[200q20v] STEAMBOAT TRIP REPORT 2001

[QSHIPQ at aol.com]

Finally got caught up on sleep and missed email, here's the scoop on the 7th 
annual trip to Steamboat:
MUSKETEERS:
Bob Dupree (no LT1Q this year, almost took it tho) 
  - 84 Urq (tornado- pristine) k24, 2.0bar
Ingo Rautenberg (of the Dancing R's) 
  - 200tq 22psi boost, v8 rear lights
Scott Justusson
  - 83 Urq - 2.2 bar spring, recaros, diff lock mods
David Hackl
  - rider (last minute ditch of bringing his pearl 91 90cq in favor of IR's 
turbo)

*  BEST OPS CHECK:  Leaving Chicago Thursday evening with the intention of 
buying the cheaper Joliet IL Premium Gas 30miles out.  Not to be, ran out of 
gas 5 miles before the exit for fuel.  Braking to a stop on the side of the 
road, the fuel pump would fill again, good for another mile.  Lucky for me, 
the exit was a downhill 50mph, coasted up to the Shell Premium pump.  
24.01Gals into a 23.8Gal tank...  So the specification in the owners manual 
appears, er...  Correct ;)

*  BEST DOUBLE VISION:  Driving past new quattros with 2 Urq's (Bob's Tornado 
'84, my Amazon ''83) in formation.  The definition of double-take

*  BEST TIRES:  The Hokka Q's of Bob Dupree's 84.  I watched one of the track 
instructors trying to chase Bob down with Blizzacks, no gain.  Then the guy 
got in front of Bob and tried to lose him, no gain.  A great tire, non ice.  
I think I'll trade the P210's for next season

*  BEST OF SHOW:  The trifecta train of Urq's on Sunday, my 83, followed by 
Bob's 84, followed by Lawson's 83.  Several times Bob and I had perfect tail 
out slides around the carousel in turn 7, placed less than 10feet from the 
other.  The grins never were higher after that.  I took a guy from NW quattro 
club (Wes) for a ride, and he didn't relax until in the middle of the 
carousel, full throttle rear out, I leaned over him to 'signal' at bob with a 
specific digit.  I think from then on, Wes understood what we were doing...  
Goofballs!

*  BEST EXTRACTION:  Ingo Rautenberg's 20020vtq thoroughly mired in turn 7, 
first big tug on the rear tow hook took tow hook and bumper airborne 15feet.  
Car still in the snow.  Second attempt (attached to subframe) a bit more 
successful

*  BEST DIVERSIONS:  Tie:  Cabella's 'Bargain' Cave in Sydney NE (like a 
bunch of hard core ladies pulling stuff from racks before the others came 
along:).  A close tie is the purging of toxins in Hot Springs CO.  The 5 of 
us crammed in some of those little pools scared some of the patrons.  

*  HOT DOGGIN:  Bro Bob with a firm handle on the snowboarding Saturday 
(Lawson Bob, and myself) giving me the head clip after I fell, only to wipe 
out 5 feet later cracking a rib.  The clincher was going past the 8 year old 
kid who mumbled "Why don't you learn how to board?"  I quoted Dennis Miller 
back to him  "Where's the sport in that!?"

NOTABLE QUOTABLES:  A very fine looking woman instructor who came up to 
rescue me from my snowbank, who had maybe a bit  too many matronly words for 
this ego.  "I hate to tell you your turbo is blown" made me roll my eyes, 
then the complete "I'm an idiot" look cuz I was laughing my ass off at my 
first off in 20years of rally driving (she didn't seem to thing so).  I know 
Ingo has a picture of her squatting down on her haunches signalling me to 
straighten out the wheel for extraction like I was a kid in bumper cars.  
Never thought of banking as being a humbling experience....  Doubt I ever 
will.  Hehe.

*  BEST TWEEK:  Dave Lawson's face as I came up to the top of 8 while he was 
mired in the exit of turn 8, laid my 83 sideways and stopped 15feet from his 
door.  The look on his face was priceless.

*  BEST OFF:  My first in 7years at Steamboat, I certainly did it right...  
My diff lock mods unlocked after too much turbo pressure overcame the weak ck 
valves on the top of 8 (downhill 90right off camber), sending the back out, 
lifted, the diffs locked, got me straight into the bank, at least 5 feet in 
the air.  15minutes of extraction work, then back at it.  A bit of a tweek to 
the LF fender, those expensive ck valves seem cheap looking back at it.  I'm 
sure there are a bunch of pictures of that gonna be posted by Ingo and Bob.

*  BEST STOPPING POWER:  David Hackl's ability to attract the federalies was 
uncanny.  20 minutes after he took the wheel of my car in NE, he got stopped 
and ticketed for 8 over.  Cop indicated that we should pool funds, he got us 
all, but he only stopped David.  Then on the return trip he was driving 
Ingo's 200 (bumper resting comfortably in the reclined passenger sport seat), 
got followed by another NE state trooper.   Hackl didn't take well to the 
harrassment, gave the guy a big signal of "whaaat?", got stopped and warned 
about tinted windows.  I think it was the lack of respect Dave:)

*  SNOWBANK STARTER MOD:  My snowbank incident managed to fry the main 
starter wire, so all starts from then on were of the clutch popping type.  My 
favorite instructor (see above) got to see Bob and David H pushing me 
backwards down the main street in Steamboat Square trying to pop the clutch.  
Thankfully she only gave the knowing 'wave' this time ;).

*  BEST TORSEN:  Chad Clark with his white S4, looking smooooth...  Well most 
of the time, I did chase him some and saw how he liked to pop off the 
snowbanks in turns.  Great show Chad

*  BEST GIFTS BROUGHT:  Chad brought his 2 sisters, and a couple of their 
fine friends to the track on SUN (I guess for now we'll skip the SAT night 
stories of Nicky's dancing, or Chad in a tiara and boa) .  It was like 
watching high school girls at 6 Flags for the first time: giggles, fear, and 
'more' after every run.  Chad's sister, Heather (happy birthday girl!), sat 
quite anxious in my '83, and whispered explitives for 20minutes straight, 
grabbing the doorhandle the whole time.  yeeha!

*   WHO'S LINE IS IT ANYWAY:  Ingo Rautenberg in his Irish dancing shoes, 
thoroughly planted his 200tq into the snowbank several times in each session. 
 The one on the straightaway kinda confused us, but the faces of his riders 
(see above) and the grin on his face meant that lengendary Ingo B Stuck had 
found his own 'way'.

*  BEST LOOPS:  That A4 chassis is a handful.  Those bitten included Alex 
Chernushin (A4) and Reeshad Burhariwalla (01S4), the definition of "be there 
one minute.... gone the next"  The only one that seemed to get some handle 
was David Smith in his silver A4.  Sure looked like a lot of work tho, all 
SAE papers aside :)

*  BEST LIGHTNING MOD:  My '83 with all 4 turbo to downpipe studs (and 
gasket) missing, tossing sparklers out the front of the grill on MON.  The 
delete of the cat/trans mount had caused the open exhaust mod.  Hey still had 
13psi boost, just kept running.  The Steamboat boys had black flagged me for 
this, but I convinced them that the flames weren't going to melt their track, 
so they let me continue.  Subsquent teardown at Lawson's house showed no 
studs, no gasket, and all the O2 wires had fried on the hot side of the 
turbo.  Rally on!

*  CUSTER'S LAST STAND AWARD:  In past years, I've used the snowbanks 
entering turn 1 to slow down.  With enough scandinavian antics, twice in 7 
years I actually got Bob and Deb Polich to jump from the flag snow podium.  
This year I got Deb to jump, but Bob stood proud holding the flag with a 
slight smirk on his face.  Bravo, Bob, maybe next year!  ;)

*  COOKIE MONSTER ATTACKS:  Monday morning we were warned of the track 
"cookies" (Steamboat nomenclature for the large chunks of snow/ice that 
littered the track - very unforgiving).  Both Bob and Dave Lawson got cookied 
on their pristine urq's, I decided to climb the bank instead, it must be the 
size of the 'chips'  ;)

*  MIA:  The warriors of Beyond Thunderdome, Chris Semple and Stott Hare, 
caught in Indianapolis with a blown oil pump on the tow vehicle.  We missed 
their track schrapnel, replaced audi parts by cookies this year.  Here's 
hoping they made it back in good order...  Anyone heard?

* EDDY CHEEVER AWARD:  Taking route 14 out of Fort Collins, canyon carving, 
come up on a really fast...  Oldsmobile omega?  Had to really push the 83 to 
get him to allow the pass, never lost him, nor did Bob, Ingo and Dave pass 
him.  Thankfully he turned off into his driveway before we got too upstaged.  
I kept thinking how well the guy could have done with something other than 
his dad's olds.

*  BEST PASS IN THE PASSES:  Coming thru the mountains, Lawson's urq 
strattling the center of our 2 lanes, Bob and I side by side behind him.  
Made for some more neat double takes as we carved thru the turns.

*  THE SPOILS OF MISS PIGGY:  A very agressive 4.2 A8 driver passing us in 
the lower elevations at warp 2, never saw him again, though we saw several of 
his lines in the twisties, he took the whole road to solidify the argument 
that he owned the quattro line thru the hills.  We were hardly tiptoeing, 
most impressive.  He didn't have cool sparklers in his grill though.

*  GUILTY AS CHARGED:  The nervous look on Deb Polich face as the CO state 
trooper came up to her looking for Mark Cox.  He was only looking for 
information on the school, but whatever Deb thought she might have done, she 
looked plenty guilty enough for a ticket.  I wasn't much better though, 
thinking he was getting to me for some sort of infraction (I'm sure I had 
some on this trip;)

*  VW MOTORSPORT:  John Beckius young son John, brought an early 90's vintage 
Jetta with snows to the party.  Some of the best fwd driving I've seen in 
quite a while.  I can see why Sr. doesn't allow him to play with quattro, he 
does just fine without it.  Nice work.

CONCLUSIONS:
More fun that one should be allowed to have...  You miss this, you miss 
really playing with quattros in a very safe environment.  The tire wars 
really centered on the Hokka Q's of Bob Duprees '84.  Since they were non ice 
tires, the Blizzack boys put the test in front of our eyes, and didn't show 
the advantage this year.  The 2 electronic diff lock mods I installed proved 
to be worth the massive effort.  The ease of using these at full tilt, made 
for a great improvement in locking ability.  The torsen cars were faster this 
year than in the past (kudos to dancers Chad Clark and David Smith), but 
certainly not as quick as the lockers.  

THANKS TO:
Deb and Bob Polich for a great event again.  Bros Bob Dupree, Ingo 
Rautenberg, David Hackl, for the great driving adventure to and fro.  Our 
traditional ascribed host (and '5th wheel gyro' of the fab 5) Dave Lawson, 
for joining in the fun, and allowing me total use of his boulder garage, 
tools and parts for the fix of my turbo sparkler mod.  My wife, and Dave 
Lawson's too, for the tolerance of crazy cars, crazy traditions, and crazier 
friends.  The audi gods for leaving us only with cookies and "stuffs", 
causing only minor bruises:  to sheetmetal and ego both. Mark Cox et.al., for 
allowing 25 quattro nuts to invade their theatre with high track-maintenance 
ordinance.  And finally to the New Belgian Brewery for complementing a great 
adventure with the afterglow of such a tasty and appropriately sired Fat Tire 
Ale.

END OF REPORT

Scott Justusson
QSHIPQ at aol.com
Chicago IL
'83 Urq
'84 Urq
'87 5ktqw
'87 4Runner turbo