street, if you drive a Civic Hybrid with your foot flat to the floor for very long, you will deplete the battery pack in a rapid manner, and it will pretty much stay depleted until you adopt a more friendly driving attitude. Whether that battery pack is full or depleted, the street version of the Civic Hybrid doesn't exactly conjure vivid fantasies of carving apexes at your favorite road course. But apparently, the guys who built this racer weren't deterred, and after driving it, I found that the notion may not be as absurd as I initially thought. I'm uncertain of what modifications were performed to the engine, but it seemed to be the basic race car stuff: opening up the airflow into and out of the motor. It certainly looked the part, with fat slicks on it, big brembo brakes, a full cage, and really loud "racecar" exhaust. Honestly in my few laps around the track I didn't sense much input from the electric portion of the drivetrain, but that could have had something to do with the sensory overload of cornering and braking G-forces combined with the loud engine note. The car's torque curve felt pretty flat, with power building progressively, though the rev limit was about 2000 rpms lower than I like. Calling this car outright FAST would probably be an overstatement, but it is significantly quicker than a standard Civic hybrid, and probably even a 1.8L Civic, though I've yet to sample a purpose-built R18 Civic racer. From our experience, the Civic sedan and coupe chassis make a great basis for a track car, and this car was no exception. This car exhibited excellent balance through the corners and strong braking performance, a combination that kept me smiling while on the track.

Accord i-CTDI (Diesel) Racecar
Until Audi's recent success with their R10 LeMans cars, the only time you heard the words "diesel" and "racecar" uttered in the same sentence was during discussions of tow vehicles. As evidenced by the Civic Hybrid race car, Honda is keen on the notion of using the race track as an integral part of R&D, and as this i-CTDi racer demonstrates, it matters not whether the car runs on petrol, diesel, or electrons. In this particular case, the starting point was Japanese-spec Accord with Honda's first generation (i-CTDi) 2.2L turbodiesel 4-cylinder engine. The CL7's excellent chassis was treated to a full race suspension, upgraded brakes, and a full roll cage. The engine seemed to be largely production-spec, apart from freer flowing intake and exhaust plumbing. Out on track, the car was a delight, though the engine seemed to be largely overmatched by the CL7's superb chassis dynamics and otherworldly brakes. The diesel delivers a decent wallop coming out of corners, but the limited rev capacity and rapid falloff of torque as the revs climb means that the car lacks the power to generate enough speed down the straights to extract the performance that the chassis is capable of.