Late last year, Goodstock Motorsport announced that they’d be bringing the US Legend Car series to Singapore. As part of their promotional activities, they invited us up to Ipoh to sample the very cars that you’d soon see battling wheel-to-wheel at Changi Exhibition Centre.
So what exactly are these Legend Cars? Well, despite their retro sedan looks, these cars aren’t actually based on any production vehicle. INEX, the manufacturer of the Legend Car, built a bespoke chassis specifically designed for racing. The first examples of the cars rolled off the production line in 1992, and are based on 5/8ths scale replicas of the early NASCAR modifieds vehicles.
In essence then, you have a short wheelbase car, with a very stiff chassis and 125 bhp on tap. That sounds like quite the potent combination. But is it really that difficult to drive?
Strapping In
The cockpit is incredibly cramped. Thick sills and a low roll bar means you need to contort your body to fit into the tight-fitting seat. You may not see the point of a pared-down, form-fitting seat, but your body will thank you once the vehicle is on the move.
You’ll need a mechanic to strap you in thoroughly. There really isn’t a lot of room within the cabin for you to even think about attempting to do up the harness on your own. Once you’re strapped in, you’d also struggle to reach the starter, mounted on the right side of the dashboard.
External help is also needed to fit the quick-release steering wheel. Looking at the footwell, you’ll notice the Legend Car has four pedals. The middle two control the front and rear brakes respectively, but have been welded together to operate as one. This affords you the luxury of choice – you can brake with either foot, though I’d strongly urge you to left-foot-brake for greater turn-in precision.
Not as Rowdy as You May Have Thought
The Yamaha FX09 sounds proper gnarly on start-up. Being a race car, there’s no need to meet emissions or noise regulations, so the Yamaha Tracer 900-sourced motor can truly sing all the way to its 10,000+ rpm redline.
Being a bike engine, clutch actuation is actually fairly effortless. In my mind, race cars are supposed to have unusable clutches, so I anticipated a lot of resistance in the pedal travel. This meant that I stalled the car trying to pull out of the pit lane, and needed help getting it restarted. You do not get any feedback about the biting point at all, and setting off requires you to gradually build up revs whilst you feed the clutch in.
To engage first gear, you push the gear lever away from you. Second to fifth can then be engaged as you would a sequential gearbox, with no need to use the clutch. Sean and I drove the Legend Cars at Goodstock Motorsport’s facility in Ipoh, which only had a very small oval.
Drivers here use either second or third gear for the entirety of the lap. Second would keep the car right at the upper limit of the rev range and the peaky power will make the car extra snappy due to the increased wheel speed. As such, I opted to drive the track in third, as this meant the car would have sufficient torque, but not excessive amounts of wheel speed that’d make the rear end nervous on power.
We didn’t have a lot of time on track, but even in the limited running that we had, I could see the real life drivers having to use the rear to steer the car instead of the fronts. The car isn’t super responsive on initial turn-in, though the grip does eventually arrive albeit slightly delayed. On throttle application, the rear end seems to behave very much like a locked differential, so there will always be some degree of oversteer regardless of your throttle position.
I’d describe the oversteer as ‘predictable’, and you very quickly settle into a rhythm of working with the car rather than against it. With no power steering, electronic nannies or power brakes to sully the sensations of driving, the car makes it easy for you to instinctively adjust your steering and throttle inputs to try and control the rate of rotation.
And you’d probably want to do that in competition. But we are not racing, and this is a test day. So careful optimisation of corner entry and exits was not something we were going to do. Instead, we wanted to see how much angle and throttle we could carry into each of the oval’s four corners.
Very quickly, the car gave me the confidence to fully send it. With my right foot firmly in the firewall, the rear end became alive. The chassis and steering worked hand-in-hand with the backend, giving me all the feedback I needed through my body and my hands to do all the necessary corrections on the steering and on the throttle.
I successfully manji-ed the back straight, throwing the car into T3 with some proper angle. A touch of left-foot-braking helped to slow the front of the car down, allowing me to add even more angle by increasing the speed of the rear wheels.
Properly Physical
Shortly after the tomfoolery, it was time to come in. And despite the session only being 15 minutes long, the sheer grip that these cars had meant that your neck would receive quite the pounding. My core wasn’t all that sore only because the seat prevented my body from being thrown about. A lack of power steering and power brakes also means driving a Legend Car can be a proper substitute for arms and legs day.
There’s a good reason why the INEX Legend Car is by far the most produced race car of all-time. Since production started three decades ago, almost 7,500 chassis have been produced, and most of them are still in competition. Goodstock has also introduced a new 850cc variant of the Legend Car, that is down on the 1.3 litre lump as seen in this article. However, the six-speed transmission and significantly lower kerb weight makes for a vehicle that is just as quick as its predecessor.
Agile, rowdy, affordable and brilliant for close-quarters combat, it is no wonder that these cars have proven to be such a hit globally. And Singaporeans will now get to sample some of the action, at the upcoming Goodstock Speedfest at Changi Exhibition Centre in August!
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