Upholding the Audi quattro rallying heritage

[Thompson Smith]

Guys und gals.

I exercised my urquattro and got a workout this last Sunday in Essex, VT at
the first SCCA RallyCross sponsored by Vermont SportsCar. Check out my
latest endevour in the world of SCCA RallyCrossing. Not bad for my first
outing. Although, I need to really learn how to drive my urq... (as JB
always said, "If you can't matte it to the floor all the time, then you need
a smaller engine")  I did learn that with only the center diff locked and
selectively matting my left foot on the brakes, and my right foot buried on
the gas made a big difference. My urquattro drove wonderfully. FTD went to
William Bacon in his "leaping" Acura Type R SCCA Club Rally car. Yes, I beat
a bunch of new Subaru WRXs and a bunch beat me. 31st place out of 78. Not
bad for an 18 year old Audi quattro. Most people couldn't believe that I was
rallying my urquattro! The urquattro started the rally revolution and was
designed to rally. The soil and course were fun to drive in and nothing was
damaged on der coupe.

I tried something extra for this event (besides my new Audi Sport A2 style
grille, "Thompsonized graphics" and Hella 1000s) and crafted up a stock
plastic 4000 quattro airbox cover into a "Carrera Cup" style filter.
Basically, you cut it all away and leave only the support to hold the K&N
and the bolt at the bottom. Boy does this modification really wake up a
stock urquattro WX engine. My throttle response and low rpms have improved
dramatically - a complete transformation - utterly dumbfounded at how well
this works and took me so long to figure it out. The WX engine now has a big
willingness to rev up - very crisp for a 7.0:1 comp old engine. Not to
mention that it revs to redline giving you the goose bumps like it has a hot
cam, sounds intoxicating and throws you in the seat at 3500rpms all at the
same time. Finished it up with a thin aluminium heat shield. Time to ditch
your urq cast aluminum airbox!

Hopefully all the PC people can see this 19.1MB video. It takes awhile to
download. I had a friend film with my digital 8mm and we made a quicktime
movie of my first lap. We are in the process of making a DVD of the event.

SCCA RallyCross Movie
 http://audisport.com/thompson/movie/rallycross.mov

Photos
 http://www.rallyfanusa.com/rallypics/P1010011.JPG
 http://www.rallyfanusa.com/rallypics/P1010013.JPG
 http://www.rallyfanusa.com/rallypics/P1010014.JPG
 http://www.rallyfanusa.com/rallypics/P1010015.JPG

Results
 http://www.rallygrafix.com/Results.html

New Audi Sport A2 style grille
 http://audisport.com/thompson/newgrille/index.html

I couldn' t leave well enough alone so, I've been hand crafting this new
grille out of ALL Audi parts ('73 Audi Fox center section, and Audi 100LS
outer edges) using a hot glue gun, some aluminumized metal rain gutter cover
(Home Depot $7 for five 42"x8" sections) and some euro badges my Grandfather
had picked up when he took delivery of his 1961 Mercedes Benz.  The badges
alone are as old as me! Could have used another Fox grille, but the local
junk yard was plum out of 'em and the next best thing was a 100LS grille.
This makes enough room for my 1990 MC2 intercooler when I do my engine swap
later on. The first photos show the prototype without the sides and
extension.

Next rallycross I will only have a few gallons in the tank (instead of 23.8
- I know...) and maybe try some C range Hakki 10 snow tires on ex-Buffum
Fuchs. Stay tuned.

Regards,
Thompson