[urq] REPOST: [UPG NorCal 2009] ... Looking Back ...

[urq]

... sorry for the duplication, but the original looked so screwy!  I also realized that I forgot to finish my description of the dyno run ... 

Hope to see everyone in Aptos on Saturday!

Steve Buchholz

=====
Subject: [UPG NorCal 2009] ... Looking Back ...
=====

I thought I’d post a report on the activities of the past weekend … 

The “event” started for me on Friday when I drove down to Monterey to pick up the tickets at will call and take care of a few other errands down there.  I was hoping to stop by the track that day to meet up with some friends, but I had a few other things to do … dropped the food for Sunday off at 034 Motorsport and the stage was set!

Saturday morning: Coffee at Full of Beans in Aptos – The drive over the hills on Highway 17 to Aptos was quite pleasant.  Later in the day the highway from the “South Bay” area to Santa Cruz would be packed, but at 6AM there’s hardly anyone out there … skies are clear and after cresting the summit I see a blanket of fog over the coast … what a wonderful start to the day!  When I get to the parking lot I see two urq’s already present … Al Keene’s white car was familiar, but next door I see an unfamiliar steel grey car (I don’t know the official name) … it was Andrew Finney’s V8 powered ’85!  Tony was talking to the two of them, his urq is not passing smog, so he had to drive a BMW.  We grab a cup of coffee and nerd on about the cars and such.   Wolff and his daughter show up in a Toureg and pick up their nourishment.  While the weather was a bit foggy, it is always a good day to be at the beach … 

7:30 rolls around and it is time to make the caravan down to Laguna Seca.  Al and Tony aren’t doing the trip to the Historics, so the three of us take off for the next stop.  It is still early so traffic is light … it is so cool to see Andrew’s beautiful car in my rear view mirror all the way down.  Smoke from the fire in the nearby mountains was blown down to the Moss Landing area where it smelled like a huge campfire.  George Sidman had offered the parking lot at his offices as a staging point near the track … we stop there and find our listmeister, Dan Simoes and his son waiting for us … Dan says he almost bought an urq, so we allow him to follow in his Jetta TDI wagon.  ☺

It was supposed to be a short drive to the track, but I miss a turn and we get a quick tour of the new CSUMB campus … back to South Boundary road … watching out for the cops with radar who always seem to find themselves on this stretch of road.  There was a bit of a line leading to the entrance to the track … once through there it was a quick ride into the parking lot, Wolf hill, just on the other side of the start/finish straight.  Last time Porsche was the featured marque the cars were parked all over the hills around the track … it was much lighter this year.  We made the rounds of the paddock area … Dan seemed to be taking pictures of everything from Porsche … over through the vending area and corrals.  We walked around the track during some of the races … Dan’s little 3 year old was quite the trooper!  Andrew got to see racing through the corkscrew for the first time.  I never get tired of watching the action at Laguna Seca.  

Wolff had left earlier to go back to Santa Cruz, the rest of us left together via the northern route out of the track to Salinas and had another caravan to San Jose and beyond.  The northern route from the track has some fun twisty roads, but there’s someone in a Mercedes a few cars ahead taming things.  Traffic was a bit heavier this time, but I still have the pleasure of watching Andrew in the rear view mirror.  Saturday was a completely satisfying day for me … especially since DA222 handled the day without overheating … 

Sunday morning I had a couple quick things to take care of … ice and fuel … then to the parking lot for the 10AM start of the drive leading to 034 Motorsport.  Andrew was already there as was Marc Dietrich.  Al called to tell me that he had left his lights on and had to meet us on the road after charging his battery for a while.  The four of us hit the start of the climb sitting at the light at Piedmont and Sierra Road … light turns green … I take off and see Marc behind me … what, did the light change so quickly that Andrew and Al didn’t make it?  We pull to the side to wait for the next light cycle … at the next cycle we can see the nose of Andrew’s car sitting at the light … we made a u-turn and headed back to the gas station across the street.  Andrew’s car had died.  We push him through the intersection and over to the side of the road.  Fortunately Andrew had his laptop connected to the ABZ’ ECU … the ECU says the engine speed sensor has a problem.  Those of us who have V8Q’s are all too familiar with this situation … the sensor sits right next to the exhaust on the left side of the engine.  We let things cool off and pour a bit of water on the sensor.  We get the car started and decide to drive to Al’s for further troubleshooting.  Andrew pulled the sensor … of course it is completely different from the sensor used on the older Audis … Al had some heat shielding material, so he put the car back together and we crossed our fingers that it would make the trip from Al’s to 034 Motorsport (about 15 minutes).  We arrived in the parking lot at about 1PM.  We had gotten in touch with Javad, so we knew that he had a box of ABZ engine speed sensors … 

Our three cars brought the total attendance of urqs at 034 Motorsport to five.  Tony Lum was there with his silver car.  Javad had passed along word of the get together to one of his customers, David Frausto, who has a shiny black car which sports a 20V engine.  There were a few other fans of the urq in attendance, I should have put together a sign up sheet to get all the names.  Javad had a few of his “guys” there to help out with running the grill and such.  Andrew focused on getting his car back up again with help from Javad … and the rest of us of course.  After getting the car running, Andrew wanted to see his car run on Javad’s four wheel dyno.  So far my only experience with dynos is at the smog check stations, where I’ve seen things that make me glad that AWD cars aren’t required to run on the dyno for smog checks … it was so good to see it done right!  The car was securely strapped down, and then let loose!  I think they did three runs, it was certainly something to watch!  Maybe some day I will get a strong desire to see how much ol'DA222 is putting down ... 

I had some things to take care of at home, so I left at around 4PM.  After a while later my phone rings … and it is Andrew … uh oh!  He was on his way home and the car died all of a sudden on I-680 in the Dublin area.  The new sensor had longer wires, and he thought that the sensor wire had touched the exhaust.  He said the tow companies were busy and claiming a possible 3 hour wait.  I called Al and asked him to see if anyone was still at Javad’s … jumped in the truck, picked up Al and stopped by Javad’s to pick up another sensor.  We drove out to meet Andrew and started the repair.  We brought more heat shielding and tie wraps to ensure the new sensor would stay cool and away from the exhaust.  Not 5 minutes after pulling in I see a beat up Honda roll up behind the truck … the driver was attempting to make it to Vallejo with a non-functioning alternator.  It wasn’t possible to stretch jumper cables around the truck, so he pulled the battery and we connected it to the truck and started the engine.  At the time Andrew and Al had finished we gave the battery back to the Honda driver … fortunately all three of us fired up and safely pulled away.  It is always exciting to work on the side of a heavily traveled freeway.  I got a message from Andrew the next day saying that he made it the rest of the way home without incident … WHEW!

While I felt sorry for Andrew having problems with his car, it was good that it happened on Sunday, and not the day before!  While it is fun to share the experience of driving local roads with others who may not be familiar, driving events don’t allow the kind of interaction you get when you are crawling around a car trying to fix it.  By the end of the day Sunday I looked back at the great time I had.  I hope that all the others who participated had an enjoyable time as well!

=====

Thanks to George Sidman who volunteered his offices as a rallying point near the track, and to Javad Shadzi for so graciously allowing us to hang out at 034 Motorsport and to have some of his crew around to do the cooking and other support.  I was glad to see that Dan Simoes and his were able to make the trip down for the Historic races … thank you Dan for continuing to support the audifans groups!

While I didn’t get a chance to make it to the Historics on Friday, I realized that Friday is the day we should plan to attend next year.  The name of the featured marque is TBD, but next year’s event is scheduled for August 13-15, 2010 … keep that weekend open for UPG NorCal 2010:

               http://www.mazdaraceway.com/pages/news-item?r=KGFPZISNEI

Those who are interested in the Historics can do that on Friday, perhaps we can use the early Saturday start in Aptos for the start of a drive on Saturday … followed with a dinner or something at the end of the drive.  It would be good to kick around ideas of the sorts of things people want to do … 

I went ahead and loaded a couple pictures to the yahoo group … any member can add more pictures … but it sounds like you need to be a member even to view the pictures.  They are available at:

                http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urquattro/photos/album/232896501/pic/list

There was talk today about this coming Saturday being a good day for many to be able to make the drive over the hill to Aptos for coffee … hope to see you all there!  ☺

Steve