Texas World Speedway report

[ejfluhr@austin.ibm.com (Fluhr)]

This past weekend, August 9th and 10th, Precision Auto Sports hosted a
driving school at Texas World Speedway.  Fellow q-lister Rick Schwalenberg
did a great job organizing this event, and I think everybody attending
had a good time.

I arrived Friday evening in College Station, TX around 8:45PM and met
fellow q-listers and roommates for the weekend Jason Palmer ('97 A4 1.8tqsm)
and Bill Reigelsperger (1990 Coupe quattro), and the three of us went to the
driver's meeting.  Luis Marques ('87 4000q), the other lister in attendance,
showed up shortly after.  In the meeting they covered the various flags and
their meanings, talked about apexing, braking, and smooth technique, and
went over the entire track, pointing out turn-in points and lines.  After
the meeting, Jason, Bill, and I hopped into Jason's A4 and went looking for
some Texas A&M kids to whoop up on in stoplight drags.  ;)  No, actually,
we just went for some Gatorade and Pop Tarts for the following morning.

The next day dawned cool and cloudy, and the 4 of us gassed up and
cruised over to the track.  We had another meeting to go over some of
the previous night's material again, and then they let us loose.  Luis,
Jason, and I were in the green run group, and Bill was in the blue
group immediately following us.  There were around 12 cars in each group,
which would hopefully minimize any congestion.  The course was a 1.8 mile
12-turn track that used part of the banked straightaway of the large oval
of Texas World Speedway, with the rest of the course lying inside the oval.

The first few laps of the first session were driven by the instructor, and
he did a good job of talking his way through the course, showing me various
turn-in spots and discussing different lines through the corners.  Then
he turned it over to me, and I spent the rest of the session apexing too
early.  :(  The second session was better as I began to get comfortable
with the track and my car's handling, and I started to hit the turns more
consistently, smoothly, and quickly, while talking with my instructor to
see how I could have improved on my lines.  After the second run the
instructor felt I had the technique down and just needed to continue
practicing, so he graduated me to solo running.  :)

The third session was similar to the second, but without the instructor
in the car I felt a little bolder and pushed a littler harder.  I was
definitely improving, and had almost broken myself of the tendency to
apex early.  I still had difficulties setting up for the last three
turns, though, which was important because they set you up for a fast entry
onto the straightaway.

Between sessions, Luis, Jason, Bill, and I bummed around the garage talking
about various things, checking out each other's cars, the other Audis
involved, and the very fast TAP A4.  The other Audis in the event included
a 1988 80 quattro, a '98 A4 30v w/ sport suspension, an S6, a tricked-out
S4 driven by another of the event's organizers, a couple of 12v A4s, and a
very fast 1984 4000q with the turbo I5 from Rick Schwalenberg's ur-quattro
(which was unfortunately not in attendenace, as it is undergoing major
surgery).  Oh, and we also had an Audi Cabriolet out there on the first day.
There were a ton of very fast Porsches out there, various Mazda RX-7s, a slow
Corvette or two, a Lexus, an Infiniti, a rental Volvo, and some type of Indy
car, among others. 

In between some of the sessions we would run over to the slalom course
to practice weight transfer.  The max speed I saw was between 50 and 55.
Jason was hitting the cones at 60+mph, with Luis not far behind.  I
unfortunately killed a few cones in my attempt to increase my speed.
The fourth session of the day went pretty good.  Everyone was starting to
get the hang of the track and their cars, and speeds were improving.
We finished up and went back to the hotel to get clean, and then walked over
to a Chinese buffet place to eat dinner with some of the other people from
the event.  Finally we retired to the hotel, drained after the long day
and short amount of sleep the prior evening.

Sunday morning was sunny and clear, and we knew the day would be quite hot.
The first session approached and Luis and I lined up next to each other.
This was it, the Coupe GT vs. 4000q showdown.  We went out, warmed up a
couple of laps, and went to it.  We trailed each other around the course,
trading up places occasionally, pushing our cars faster and faster.  We were
hitting something around 100mph exiting turn 1 after the straightaway,
braking down to 65-70 for turn 2.  Luis was faster than I through 2, although
I would usually catch up a bit through turns 4-8, so we were pretty evenly
matched.  On the straights I might have been ever so slightly faster,
although you would be hard pressed to notice.  Basically, neither of us
could lose the other, we were pretty much equal.  Different tires, different
drivers, so I cannot definitely say that the Coupe GT and 4000q are 100%
equal, but I personally think that they are close enough that the differences
are negligible.  So, nah-nah on quattro, my FWD Audi can more than hold
its own.  :) ;)

Jason's instructor finally upgraded him to solo, so on the next few
sessions he joined Luis and I in our friendly jaunts around the track.
It surprised me, but I was faster through the tight turns than he was.
He definitely had the advantage in acceleration coming off of turns 2,
8, and 12, though, where the straightaways let us go full-throttle out
of the turns.  In those areas he would pull away just a tad, and I
would have to reel him in through the curves.

Unfortunately Bill was in a different run group, so we didn't get a
chance to run with him until they combined some groups on the last two
sessions of Sunday.  He was keeping up pretty well in session 3, 
although I think traffic slowed him up some so he fell behind.  In
the 4th and final session he had to pull over because his eyes were
stinging, so again we didn't get a good car-to-car comparison of the Coupe
quattro with the rest of us.  I went for a ride with Bill, to see what
the quattro experience was all about.  The only place I could really feel
a difference from my FWD was in acceleration thru and out of a turn, and
even then it didn't seem to make the car faster.  <shrug>  The next
car I get will be a quattro, so perhaps then I'll understand the
differences.  In the meantime, I love my Coupe GT.  :-)

We cleaned up and cleared out after the fourth session on Sunday, and each
of us headed home.  I had a great weekend, and extend my thanks to Luis and
his wife Veronica, Jason, Bill, and Rick for making it so much fun.  I
am looking forward to the chance to do this again in the future, and
perhaps we can get a few more listers to join in.

Later,
Eric
'85 Coupe GT
---
Eric J. Fluhr                                Email:  ejfluhr@austin.ibm.com
630FP Logic/Circuit Design                   Phone:  (512) 838-7589
IBM Microelectronics Div.                    Austin, TX