By Richard S. Chang
At the end of the 1997 season, North American Super Touring died a sudden death when Chrysler pulled out of the circuit, ending something that continues to thrive all over Europe and Japan. So what if the Super Touring cars aren’t as high-tech as F1 cars nor as fast as NASCAR V-8s. So what if the driver field was stocked with low-profile names and unproven CART racers. There is something inherently awesome in a 2.0L four-door showroom Accord equipped with a six-speed sequential shift going 160 mph through the silky back stretch of Laguna Seca.
That is the coolest aspect of Super Touring: Race teams must use real production vehicles as their platforms. Though the engines are buffed up to 300-plus hp and moved way down and back in the chassis, they must be from a model in the manufacturer’s car line with a 2,500 production minimum, and displacement cannot exceed two liters. That means speed and brute force carry equal—if not less—weight as the suspension, brakes, and overall driving skill. So, Super Touring cars really represent everything we long for in an everyday driver. And despite our universal aspirations to be the baddest and the fastest, they could be considered the best breed of racer to emulate. That is what Tracy Robison did to his ’97 Accord.
This car is all about swerves and French curves. The suspension is stiffer than Pamela Anderson’s bare fakies in the middle of a New England ice storm and is prepped with InTrax A.R.S. coilover struts and shocks, which are adjustable, offering Tracy a wide range of ride heights with a steep and deep max-out drop of 3 inches. A DC Sports billet strut tower brace, Suspension Techniques antisway bars, and Prothane polyurethane bushings add support and stiffness, while an Auto Power rollbar helps to stiffen the chassis. Eighteen-inch American Racing Pinzettis (duh) and sticky 225/40ZR18 Yokohama AVS S1s garnish the four corners, and it would take a trail as tricky as the Riddler’s Revenge to make this bad boy land on its back. An impossibility.
But what’s a Super Touring car without oversized stoppers flashing through the blurred spokes of spinning powdercoating? Little more than a month without weekends, right? That’s why Tracy swapped massive 13-inch Baer brakes into the front and 12-inchers into the rear. Now, those aren’t just brakes, they’re neck-snapping gut-wrenching torture discs. Seatbelts are an imperative when riding shotgun with Tracy, because going from speed to bleed can happen faster than you can say world’s fastest one point five.
Though the F22B1 powerplant sits in its assembly line position and without the power adders characteristic of a real deal Super Touring racer, this Accord does have a 100-shot Nitrous Express wet system. That’s something you won’t find on the AMP Bathurst 1000, and though it probably won’t impress the hell out of Randy Pobst, it’s easy and instant passing power for a motor that can only boast of simple bolt-ons: AEM pulleys and cam gear, a DC Sports header and polished stainless steel exhaust, and a K&N intake. These offer only minor horsepower gains at best, but it’s easy to see why Tracy doesn’t want to be dogfighting Z.Team YOSSi on the freeway.
The exterior is a dead-on reproduction of a Honda Super Touring race car. Wings West ground effects (with a custom front grille) and wing, clear corners, PIAA 1000 Diachroic driving lights, the paint, and vinyl graphics by Modern Image put together this life-size model. All that’s missing is an on-board air jack.
For the inside of the car, Tracy once again opted against authenticity and went with drivability. Instead of gutting the interior and relocating the steering wheel to the center (wuss), he fitted the car with more creature comforts than the HKS suite at SEMA. We’re exaggerating, of course. There aren’t any Frigidaires filled with Coors Light, topless Polynesian hula girls, or prancing chimpanzees. What you will find inside this car is leather upholstery and a mobile home-entertainment system. Here are just some of the highlights: Clarion tuner with monitor (VRX 8271), six-disc CD changer (CDC 635), and video cassette player (VDH 9300); Infinity Kappa series amp and speakers; and Scosche EFX four-gauge power cables. As our Max Power cohorts in the U.K. would say: “That’s bloody bloomin’ buggery ICE. Cheers. Now torch my fag, and let’s take the tube to Wembley.”