[s-cars] M5 vs AMG vs RS6, winner is...

[GreenBugeye at aol.com]

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In a message dated 11/15/02 10:56:22 AM Eastern Standard Time,
s-car-list-request at audifans.com writes:

> With that said, few of us are good enough to use a drivers car with the
> level of control that allows us to exploit these capabilities.  Last week I
> drove with a police instructor (not a cop but a contractor) who showed me
> in
> his 98 Taurus that he could (on a deserted road) pull a 180 any time he
> needed without crossing the center line.  He did this despite an uneven
> surface close to the verge.  He gave all the usual caveats about passive
> safety being the best and defensive driving being the only real strategy.
> He
> was trying to explain that track capabilities, blinding power, the 1/4 in a
> nanosecond are nothing more than boys, toys and steroids unless you know
> how
> to use all the capabilities of your vehicle.  He also likened it to buying
> a
> $5000 Nikon camera and leaving it programmed to auto and never reading the
> manual.

I have a client who runs a high-performance driving school.  Among the things
he does is train police officers in high speed pursuit.  One day, I got to be
the chase vehicle.  The course is set up very much like an autocross, but it
covers more ground.  Anyway, I figured, sure, I've got the big turbo Audi,
they can chase me all they want.  Well, things didn't go quite according to
plan.  The frist guy, in his duty cruiser (Crown Vic) with lights and sirens
blazing, was never more than 50 feet behind me.  Second guy was similar.
Finally, they gave me a rookie officer who'd never done any training before,
and I smoked him.

The moral of the story: driver skill makes all the difference, period.  That
point was drilled home later that afternoon when I had my buddies show up for
the autocross.  I was in the Audi, one friend was in his E30 M3 and another
in his race-prepped 944.  Of course, the whale S4 was the slowest on this
very tight course, but the amazing thing is that a retired cop who is now a
full-time driving instructor came over to run the course in one of their teen
driver ed cars -- a 4-cylinder Ford Contour with an automatic -- and he
smoked all of us.

I'd had sporty cars since I was 18 and was a fairly aggressive driver when I
was younger.  Never wrecked any cars so I figured I knew what I was doing,
but I was wrong.  I've since been through all the courses my client offers,
including the 4wd off-road setup, and it improved my driving immensely.  I
don't care what you drive -- there's no substitute for driver skill.

Chris Eck
93 S4 (not a scratch in three years)
59 Bugeye (plenty of road rash, but no big hits)
ex TR3A (once crashed itself -- when I wasn't in it!)