Stapleton

[Ben Howell <bhowell@rainbow.rmii.com>]

 Fellow Audi Fans,


  Well, yesterday was the first day for the CO. Region Qclub event at 
Stapleton. For those of you that never flew in or out of Denver, 
Stapleton is the old international airport (before the disasterous DIA 
was built). It is now home to a 3.1 mile road race course that has been 
enjoyed by several car clubs and we finally got our chance yesterday. 

  Let me start of by saying, it is fast! With four VERY pronounced 
straights (the longest being almost 3000 feet long) speeds were very 
high. Stock Ur-Q's were seeing the better side of 120mph! I was told that 
Mr. Leach, in his 1996 twin turbo 911, was exceeding 150mph.

  Turn two is fast right hander that sets you up for the little "jump" 
and the even faster left hander. Then some firm braking and a downshift into 
2nd gear gets you going for turn 3, a fast right hander with a very 
wide area to swing it wide. This leads to the second straight and a short 
blast up to 100mph. Now, on the brakes HARD for the VERY late apexed 
turn 4. Actually turn 4 is a sacrific so you can set yourself up for turn 
5. The reason turn 5 is so important is because the next straight is the 
longest on the track (the aforementioned 3000 foot straight) and your 
exit speed determines how fsat you are going to go down that stright. 
Actually, the "straight" has some fast sweepers in it, but it's flat out, 
wide open throttle through turns 6 and 7. Then some hard braking and 
downshifting to 3rd puts you into turn 8, a fast left hander. Turn 9 is a 
180 degree righthander that needs to be broken into 2 turns (see: two apexs).
Is is a difficult turn that sets you up for a short blast up to 80 or 
90mph on a short straight that leads to turn 10. Turn 10 is a sharp right 
hander that leads onto the first half of the front straight. Then it's 
wide open down the front straight. A little finesse of the brakes and 2nd 
gear is what you need for turn 1. Turn 1 is actually broken down into 
parts A and B. Part A being a slow laft hander and then is WFO open 
through part B and onto the front straight.

  In short, that's the track. VERY fun and fast. Highly recommended track 
for anyone and I am looking foreward to going back in Aug.

  In all there was about 45 participants ( I think) and I thought that 
everyone was having a good time. I saw a lot of smiles and a lot of 
laughing. It was a beautiful sunny day, but not hot.........I don't think 
we could have wished for a better day! 

  The was also a wide varity of cars there. From a Coupe GT to a 20valve 
turbo Ur-Q, from a 84' 4000Q to Carl Jerittis's recently EC featured 
5000CSQ (no comment!). Prestige even had a new A8 out there (no track 
time though) for perspective buyers to inspect. In my humble opinion, no 
matter what you were driving, whether you spent $3000 or $70,000 on your 
car, it just didn't matter.......EVREYONE was smiling and EVERYONE was 
having a good time. This is why I have grown to love the Quattro 
community so much, NO competeition! I was involved with the PCA for a 
while, but they are always accusing eachother of cheating or blocking or 
anything they think they can get away with accusing you of. That is not 
what having fun  is about and I don't appreciate being around that 
attitude. 

  A big round of applause goes out to John Beckius, Bob and Deb Polich. 
Bob and Deb put on a great event and were very helpful to anyone and 
everyone. John came to the event to do some driving (seeing as how this 
was his first event in a year and a half) and everytime I turned around, 
he was helping someone fix their car or diagnosing some problem (his car 
included). Even with all the work he was doing for other people and all 
the work he was doing to his own car, he too was still smiling! Kudos John!

  I do belive that there is a video available of the event if anyone is 
interested. Try contacting Chris Tucker at ctucker@du.edu   I know he was 
doing a lot of filming and he got some really good shots.

  That's about it from me. I hope to hear from more people that attended 
the event because I would like to hear some thoughts and feeling from 
other memebers.

Laters, Ben
bhowell@rmii.com
83' TQC
87' 4KCSQ