BMW 323is vs 2000 Honda Civic Si

[Addict]

I was on my way back to work from one of our plants. Well on the way back my CD Player died. Well that pissed me off since its about a $700 player. So I'm rolling down the off-ramp messing with my radio attempting to get it to work. Of course I get stuck at the stop light.

As I'm trying in vain to make it come back to life, I keep hearing this "mustang-like" reving (you know the deep, raspy, throaty sound). I look around. Nothing. I resume messing around. The reving starts again. I look next to me and its a BMW 323is making all the noise. Ok he either wants to race or his car won't stay running unless he keeps doing that. So I see him make a slight grin out of the corner of his mouth. Ok he wants to race. So I give it a slight touch o the gas. We both wait impatiently for the light to turn.....

The light hits GREEN. I drop it from 2k. I take off almost perfectly as does he. We round the corner. I shift to second. We nose to nose. I hit 5500. WHAM! I throw it in third gear. That was all she wrote. I pulled about 3/4 car length ahead. Then we hit the stop light.

As we stop, I look over to give a thumbs up. He was just shaking his head. I could imagine the thoughts in his head. "I just lost to a Civic."

Anyhow this was my first "real" race since getting my Si back in late October 2001. I looked up the specs on his car just to make sure the guy just wasn't a horrible driver. I was a bit suprised to see the numbers.

1998 323is
2.5-liter DOHC 24-valve inline 6-cylinder
168 hp @ 5,500 rpm
181 lb-ft of torque @ 3,950 rpm
5-speed manual transmission