Ice Racing and Q-list rescue

[Bill Elliott]

I went ice racing for the first time yesterday in Wisconsin with the
UrQ... WHAT A BLAST!

Fellow Q-lister Russ Maki had been on me to try it for a couple of
years... I can't believe I waited so long.

For those who haven't heard of this, it's basically an autocross on a
frozen lake instead of a parking lot. Cars run in race (special studded
tires), FWD, RWD, and AWD categories further broken down by rim size.
Most everybody in the non-race categories were running Hakkas or
Blizzacks.

Vehicles ranged from rusty VW beetles trailered in to a 2001 Suburban!
Several Audis were present. Russ's very nice 4kQ, my UrQ, a 5ktQ, 90Q,
ur-S4, etc.

The hot ticket in the race class were the VW Beetles. In the AWD
category, there was a group of young guys up from Chicago running
modifed Subaru Integras... 2.5RS and lookalikes. Man, these guys could
drive!  I only found myself in a snow bank once... but these guys were
powering into and out of  the corners like madmen.

The "rescue" part comes in after the race.  I was headed home (about 120
miles) and stopped to grab a burger... the car died pulling into the
parking lot.  After extensive troubleshooting, I finally pulled the
cap... the non-Bosch rotor that had apparently been installed by the
guys that did my head last winter had completely burnt in two! I've
never seen anything like it!

Finding it pretty hard to come up with an Audi rotor on Sunday at 6pm in
rural Wisconsin, I called Russ who took the rotor out of his own car and
brought it to me... saving me a 100+ mile tow home. What a guy!  I'll
not be able to adequately repay him, so I wanted to publically thank him
for his generosity!!!

And I plan to be back on the lake Sunday for another round!!

Bill Elliott
Lake Barrington, IL