RE: flag debate

["Geoff Jenkins" <jenkinsg@pilot.msu.edu>]

> Go to the track and see for yourself.  I have and Scott
> is right.  I have seen the famous quattro club M3 (qcm3 - tm) and it has
set
> the pace.  Is driver skill a huge variable?  Of course, but you would have
> to believe this one guy (one of Scott's students with no racing
experience)
> is a better driver than 20 - 30 q drivers almost all of whom are into it
> enough to modify their car.  Regardless, check out track times for the bmw
> events and compare to the quattro club times.  I bet they aren't close.

So why, of the two M3's at Waterford Hills during this summer's QCUSA
meeting, was one competitive but by no means dominant, and the other (given
the car's spec sheet) uncompetitive? Why did the lesser car do so badly when
it rained?

Certainly, the E36 M3 is a great car, and a great tool in skilled/talented
hands, and will outdrive almost anything in its price range, but is
comparing a limited production $40,000 M3 to a mainstream $25,000 car like
an A4 or a 15+ year old design like the UrQ all that significant? Put a 323i
against a stock A4T, or an A3 against a 318ti, or a US-spec UrQ against an
E30 M3, and you have a relatively fair comparison. Right now there's no Audi
equivalent for the M3, but that's a separate issue from whether or not the
"M3 versus Quattro" track session has any meaning. The only Audi I can think
of offhand that _should_ be equivalent to a late 1990s sport BMW is a 20v
UrQ, which is giving away a few years anyway, and neither I, nor Scott, has
seen a 20vUrQ vs. M3 showdown, so we don't know.

The M3 is great, but if track times are all that driving's about, we should
all go away and buy ourselves Caterham Sevens (which solidly beat a 911,
Lotus Esprit V8, Mitsu Lancer and half a dozen others, driven by a BTCC
pilot, around Silverstone, at Autocar's behest (NB: the new 328i was there,
and was viewed as very disappointing after the E36 328i)). Sooner or later,
real world issues like price, comfort, build quality, image and practicality
_do_ enter the debate, and whether the M3 wins then depends on how you feel
about those factors and how you rate them against lap times at a club meet.

Before I bought the S4, I drove an E36 M3 enough to know that, for me, it
was:
PRO: Probably faster, on a dry day
CON: Less comfortable, smaller, more shoddily built, more boy-racerish, less
forgiving, less ideosyncratic, slower _for_me_ in bad weather, because it
didn't inspire as much confidence as the Q.

Personally, I don't meet enough M3's to have a big issue about racing them.
328s  and 528s I see periodically, and view them as fair prey. Unless it's
being driven well, or I'm doing badly, I should win. If I meet an M3, driven
well, he'll win, if it's driven badly, I should win. If I meet a Porache
911, I know he'll win. Doesn't bother me. Soon enough, January rolls around,
and I _know_ the M3 driver isn't going to win, and the 911 is probably in
the garage for the duration.

At Steamboat in January, an M3 may do well, as I don't doubt it's capable of
performing well across the board. What I doubt is that most M3 pilots would
be willing & able to risk it.

"Hands up, all those who bought their Q's because they wanted an M3?..."
Pause. Silence.

Geoff