PsYkHoTiK

For Quattrofest 2010!

I participated in the Driver's Education (braking tests, slalom, lane change, and skid pad tests) and had a day and a half of lapping session. First time ever on a track.

What a VALUABLE experience it was learning what the S4 can do. Towards the end, I really learned how to "feel" for the limit of the car in the corners (wet and dry), how to do corrections to my line. I wasn't quite focused on gunning it at the time since I wanted to concentrate on learning the limits of the car (and the track). I pushed a bit harder on my last session on Sunday (used a lot of threshold braking too - lol could really smell the brakes cooking when the session ended in the paddocks).

In all, great fun! Check out your local Audi Club chapters and see when they're doing HDPEs. Well worth it!

Snippet from Saturday (WAZZU STU was in front of me ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq3ZuK-tI1E

Snippet from last session on Sunday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULOvzUIXyEs

A 0-92mph run from the hot lanes on a wet (but drying) track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NNUO83sZ5Y

And before anyone says anything, I asked the Instructor to talk a lot and continuously give feedback and comments and talk a lot of theory (so I could experiment with lines). He was very good, taught me lots, and made it a lot of fun (and I got to ride shotgun in his S4 avant).

Track layout: http://www.portlandraceway.com/index...d=25&Itemid=45

On the second video, the instructor was kinda nervous on the last complex (turns 10 thru 12 - ~25 seconds into Sunday's vid) due to it being very slippery (and I was entering it aggressively).

I'll post more vids upon delazification. I have some clips of my mistakes - understeer and power oversteer in the wet (yes the rear end broke loose! - WAZZU STU was behind me during that - it was awesome!).

All footage taken using my GoPro HD Motorsports mounted on the sunroof (I didn't want to obstruct the instructor's view by mounting it on the windshield).

WAZZU STU

Nice!!!!!!

westwest888

Fantastic! Longer and more technical than it looks, I'm sure (1.96 miles according to the google). I may have to add this to my list of tracks to do.

I'm heading to Thunderhill in Willows, CA this weekend with my club - the BMW CCA. Looking forward to giving a thorough report on where the S4 shines or fails to impress. I'm expecting a lot of the former

I've raced my BMW all over the country, most recently at Infineon.

PsYkHoTiK

Nice! I think the Audi Club Golden Gate Chapter will be having an event and Thunderhill too (I want to say second week of Jan?). Thunderhill looks like soo much fun!

Will you be running completely stock? I'm thinking that I'll be leaving the handling stock for a while but will be considering some more brake mods.

PIR was an absolute blast! You should try it sometime. I think the next one Audi Club Northwest is having a lapping event (no driver's ed though) in Feb (if you want to run with other Audi peeps that is).

NWS4Guy

Good stuff, can't wait to see the other vids - what do you think about the brakes after the minor upgrade?

clochner

Great vids! Thanx for posting. Did you do any runs using the paddle shifters, or did you stick with automatic the whole time?

PsYkHoTiK

Yeah I'll try and post some of the mistakes that I made (skids/understeer). I think my 14yr old brother took a few vids from the stands too.

The brakes handled really good. I didn't get any noticeable fade. Though on my last run on Sunday, I started using them quite hard on the straights (repeated slowing down from 100-120mph to 40-45mph within ~300ft) it really started cooking (I could smell it at the paddocks and that was after a very slow cool down lap that I didn't use the brakes at all). If you're going to use the brakes that hard for the whole day, definitely need a BBK. The other sessions, I didn't use it nearly as hard and I couldn't smell any burning smell from the brakes at all though. It bites in really good and very consistent (even when using it hard). Brake pedal feedback was really awesome. These are really good stock brakes.

Handling wise, I'm going to keep bone stock for now. The lead instructor has convinced me. He explained that any mods you do decreases the margin of tolorance that a car has. Like in corners, I could hear the tires chirping (close to it's limit) but I still knew that the car could forgive me if I pushed a tad harder as it still had more adhesion to give. If I had stiffer suspension, that margin would decrease as it would be much less forgiving. Even changing the tires to racing rubber (chirping would be bad - as it really means it is about to break loose). So I'll wait until I am much better and more consistent before I do any of that (and I want to "learn" how the car handles - it handles really really well stock). The only thing I am kinda considering are BBKs now (well maybe after my rotors are worn I suppose). My instructor had BBKs on his S4 and he was braking hard all day long.

PsYkHoTiK

No problem! I left it in Dynamic and let it shift by itself. Next time I go on track (if it is in Portland that is), I will definitely start using the paddles so I can be in control of the shifting. That way it doesn't decide to shift gears in the middle of a high speed sweeping corner (that scared the crap out of me in the two times it happened). But for this session, I was concentrating very much on the line so I didn't want to be distracted by gearing (which in truth, I learned quite fast because of it).

Speedy

Excellent advice to most anyone!!!

llib

who are u waving to?