This track event, in large part, was very much about car preparation. One could argue that there have actually been months of preparation on these cars, but the week before the event was a focused, concerted, often difficult, push by four people to get three 20-year-old cars to the track: Bill Fluhr’s ’82 Coupe GT turbo (CGTt), Ken Fluhr’s 4000 quattro turbo (4000qt), and my ’83 Quattro (UrQ or “Fang”). So, I have included an account of that week.
Monday
Monday is a fog. We worked on the cars until late. That’s all I remember.
Tuesday
In a stroke of lucky timing, I had Veterans Day off, so I was able to help Ken with the cars all day. Unfortunately, some of the day was wasted when I went to get Fang’s windshield replaced and the car wouldn’t start afterwards. After burning through two batteries (one learns to carry spares of EVERYTHING in an UrQ), I finally had to call Ken to come rescue me. Naturally, he jumped the UrQ with the A6 and it started-up on his first try. Punk.
Fang is equipped with upgraded G60 brakes, but I didn’t trust the stock pads for the track and I didn’t want to purchase expensive race pads that I would only use once, so tried to fit my unsold StopTech kit to the UrQ. Since I am a Porsche brakes guy, I had never had any hands-on experience with the StopTech calipers. For the record, the pad retention system sucks. Threading steel bolts into aluminum is a retarded idea. If you strip anything, it will be the caliper. Also, sloppy tolerances made it difficult to line-up both bolts. Either one would go in, but not the other. That was frustrating, but not as frustrating as discovering that my ubiquitous Abt rims, which have fit on every Audi that I have owned and have cleared both my Big Red brakes and the big HP2 calipers of the A6, did NOT fit over the StopTech calipers. I had no other reasonable rim options, so I reinstalled the G60 brakes and the next day ordered Hawk race pads from Paul Weston.
Thursday
I took Friday off, so I went over to the Fluhr’s on Thursday evening, expecting that we would work on the cars long into the night. I got over there to find Bill Fluhr had made it from Florida okay the day before, but he greeted me with a long face. “How’s it going?” I asked, shaking his hand. “Don’t ask and I won’t have to lie to you,” he replied. Ken wasn’t saying too much, so I knew things were bad. Ken’s 4000qt was in critical condition, so they suggested that I go to Rob’s for some help with the UrQ. I went to Rob’s and he diagnosed my suspension clunk as an exhaust interference issue. I stuck around while Rob changed his brake pads. Much to my annoyance that was fully 50% of his track prep, the other half being a change to his track wheel/tires. New school punk. I went back to the Fluhr’s to commiserate with my old school brothers. Things were looking up. The 4000qt was moved from critical to stable condition. I don’t know what he was thinking, but at one point in the evening, while we were reviewing the checklists for each of the cars, Bill declared that my UrQ was in the best shape of all the cars! And outside, the wind kicked-up as the Audi Gods slowly stirred from their slumber.
Eric got home late that night, but we put him to work right away socketing my ECU. Afterwards, he burned the EPROMS that I had received in the mail earlier in the day. It was a registered package, so I had to pick it up from the post office. When I signed for it, the postal worker looked at me with a straight face and asked, “Why did you buy these from Canada?” The abrupt question startled me and I spluttered, “They are 20-year-old chips that aren’t made anymore.” That seemed to satisfy him, but as I walked away, I couldn’t help but wonder what FBI list that I had gotten myself onto THIS time. The UrQ will be the end of me yet, I thought. Anyway, Eric burned five or six of the chips. Each chip eliminated the boost cutout, which I was hitting because of the smaller, fast-spooling K24 turbo we had installed, but each had different ignition advance values that we could test on the car. I was excited at the prospect of bespoke chip tuning, but by this time it was very, very late, so I went home.
Friday
I got up, packed for the track, and got to the Fluhr’s by 12:30pm. Really, much of Friday is a fog as well. There was a flurry (Fluhr-ry?) of activity. All day long, cars were being swapped in and out of the garage. Tempers flared and there was yelling. Lots and lots of yelling. We were all exhausted from a solid week of long hours and we still faced a deadline. We had to leave by 7pm in order to safely make it to the track before the gates closed. As the day wore on, making that deadline looked more and more improbable.
Repairing the cars was quite frustrating. For every two steps forward, we would take a step back. Ken fixed my suspension clunk, which turned-out to be a loose subframe, but we still couldn’t figure out the boost cutout I was getting. Ken’s 4000qt pinged like mad even at only 5 psi of boost. Even Bill’s CGTt wasn’t as squared-away as we had thought. For some reason, every car had problems with fueling and reverse lights. What was that all about? Two of the cars were administratively illegal and all three carried out of state plates. Also, for awhile, not a single car had a matching set of rims. Then, as the sun dipped low and darkness fell, the Audi gods struck and struck hard. In the last hour before our departure deadline, an electrical curse was cast upon Fang. His dreams of becoming the Red Dragon faded along with the light from his dead headlight. In that hour (in fact it was just as I was pulling out of the driveway to depart) I suddenly got an alternator light, a headlight went out, the driver side window wouldn’t work (needed for the track), and Fang began running very poorly. Ken went to check the battery, said something vaguely critical and I lost it. I started screaming at him, while I pulled the back seat out of my car and threw it across the driveway and into the garage, so he could get to my battery. After I calmed down, we pulled Fang back in, everybody grabbed a volt meter and went to work. Eric found a short circuit at the alternator and we started getting conflicting measurements around the car. The car was running, yet we showed that neither the battery nor the ECU were getting voltage. That didn’t make an sense. My confidence in the car was long gone and finally the Fluhrs acquiesced. We packed the A6 with my gear, including two of the Abt rims with Sumitomo tires, and without a hope of making TWS before it closed, we headed for College Station.
After all of the work that he had put into Fang, our abandonment of the UrQ was a huge blow to Ken and he didn’t speak another word for the rest of the evening. We stopped for fuel on the way out of town and in an uncharacteristic demonstration of silliness, the normally sober Eric made goofy faces at Ken, even turning around and shaking his behind back and forth against the window of Ken’s 4000qt in an effort to get him to cheer up. It was futile. I had mixed feelings. I was very disappointed because I wanted Fang to make a good showing at the track. I wanted to be a part of the old school underdogs. I was upset at the wasted effort (Ken’s) and money (mine) that had been poured into the car to get it to the track. I really felt bad for Ken. Also, I knew what limitations were facing me with the A6, especially with no track prep whatsoever. However, I felt a sense of relief knowing that I would probably not have any problems with the A6. I had not been looking forward to the care and feeding of the UrQ at the track. Despite the conflicted feelings, there was mostly a sense of relief. I enjoyed the comfortable drive and the FRS radio chatter between friends that only grew quiet while we drove RR 908 quickly, in our traditional fashion. We were able to get a room at the unusually empty Manor House and we turned-in right away. We let the stressful week fall away into sleep and we dreamt of our reward.
Saturday
We got up, had the Manor House continental breakfast, and after a stop at Wal-Mart to get Ken a rearview mirror, we headed for the track. As usual, we took the TWS chicane, I mean exit, off the highway at speed. Ken was in front of me and when he jogged back left, a huge spray of gasoline shot out of his gas filler flap! Uh oh. He’ll never get away with that. When we got to the track, we checked it. The gas cap was still present, but it wasn’t sealing. So, he stuffed a rag (fuse?) around the filler neck and gas cap, which technically made his car a Molotov Cocktail, but it got him through the weekend. Since I was now a part of the new school guys, my track prep consisted only of replacing my two front wheels with my 17×8 Abts fitted with Sumitomo HTRZ-II tires in 245/40-17. On the rear, I left the stock wheels and tires (worn-out 215/55-16 Dunlop SP9000)in place. I couldn’t replace the rears, because I only have three of these wheels left out of the set. Though it wasn’t by design, I would finally get to experiment with larger tires on the front of a quattro, something I have always wanted to do because I believed it would help reduce understeer.
This was the first Driver’s Edge TWS event to be run clockwise. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to it. But, it put everybody on equal ground wrt learning the new line and by the end of the weekend, most of the folks that I overheard seemed to like it better. Perhaps that is just because it is new, but I think I might agree. I really liked it. I went out early with Pete, so I could get a preview. All of the decreasing radius turns had turned into increasing radius turns. Also, the speeds at the ends of all the straights were faster. It seemed less technical than the counter-clockwise direction.
They called for Yellow Group and I got ready to go out for my first session. I put the A6 into reverse to back out of the garage and the car didn’t budge. I jumped out to see if I had left a chock under the wheels but there was nothing. Uh oh. I jacked-up the car and started pulling bolts out of the wheels. Sure enough, somehow a BMW bolt had got into our box of bolts and I had grabbed it by mistake. I’m not exactly sure how it threaded in, since it has a much smaller diameter, but the main problem was that it was just a couple of mm longer than the Audi bolts and it stopped my hub from moving. I replaced the bolt as quickly as I could, had Kang restart my car to get it warm, and I rushed out to the session. Luckily, I only missed the first lap and Rick had mandated two full warm-up laps under the yellow flag so that everyone could see the “new” track.
Hard on the brakes at the end of the front straight (note serious forward weight transfer).
It really didn’t take all that long to establish a serviceable line, but I was having terrible problems with traction. Of course my back tires were worthless, but even the fronts couldn’t seem to grab on to anything. Asking them to deal with the weight transitions of a two-ton car on an old, stock, non-sport suspension was a bit much. Several times I swayed way out and almost off of the outside of the track. To check my speed and acceleration, I ran the whole track in 4th gear. This kept my front straight speed down to 110 mph, which was good because I was concerned about my stock brakes which needed to be hammered to negotiate the first set of corners. Anyway, I had so little to work with, so little traction, that I didn’t have very much fun in the first session. And then…it started to rain.
In the second session, I lined-up behind Eric in his dad’s CGTt. I was doing my best to keep-up with him for a lap or two, but the rain had made the track even more slick. As I chased him out of Turn 5, I spun. The first off in all of my track events. The back end came around, gathering it up was hopeless, so I put both feet in, whoops that was the brake and accelerator, both feet came back up and then back down on the proper two pedals. The front of the car stayed on the track, but the rear tires swung clockwise into the dirt, and with the mass and momentum of an A6 behind them, they scooped up a dump truck full of dirt and flung it all the way across the track. I heard that was quite impressive to see such an explosion of earth. I did a complete 270 degree spin and came to rest exactly in the middle of the track, looking out my side window at an oncoming E46 M3. I had a little bit of momentum left, so I eased off the brake and gently rolled backward to the other side of the track, letting traffic pass in front of me. They black flagged me and I went in to the hot pit. The track marshal looked at my car, said there was nothing wrong with it except that my wheel was dirty, and then he let me go back out. I drove like a little old lady for the rest of the session.
Pete Haas blasting past Jimmy, who was stuck in the crybaby lane.
In the afternoon, the sun came out and started drying the track. By the time I got out in the third and fourth sessions of the day, I found a bit more grip than I had before. I was still slow and I was letting everybody pass, but I was starting to have fun. I tried hanging with Eric, but it was no use. He even slowed down for me a couple of times, but then almost immediately started to walk away again.
Saturday night, we had our traditional feast at The Outback Steakhouse. When we got back to the TWS garages, all was quiet except that we could hear some faint music coming from somewhere. Then the door of Ron Vaughn’s A4 opened and out came the music of Willie Nelson, along with Ron, still clearly working on the cooler of beer. Eric kind of dropped-out for the evening, but Ron, Bill, Ken and I stayed up for hours drinking and talking cars. We went over a GT40 replica inch by inch, analyzing each aspect of its design. We were having a great time. Around midnight or so, Ron and Ken caught their fourth wind and began swapping wheels and tires between the 4000qt and the CGTt. Finally, we called it a night. We laid-out our sleeping bags between the cars and went to sleep.
At some point early in the morning (3 or 4am), a thunderstorm rolled-in and began pounding us. Between the lightning, the crash of thunder and the din of rain blasting the tin roof of the garage, we all woke up. For awhile, we were content to just stay put and enjoy being snug and warm in our sleeping bags. But after only a few minutes, I peeked out from under my pillow and noticed there was water already almost up to my head. I got up and sure enough, I was already in the middle of a huge puddle of water that had soaked my foam pad, but just hadn’t got through my sleeping bag yet. I stood up and saw that the water ingress had got everybody and they were already up, scrambling to secure all of our gear, which was scattered everywhere, but was mostly on the now flooding floor. It was chaos. After we had secured as much as we could and the storm died down some, we retreated to our cars for the rest of the night. Here is where the A6 made-up for its deficiencies on the track. While Ken and Eric were stuck in uncomfortable folded-back seats, I was able to fold-down my rear seats and completely stretch-out flat in the back of my car. I slept very well until morning, when the sound of motors starting shook me awake.
Sunday
Despite the heavy rain the night before, the track dried off quickly and there was good running for the rest of the day. My first session was uneventful, but I did start to use 3rd gear to help stabilize the car with better acceleration out of a few corners. It seemed to work better than the just using 4th. I also jumped into 5th gear on the front straight to see what I could do. The A6 managed 125 mph, which wasn’t bad. That was about the same as Rob’s PES A4, but not as quick as Pete’s 350Z (130 mph), or Brian’s M Coupe (a whopping 140 mph!).
James Bufkin showed-up with some kind of monster pro digital camera, so the first part of the second session was spent posing for some photos, by hitting the straight in formation. Unfortunately, Eric was supposed to be a part of those shots, but they had forgotten to latch his hood and he had to pit before we came around for James. The rest of the second session was fun, but uneventful. I basically spent most of my time waving people past me, but I was still enjoying myself.
The third session was also going quite well for the first lap or two. Rob was behind me and I was going to try to give him as good a run as I could, but then…have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t hit your brakes until you see God”? Well, I was just accelerating out of the carousel. And then I saw…standing at the top of the hill at Turn 9… not God, but…the Turbo Lady. And she was wagging her finger at me with one hand and she had a dentist’s drill in the other. The sound was unmistakable. I went ahead and went through the next two turns at speed, but there she was, standing at the corner after each straight. I waved Rob past and pulled into the pits. Then I went to go find Ken to see what he thought. I found him at the end of the slalom course with Andrew. They were having their own troubles. It seems Ken got frisky and blasted down the road leading to the slalom course and launched his car off the rise at the end of the road and into the mud, going about 40 mph.
What a mess. I interrupted his cleaning chores and he jumped in my car for a ride. I accelerated straight down the slalom course and when I got to the boost in 3rd gear, we could hear a much louder than normal turbo whine. “That’s bad,” he said. The car was still felt fine. It was making boost and it wasn’t burning oil, but my day was clearly done. When I got back to the garage, I saw that the Audi Gods were taking no prisoners. Bill was scrambling around looking for a fire extinguisher and Rob was leaning over his motor, which had gasoline spraying out of the fuel rail all over the hot manifolds. Apparently, a fuel rail bolt had backed-out. The old school Audis had been off-and-on broken all weekend, but now two of the three new-school Audis were down. Even though it was still mechanically good, even Kang’s TT had been scarred over the weekend by a rear-end collision. In fact, of our group that came and went to the track together that weekend, only Andrew’s Ford Mustang ran perfectly. Maybe quality is Job One after all.
I was very discouraged about the A6, but I cheered-up a little when Ken offered to let me drive his 4000qt against Eric in his dad’s CGTt in our last session of the day. Now this could be fun. Finally, a fair fight! We were drivers of similar skill in cars of similar performance. I would need to acclimate myself to driving a different car pretty quickly, but I thought I could do it. I followed Eric out on the track and we jumped into it almost right away. He clearly had the first set of corners figured out much better than me and he put some distance on me there. Plus, I was still getting used to the car. We were about equal in the carousel, with maybe Eric edging me out. But, all weekend I had been faster through Turn 8 and the very fast Turn 7, which led onto the back straight. Also, the 4000qt had a bit more power than the CGTt. Sure enough, I blazed up to Eric’s rear bumper on the back straight (though later he would claim he was “waiting up” for me or some such nonsense). Just as we were approaching Turn 6 at the end of the straight, the 911 in front of us blew its motor. Since I was parked on Eric’s bumper, I jogged the wheel right to clear him in case we started sliding. My front windshield was covered in a spray of oil droplets. For some reason, instead of taking his car straight off, the 911 driver drove all the way around Turn 6 and Turn 5, dropping oil over the place. For some reason, Eric was still driving kind of quickly and I saw him get a little squirrelly as he passed the 911. But, he caught it up and we pitted. By the time the oil was cleaned-up, they called the next group, so our last session, the great old-school face-off, lasted one whole lap. What a rip-off.
We packed-up and rolled back out of town. In Rockdale, we decided to pull over and see if we could fix Ken’s taillight, which had gone out. We pulled over at a store front (closed) and were there for no more than five minutes. We couldn’t fix the problem, so we backed-out and got back on the road. Just then, a police car comes flying around the corner with its lights blaring. Somehow, I just knew. Sure enough, we had all made it onto the street, except for Bill, who he saw pulling out of the store. The officer swung around and pulled him over. After a few minutes he let us go and Bill reported back over the radio that we had stopped in an area where there had been some burglaries. That’s a seriously efficient neighborhood watch. Anyway, we lucked-out because he pulled-over the best candidate to keep us out of trouble. Bill is a bright, calm, distinguished looking gentleman, in one of the legal cars. If he had pinched Ken, we would all still be in jail.
I must say, despite some of the setbacks and disappointments, I had a really great weekend. Of course, I would have preferred for things to have gone easier for us, but sometimes it is the challenges and hardships that make us feel most alive, especially if they are associated with a shared passion among close friends. I like to think this is the kind of “vigorous life” that Teddy Roosevelt talked about.
Random Notes
- There were more offs, spins, and blown motors (Viper, 911) then I have ever seen at a track event. I think there were more this time than the time we all got yelled at for offing so much. I didn’t feel so bad about my spin because there were at least four other people who spun there in the same session. Basically, everyone in our group went off: Kang, Ron (an instructor!), all three Fluhrs, and me. Pete went off too, but there’s nothing newsworthy about that.
- I agree with Ron about the Viper driver that left in a huff. Yeah, he put his nice car into the tires, but all he did was scratch it up. There didn’t even look like there was any serious body panel damage; just scrapes and scratches. What a crybaby.
- The coolest thing that I didn’t actually see was Dave Worley’s FX35 out on the track for one session, just for fun. Apparently, once he got out there, Dave decided to go ahead and push it a little and he ended-up passing at least six very surprised and possibly chagrined people, including Kang. I love the FX35/45; so cool.
- I kept looking at Brian Leonard’s M Coupe. I felt bad, like I was looking at somebody else’s girlfriend. What was wrong with me? I have never liked those cars in the past. Was all that “M Shoe” talk like sticking pigtails in an inkwell? I need to remember to ask my shrink about that.
Gallery
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