[urq] Top Gear Video once again

[Bob]

Yeah he wasnt real happy about that. In fact when I asked him about it 
when it just came out he didnt even want to talk about it!!


James Bufkin wrote:

> I got a call from John Hanlon this afternoon.
> We talked for awhile on various rally car topics.  I then asked him 
> about the Top Gear Video; although this wasn't the purpose of his 
> call, He told me everything and was willing to let me relay this to 
> the Quattro community.
>
> Regarding the Top Gear show that pitted Old competition cars against 
> Modern Road Cars.
> Audi UK contacted John to do a head to head drive at Dunsfold where 
> Top Gear does their shows.
> The plan was to put a A2 Quattro up against an RS6 Avant+.  The RS6 
> Avant plus is a 500 horsepower avant station wagon with some 100 lbs 
> of weight shaved off by using some lightweight body panels.   John's 
> A2 is a 10V 5 cylinder rally car with a K27 turbo.   It does have the 
> Magnesium suspension, but it was setup for rally racing with the only 
> tarmac change being street tires on the wheels.   Basically John was 
> the 2nd car up on track after the Noble had run a 1:27 second lap.  
> John had 8 practice laps and his subsequent best time in his A2 was 
> 1:29.5 seconds.  Keep in mind this was the 1st time John was on this 
> track.   Stig drove the RS6 Avant+ and turned a 1:30.7 second lap.  
> The brakes on the RS6 where literally smoking and the engine was 
> overheating.   What is interesting is that John said he was on his 
> practice engine and was gear limited to 105 mph.   I don't know 
> Dunsfold track at all, but it turned out that the RS6 being beat by 1 
> second was not going to fly with either Audi UK or TopGear.   Funny 
> anecdote, When Stig got out of the RS6 he said to John "they'll never 
> air it".   Because the RS6 was practically on fire or because the 25 
> year old Quattro beat the best street car Audi had by 1 second.?    
> Either way, John wasn't terribly upset, but what happened next was 
> just plain inexcusable.
> Top Gear decided to run Stig in an Evo.  The Evo wasn't present during 
> the head to head and for all we know might of had advantage in weather 
> or whatever fancies them.  And to top it off, they aired footage of 
> John's warmup laps and did NOT use his best lap time, so that the 
> result would be more suitable for the intention of the program.    The 
> pitch and roll on the urquattro through much of the video doesn't 
> indicate the hard launch the quattro would have being 500 lbs lighter 
> with more power yet the Evo reaches turn one 1st.  That just not 
> right.     Keep in mind the Timed lap was not from a standing start, 
> it was the best lap time of the eight that were run, so you know the 
> video footage that followed the video was bullshit.   BTW, everything 
> else in the Top Gear video was correct.  There was a Ford rally car 
> there, a modern Ford, the GT40 and the Noble.   So it should have been 
> 2 for the Competition cars and only 1 for the Modern Street Cars that 
> day.   I do fancy that the A2 can take an EVO if setup to do so.
>
> James Bufkin
>
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