donistook

Well, sadly to report, after much hard work and long hours spent, Daytona has come and gone without a victory. Our effort proved to much more time consuming than we had thought...we basically totally rebuilt our Silver #04 car after we suffered a major crash at Road America from total brake failure after we had been leading the race last year. We reworked the suspension/brakes/exhaust/gutted and reworked the interior/ replaced the entire right side of the car including the right front frame rail/added dual fuel pumps and pickups in the fuel cell/etc...everything except the plastic shift housing. I will develop a shift mechanism using a spherical bearing.

I will take full responsibility for showing up late at Daytona and missing practice and qualifying. I was not too concerned about that, having raced at Daytona many times and setting the second fastest (.010 sec. back from the fastest lap) lap earlier last year. I felt that with the power of the Audi, getting to the front would not be too difficult, even though we had many cars to pass on the way.

I was partly correct...what I had not counted on was having the plastic housing of our shift lever break (not to be confused with our UUC shift lever) on the starting grid for the race. I went straight to the pits to try to get it fixed as the pace car took the field around the track for the pace lap. With temporary repairs made, I joined the field on the first lap and quickly passed a few slower cars...but I only had 3rd and 5th gears...that quickly went away and left me in 3rd to go all the way around the track until I could pit again. We tried more temporary repairs, pitted a second time, and I then had 3rd, 4th, and 6th gears. After about 3 laps...that repair went away. I pitted again (3rd time) and sat in the pits for about 15 minutes while we tried to get the shift housing to stabilize. Finally, after using much safety wire, I got back on the track and had all 6 speeds. We had lost about 20 minutes of track time, so a victory was fruitless, but maybe we could still get some points. I stayed out for about 40 minutes, then pitted to let my young co-driver, Alex Lince from Bogota, Columbia get behind the wheel. He performed extremely well, setting the 6th fastest race lap in his first time out in the car. Other than the broken shifty housing the Audi was the car to beat. Our fastest lap time was a 2:10.4, which was the fastest race lap by a GSII car, easily beating the lap times of the Porsches, BMWs and Mustang Cobra Rs. Another great feat was our top speed of 166 mph, up from 160 last year...a great statement made with our MTM equipped car. Thanks to Michael Hoppen at Jo Hoppen Motorsports for his good work.

Though not a great finish, we came away with 10th place points, fastest race lap, and the knowledge that no car in the class can match the speed of our S4. Our next race is at California Speedway as part of the IRL weekend. STOP TECH brake engineers will be there to assist us on our brake development.

For those of you that are interested, I have 20 sets of front camber/caster rods and links being machined right now using 7075 T6 aluminum arms, 4140 steel ball sockets, and 4340 steel rod ends. The kits that I have seen do not allow for enough movement of the arms and cause binding. My kits are the result of two years of racing with these arms and further developing the proper specifications and clearances. These kits allow the driver to change the caster and camber of the front suspension by turning the arms.

Thanks for the support from Audiworld and from all the guys on the forum

Don

mpm

Sorry, to read your bittersweet report. Good luck in CA...

xr8edS4

$hit happens! We know the potential!!!

S4 TTime

I appreciate your enthusiasm towards working with the Audi S4 at this level. It further instills confidence that I have purchased a car that is truly special and your success on the track provides the S4 owner with a 'chin-up attitude' towards the average Porsche owner. Congrats!

Steve Sherwood

I am the best fetcher of ice in California.

BTW, the BMW is back together...should pick it up on Thursday...maybe take it on the track sometime soon. $2,600 dollars less rich.

donistook

Steve.....sure thing.....we would love to have you at Fontana.....I'll get back with you.

Don