Woke up at 6am to a cold, un-inspiring morning. Doubts began to form that the days meet may not be all that great. When Lancer Evolutions meet with Impreza's to see whose the king of speed, rain has this strange dampening effect on times. Today was to be a large gathering of Lancer Evolution and Impreza owners, with the odd Club Legacy owners meeting thrown into the mix. The meat of this meal would be the top Lancer Evo and Impreza tuners vying for the fastest lap time at Tsukuba Circuit.

The crew got together at 7am, and we took off. Zombie grey was the predominant color of the sky, and it showed no signs of coming to life the closer we got. And given the lack of Evo's or STI's around us as we closed in to the circuit right on the 8am starting time, it looked as if the owners weren't showing either. The conspicuous lack of a traffic jam got us really wondering!

Wrong. They must have gotten up at 4am, or spent the night there, like Akihabara zombie geeks spending 3 days in line to get the latest game machine. All parking lots were filled to overflowing with Impreza's, Lancer Evo's, or Legacies. Except for a woebegone group of custom van owners off in one gathering, there were acres of performance turbo metal everywhere you could see. Cheerful sight, that was. The day started feeling a bit warmer, at least in our hearts. Our toes and fingers weren't going to feel that way soon.

All right then, so time to weasel our way to the heart of the action. Vaguely mumbling "we're press, honest" to the event security trying to keep us out, we soldiered on into the heart of madness. Parking was scrounged up out near the parts and tuner tents, and we promptly geared up and spread out. I went straight for the 3rd corner and started filming, for the tuners were taking their demo cars out for, well, demonstration laps. They separated the groups out with Lancer Evo's going in one half hour, then Subaru B4's, Legacy wagons, and Impreza's going out in their own clump. Possibly they were worried about open hostilities breaking out if they mixed them all together, but the Subaru drivers managed to have altercations all on their own, with a B4 and an Impreza hitting the sand (and barriers, and each other) on the first corner. Other than a spin, some dirt driving, and one 2.2-litre Tommy Kaira STI hitting the wall on the last high-speed sweeper, no blood was shed. There was a Roman Coliseum mood to the crowd for more blood (sheet metal?) hoping to warm the extremeties, but these warriors had to keep their products together until the end of the day, although it seemed a Tommy Kaira privateer was willing to emulate Russell Crowe. The Evos that ran next were a more professional crowd, with cages in every beast. Possibly making more noise than the tuner specials competing for the fast laps later, they put on a good show as we shivered through to the main event.

Then it was on to the big boys. Fire-spitting, no-holds barred beasts, the best of the Lancer Evolution and Impreza specials from the tuners. One over-enthusiastic Evo spit fire a bit early, and not out the exhaust pipe. A large, black cloud of smoke appeared over the pits, and the contest was delayed for a few minutes as they moved it out of the way (best it happened where it did - one of our crew has had the unfortunate experience of enjoying a rather large "moment" after an Evo blew up right in front of him on this circuit - no shots of that "action" unfortunately). Eventually there was a start. Didn't need to hear these cars to know they meant business, you felt it. With the professional drivers in these babies, there were no offs. Ominous omens of rain storms popped up more often than dead albatrosses in a Monty Python schtick, with helpful drops of rain just to keep the mood going, but it managed to stay dry on the track. A couple of helpful Evo's and Impreza's even laid down some fire out of their exhaust to make sure the track kept dry. Lancer Evolutions of various eras thundered out first, and they came out strong. There was enough power channeled through their AWD systems that the rear-ends were noticeably loose when they got on the power. Growling through the 3rd corner like hyperactive lions, they had a tendency to lay down swaths of black at corner exits. Sounded amazing, except that some of them were running the most annoyingly high-pitched braking in history. Cats must have fled the area for miles around.

Then it was Subaru's turn. The 570+hp JUN GC8 did a credible job of vibrating loose some fillings as it roared by, but the holder of "low-flying aircraft award" had to be the Zero Sports GDB Impreza STI. Every time it wailed past, spectators would duck and look for the incoming. Amazingly it still had the 2.0-litre engine in there, not a 2.2 or 2.5-litre jobby. After the last echos faded away, it emerged the winner of the morning contest, beating out all the contenders. Not only did a new body Impreza beat out the new Evo VII along with older body style Evo's, it beat out the lighter GC8 Impreza's, taking over as king.

Then there was a great demo run by the 2 Endurance Series Race cars - the Prova/Eifel STi Spec C and the Puma Evo 7 - obviously not racing but putting on an awesome show at serious speed nonetheless.

The suppliers of parts and tweaks to the market were out in force with both manufacturers displaying their toys (Subaru showed up with a WRC blue new Forester, and a swag of other tasty metal, while Mitsubishi could only manage some Evo 7s - with the GT-A automatics attending in force). Mine's had a big 2nd hand outlet stand which attracted lots of interest, and all the suppliers were running offers of one sort or other. One gent was spied walking out of Fujitsubo's tent with a centre pipe for his car - he looked intent on installing it right there and then!

SEI (Summitomo EI) had a nice looking monoblock caliper on their stand that sounded suspiciously like it would be finding its way onto a local maker's car (or cars) soon. Next door carbon brake discs were being shown alongside carbon clutches and brake pads - AVS gets the award for most expensive individual bits on show