YouTuber Takes Grandmother Around the ‘Ring in Audi R8
Even when traveling over 180 mph, this grandmother proved cool as a cucumber on a lap around Germany’s famous Nürburgring.
When I first saw the title of YouTuber Misha Charoudin’s latest video, I have to admit, I was expecting something slightly different. Remember the clip of former F1 driver Riccardo Patrese taking his wife for a spin in a Honda Civic Type R? The one where she goes ballistic and seems to invent a hundred new Italian swear words? That’s kind of what I was thinking. But as it turns out, Charoudin’s grandmother proves cool as a cucumber — even when he’s pushing the Audi R8 to over 180 mph.
That makes the clip even more fun, honestly. The sweet lady genuinely seems to be having a good time, which is pretty impressive. Because as we all know, the Nürburgring is a challenging track with lots of elevation changes and sharp turns. So the g-forces the pair are experiencing aren’t exactly nonexistent. When I’ve run hot laps on challenging circuits, I’ve occasionally had folks less than half her age ask me to back off, so the fact that she never tapped out makes her a total winner in my book.
At one point, she says she’s only driven around 60 mph, which makes sense given the quality of the cars she experienced growing up in the Soviet Union. Even at that relatively tame speed, something like a Trabant would likely be shaking itself to pieces. Fortunately, the Audi displays no such problems when Charoudin visits the upper registers of the speedometer, and the famous quattro all-wheel drive keeps it stuck to the tarmac in the corners. Now I have to wonder if grandma has got the bug — maybe we’ll even see her behind the wheel in a future video?
My beloved grandmother passed away over a decade ago, and given what I remember about her driving, I don’t think she would have enjoyed a lap like this. My mother, on the other hand, would likely have a blast. She’s the one who taught me to drive stick, and when I was in college, her daily driver was a five-speed Nissan 240SX. She’s in her early 70s now, but she still rocks a BMW 3 Series, so I’m going to see about taking her for a spin around her local circuit when I’m back for the holidays…
Photos: YouTube