A couple of days ago I went to Castelletto Circuit, a little race track in the North of Italy, in order to rent a Legend Car for a couple of free practice sessions. Castelletto is the Italian headquarters of these little but angry race cars, which were born in 1992 in the USA as low budget cars taking a cue from the motorcycle-engined dwarf cars, being manufactured in those years.
Until a few years ago all the Legend Cars were powered by a Yamaha FJ1250 4-cylinder engine able to produce around 140hp at 10,500 rpm. In 2018 US Legends Cars International, the company which builds all the Legends, announce a new water cooled, fuel injected engine for their cars, taken from the Yamaha MT-09 (or Yamaha FZ09 in North America) naked. This is a 850 cc 4-stroke 12-valve DOHC inline-3 with crossplane crankshaft which weighs 30 kgs less than the previous inline-4 and it's still able to produce the same amount of power with a few of mods. The gearbox is the 6-speed sequential of the MT-09. The total weight of the car is around 550 kgs with the driver.
Apart from a very brief, 5-laps experience of a depowered 4-cylinder Legends two years ago, this was my very first time behind the wheel of the new 3-cylinder one at full power. Having zero electronic controls and a locked rear differential, these things are basically bigger go karts that must be driven in the cleanest way possible in order to make good times. Otherwise, they can be driven in the dirtiest way possible, powersliding all around the track using the immense amount of torque this new inline-3 has at every rpm.
I'm pretty satisfied about my session. The guys at Castelletto Circuit gave me a lot of precise and clean suggestions on how to drive in order to set a good time but as usual I preferred to take advantage of these rare opportunities to have fun. As you can see from the video this means I still have a lot to learn, starting from taking the right apex of each corner everytime and use the correct gear. Another aspect I have to focus my attention on is the braking point: I was braking too in advance compared to the correct braking point. Talking about the gears, I could have changed gear without using the clutch (releasing the throttle for upshifts and giving a little throttle blip while downshifting) but I was asked to use the clutch everytime resulting in those horrible upshifts. Next time!
Last but not the least, I TRULY love how the engine sounds like. I've never been a fan of the typical high revving inline-4 sound of Japanese superbikes but years ago I fell in love with the sound of Triumph's 3-cylinder engines. So you can understand how I'm happy to think I can rent and drive a car that sounds in a similar way. Does it remind you of a particular race car? I noticed some 2020 Porsche 911 RSR's raucous tones on off throttle plus an intake sounding similar to the one of an Alfa 155 V6 Ti (1:33 for example).
#LegendsCars #CastellettoCircuit #POV
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Негізгі бет Driving a 10,000 rpm, inline-3 Legend Car at Castelletto Circuit: OnBoard POV & Sound!
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