Cruising around in Fort Walton Beach, I was on a highway when a newish WRX STI was cruising right in front of me. As far as I know, his car was stock. My '97 M6 C5 is stock down to the paper filter. I pulled into the opposite lane and at about 55mph, I dropped into 2nd gear. I goosed it a couple of times, but it seemed like he wasn't going to play. Then, as I'm shifting back into 6th, he comes screaming by me, and I tried to play catch-up. It wasn't worth it. He had a jump and a considerably higher speed, and through 3rd gear he just kept pulling away. We came up on some traffic that I wasn't willing to race through, so I slowed and he did too.
We moved onto another highway that didn't have any traffic and this time I wasn't going to give him the jump. I dropped to about 45 and went back into 2nd. He lined up about a half car length back and dropped gears, too. For some reason he just paced me with his nose at my driver's door. I waited and he didn't do anything. So, I nailed the throttle and he was very quickly on the throttle too. I'd guess he hit it about a half second after I did. So basically, I got the hit and half a car length from 45. This time, I went well into 4th and well into triple digit speeds. He stayed with me through second and most of 3rd, but by the top of forth, I had about 2-3 cars, and by the middle of forth I had about 5 lengths. So I let up.
The 3rd time we went at it, we got on it at almost the exact same time. This time the results were pretty much the same as in the second race. At the end of 3rd and into 4th, I really started pulling away from him.
With that race I was satisfied, and he seemed to be, too. We both went our separate ways.
Chris
