A8 L Sport 20

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/16711/audi9.jpg"></center><p>At the recommendation of Brian 4.2, I registerd and participated in the one-day $475 drive your own car program (or $675 drive a Long Beach Grand Prix Toyota Celica) at the Willow Springs Raceway just North of Lancaster in Rosamond, CA.

Obviously, the prospect of driving my own car on a race track was very intriging, but also the idea of becoming a better driver was appealing. Previous to this day, I had no experience with professional driving.

The day consisted of about 1 hour of classroom training with Danny McKeever and his staff of 4 intructors. We primarily discussed vehicle dynamics and the main concept, tire management.

Then, we hit the track with a few lead and follow runs with the instructors giving us advice about how best to drive the track. By the way, the one day course includes only the "Streets of Willow" track which is about 2.5 miles in length with a lot of sharp turns that limit your speed to about 80mph. The larger and much faster track is available only on the third day of the extended and much more expensive training. Speeds of about 135mph can be reached on this course with a 4.2.

Also, interestingly enough, I was the only person out of 15 who drove his own car, even though there were plenty of other nice and fast cars owned by the participants, e.g., one BoxterS, one GS430 and one SL600.

I drove my car because I wanted to see how it would handle under such extreme conditions and also to better understand how to manipulate a 4100lb. car in tight and evasive maneuvers.

After the lead and follow runs, we were able to take the cars out on our own or with an instructor if you so chose. As luck would have it, Tom Hunter, one of the instructors, is also the official Audi trainer for Audi Brand Specialists on the A6. Not only did I learn how to drive better, but I learned a hell of lot about the 4.2 and the technical specifications of how the quattro system really works during aggressive high performance driving. It was truly facinating.

Skidpad training was also part of the day's fun and the corning dynamics, wet and dry, were experienced and the limits explored. This process was very informative and very eye-opening in terms of what a 4100lb car can and cannot do. Because I drive a 2000 4.2, I do not have ESP which makes quite a difference on the skidpad. It's probably nothing you would ever experience in real world driving, but knowing what happens to the car under extreme conditions might save your life some day.

The car handles so neutrally that it's difficult to get into any real trouble. The quattro covers up a lot, but only if applied correctly. It's difficult to tell yourself when you're driving toward a wall that you should actually hit the gas and turn the wheel instead of hitting the brakes, but you learn quickly that in an AUDI that is the best way to escape nasty situations.

Because we were in the Mojave Desert, it was about 100 degrees and during the course of the day, my oil temperature reached 250 degrees, but never more than that and the engine temperature increased to one hash mark right of center. Not too bad, considering. Also, because of the track layout, I left the transmission in tip mode and never touched it. I let the car redline itself for any upshifts and it did all the downshifts as well, because the gas pedal was always buried in the floor. Only on the straight-away did the car get out of 2nd gear. Lot's of fun.

You're probably wondering about tire wear and brake fade. I experienced no brake fade during the day and the tires definitely lost some tread, but I would say no more than about 2 months of life in one day. And after all, they're just tires.

All in all, I would say it was a very positive experience and I would recommend doing it. Let me know if you have any questions.<ul><li><a href="http://www.raceschool.com">http://www.raceschool.com</a<

2.7tDallas

Great post!!!!!

TXurS6

Cool! Share some of the things you learned from Tom Hunter.

April

( flush your brake fluid yet ? )

A8 L Sport 20

Asking for a bleed and flush at the 24,000mile service next week- thanks for the reminder!

A8 L Sport 20

The biggest thing I learned about the car was the technical side of Quattor. When I used to own a 4000 Quattro, things were much simpler. 25% of the power was applied to each wheel all the time, regardless of traction and regardless of power and brake input. Now, the quattro only works when the throttle is engaged. Also, it only uses the transmission to apply and reduce power to control wheel spin. Therefore, during normal driving conditions, in a straight line with linear power applied, all wheels get 25%, but as soon as wheel spin is detected, power is immediately reduced from that wheel or wheels and applied to the wheel or wheels that have traction. To demonstrate this, he suggested we put the car half in the dirt and half on the payment and apply maximum power. The dirt wheels don't spin at all because they aren't receiving any power and the other two pull the car. Pretty amazing stuff.

The other thing about the car is that it's easier than I thought to put it into a full four-wheel drift from which you can recover with either a release of throttle or a combination of a throttle release and quick braking followed by heavy throttle. It's difficult to describe, but fun to do. By the way, the P6000s were fairly strong, I didn't have any problem with them.

A couple of other interesting notes are that the new A8 is coming in late 2002 and Tom said it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, he nothing but good and quiet things to say about the new W8 at VW. Very interesting stuff. He's very excited about both.

LMGotts

Excellent post, thanks for sharing some good stuff. Anything else you found out re: 4.2's?

Ming 2.7T

Nice, sounds like a great time!

RomanQ7-2007

Thank you for taking the time to tell all!!

brian 4.2

That was hard getting used to the fact that the gas pedal is mightier than the brake in the quattro. I swear I was out of track and my instructor kept saying nail it! I had the same results with temp and brakes. Should I be flushing my brake fluid? I'm going to do a Road One at Buttonwillow in Mid-July, I'm hooked.