Steamboat Q-Club Event Report

[David.L.Bauer@att.com]

Jane and I had a fun time at the Quattro Club Winter Driving Event
at Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  Two separate sessions were held;
we attended the Wednesday-Thursday session.  The event was held at
the Bridgestone Winter Driving School in Steamboat.   The school has
a one-mile track with nine turns.  It is located in a meadow near the
Steamboat ski area.  It is mostly  hardpack snow and ice, with softish
snowbanks making up the turns.   Runoff area is mostly non-existent.
 
Weather in Steamboat for the week prior to the event had been warm by
Steamboat standards - low to mid 40s F. during the day, and near
freezing at night.  This made the track soft and easily rutted and pitted
during the runs on the first day, despite its daily gooming with a large
construction grader.  Wednesday night it froze hard, making for colder
but smoother driving on Thursday.  The cold and heavy snow continued
for the next several days, giving Colorado one of its heaviest mountain
snowfalls over several days in recent history, and giving the Friday-Saturday
class members notably different conditions than we had on the track during
our session.
 
The first day of the event is a half-day class organized by
the Bridgestone School instructors and using their cars (Ford Escorts
and Explorers).  The class starts with a one hour video teaching the basics
of oversteer, understeer, weight transfer and brake operation (everyone was
snoozing....) followed by two hours of track time in the school cars.
The track time covers two exercises, one inducing over- and under-steer 
and recovering from them, and one covering panic braking on the ice.  The
first day ends with a couple laps of the track in the school cars.
 
The second day we used our Audis on the track.  Ned Ritchie and his daughter
Marni were in our session, driving Marni's tweaked 4000Q (Ned said the
white 5K he usually brings to the Club events is too big, heavy and overpowered
for the track).  We started with exercises similar to Bridgestone's on the
first day, then moved to three run groups of approx 20-minutes each lapping
the track.  The day ended with timed runs around the track.
 
I found it difficult to handle our '91 V8Q 5-speed at speed on the track,
despite having Toyo snows all around.  The overly assisted steering on
these cars is a real handicap in the snow, and the weight transfer shifting
from first to second was difficult for me to modulate.  During one of the run
groups going backwards around the track, I put the Q into a snowbank so
hard they had to get the tow truck to winch me out (luckily, no damage other
than a broken front license plate frame).  My wife had slower times
but she had better control and no snowbank embarassments.

We left wishing for more seat time - the smallish track and frequent delays
caused by spins and snowbank encounters limited the time we were out running,
but it was nonetheless a lot of fun.  Y'all go next year!
 
dave bauer    dlb@longs.att.com    91 V8Q 5-speed