OK, so am am about as unbiased as you can get because I own an '03 Cobra and an '05 STI for my "winter" car. I always wondered which was faster (pre-Whipple) between a fairly stock Termy and my lightly modded STI (turbo back, dynotuned 280awhp & 325 ftlbs). My seat of the ass answer was that the STI was quicker from a dig up to about 60 - 70 mph due to the superior grip with awd, and then the Termy would eventually take over on motor. I was in my STI the other day and came upon what turned out to be a fairly stock (catback at most) Termy and we had a go from about 30ish up to well over three digits (closed course, of course! ;-) and to be honest it wasn't even close.... I pulled about 10 lengths on him and it basically never changed from there. I slowed down and we talked briefly....he said he started to close the gap a bit at about 100 or so (I didn't see that from my end, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). So my lingering questions are: was he just lacking skill on his end? or does my old estimate of AWD grip advantage from 0 to 60ish need to be revamped to 0-100? Do any of you guys have experience good or bad with STI encounters????