Re: BTCC centre differential

[Greg Spark <sparkg@wave.co.nz>]

The recently run Aussie classic race meet at Bathurst had a SuperTouring 
race with (I think) identical spec cars to the BTCC cars - incidentally 
these cars have similarly dominated proceedings downunder too.

Anyway the conditions for the race were appalling with torrential ran
flooding the circuit. The Audis came out on SLICKS!!! for the warmup but
quickly returned to fit full wets. The lead Audi (Brad Jones) qualified I 
think about 4 or 5 with 3 WMBs in front - Bathurst is fast and furious with
the track favouring straight line speed so the Audis weren't expected to
dominate - until the rain that is. I sat smugly back expecting a white wash
by the Audis only to be shocked to see a Ovlov 058 dominate. I then realised
that this car was driven by a driver extremely experienced on the very 
difficult circuit whereas the Audi driver was much younger and less
experienced. However after 4 of the 8 laps he obviously found his feet in
the very difficult conditions and rapidly hauled in the Ovlov to finish
1 car length back - another lap or two and it would have been all over!!

I digressed - sorry for the BW but it WAS an exciting race.

The point I wanted to make was the commentaters commented that the Audi drivers
can control the front to rear torque split from within the car and are 
apparently continually adjusting this for different parts of the circuit.
It obviously took Jones a few laps to sort out the conditions before he really
started flying.

> From: "Graydon D. Stuckey" <graydon@apollo.gmi.edu>
> Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 15:28:55 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Re: BTCC centre differential riddle
> 
> On Mon, 14 Oct 1996, Phil Payne wrote:
> 
> > One comment from our visit to the BTCC team today - the A4Qs driven by Biela 
> > and Bintcliffe have no centre differentials.

> I'll bet they have some kinda mechanism which varies the tork transfer 
> between the front and rear axles.  I'll bet its electronic, and 
> controllled by the computer. 

-- 
Greg Spark                '96 A4 1.8Tq
sparkg@wave.co.nz         MTM 187hp
Hamilton, New Zealand