Old Quattros on track ! ! !

[Noam Levine <Noam.Levine@analog.com>]

Just returned from a local club's Driver's School/Time Trial
weekend at New Hampshire Int'l Speedway (NHIS).
As my even older BMW track car was not ready,
I had to press my street-car 1985 4000q into service on track.

The odometer clicked to 197,000 going down the front straight at NHIS.

Good points of the 4000q on track:
Safe school car: With sticky R-compound tires, no power, and
          lots of drivetrain to move, it's very hard to get into trouble
          with the beast. Brakes are excellent (full metallic pads on
          all 4 corners, ATE Super-Blue racing brake fluid), no
          evidence of fade even on this tight 12-turn course with a
          very short straight.

Great Comments: People were telling me that they didn't think
          a four-door sedan could go that quickly and that I was
          really driving the wheels off of it. Not many people were
          able to pass me and I was able to get around cars with
          equivalent (or more) power and half the weight.

Weaknesses: Mostly due to how I have the car set up. The
         shocks are a bit old (60k on front, 30k on rear, all Boge Turbo 
Gas).
         The only BFG R1's I had were too small (185/60 14), so the motor
          ran out of rev's before I wanted to hit the brakes, but not soon
          enough for me to upshift (nice to know that the rev limiter still 
works !). 
          The car weighs too much for the setup I had (comments about me
           cornering on the door handles).
          Power.....well, hey, it's got 197k miles on it, and it didn't 
have much to
             start with. I'm not concerned, as this will have been its 
first and last
             track exposure. Auto-crosses are another story.......

All in all, an extremely fun track experience. If it had rained (I was 
doing my
rain dance, much to the chagrin of all the open-cockpit car and Mustang 
drivers),
I may have taken my class in the time trials. As it was, I ended up about 
mid-pack.
The car still works, I was able to drive home, and I didn't break anything. 
Lots
o' track time to boot. A successful weekend.

-Noam

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Noam Levine              noam.levine@analog.com
DSP Applications
Analog Devices, Inc