Audi Club
of
By AndyP
Yours truly with Mr RS6,
Randy Pobst
With a skillful flick of the
wrists combined with exact timing and transition from brakes to throttle, the
driver rotated the 4,000lb sedan seemingly on the spot and had it rocketing
past the famous oak tree and up the back straight. The driver looked down at
the tach and watched the needle hit 6800 rpm before
the automatic transmission changed gear … he let out a chuckle acknowledging
the “tweak”. The passenger was gripping the door handle tightly but grinning
from ear to ear, having the experience of a lifetime. This was Randy Pobst, current champion of the SPEED GT World Challenge
series which he won last year in an Audi RS6, but was today driving my Audi RS6
around Virginia International Raceway with me as a passenger.
The excitement all started
on Sunday, April 25. I headed out from
Photo courtesy of a person at the VIR
event – unfortunately I never caught their name
The next morning, Charlie
and I headed to the track arriving around
Track map courtesy of www.virclub.com
I did the first few laps as
a passenger in Charlie’s 993 TT where Charlie showed me the best lines through
the corners … I couldn’t wait to try out my RS6. That time came soon enough. I
let Charlie do a couple of laps first so that he could see for himself the
behavior of the car which would help him determine if we need to make any
adjustments to the line we had taken in his Porsche. Charlie’s reaction on my mods: “they make a material difference” … you bet they do,
it’s like driving another car! We pulled into the pits and I took the controls.
I was eager to see for myself the difference the ECU and Tiptronic chips made
to the car. I had these fitted by Speedtechnik in
The tires gripped but the
screeching let us know they were working hard. The chip changes supposedly take
the RS6 from a stock 450 bhp to around 520 bhp. Speedtechnik measured 411 bhp
at the wheels of their test mule. The power was a little harder to modulate
than before the mods although I found on day two when
I switched off ESP that it was a little easier then. The S-bends between turns
6 and 9 were a lot of fun. I found that if I didn’t get close enough to the
left curb at turn 6 then I’d be accentuating the movement from side to side and
on one occasion things got a little out of hand and the electronics took over …
that was early on when I was still learning the track though. Very soon I’d be
going through the esses at over 100 mph, dabbing the brakes before 10, lining
up for the apex and flooring it until the braking zone at turn 11. From turns
11 to 12 there was more braking and once the car was lined up with the apex at
Oak tree (turn 12) it was foot to the floor all the way up the hill and over
the brow, hitting 135-140 mph (depending how well I did at Oak Tree) and on to
the brakes for turn 14. Getting the line right and showing some prudence with
the throttle gets the RS6 through the turns from 14 to the final turn before
the front straight which is taken with foot to floor from just before the apex.
Thanks to Kurt New for the photo
Monday’s afternoon session started
in a big downpour … great chance to see how the car does in the rain. The tires
already had 13,000 miles on them, including a previous track event so they
weren’t the best in the corners. However, I was still impressed with the car
and how predictable it was. The worst part was the back straight where we were
still traveling well over 100 mph with streams now running over the track and
cross winds moving the car around … not to mention all the water coming in on
Charlie and me through the front windows which were left down according to the
rules. It was scary fun, but still fun … maybe too much fun so we decided to
skip the last session of the day while we were still smiling!
Thanks to Kurt New for the photo
Tuesday morning’s first
session went without incident, but the day was warming up. For the last session
of the morning, I decided to try a little harder and worked the brakes too
much. At the end of turn one the pedal seemed to go down more than usual. I
didn’t think much about it, but a few corners later the pedal was now down
three quarters and I was starting to worry … I remember coming up on turn 11
and the pedal seemed almost to the floor, so that was it. I passed Oak Tree and
let cars by as I gingerly made my way back and into the pits. The brake fluid
had boiled. I was running Motul 5.1 … should have
been Motul 600 or similar. One problem is that the
drilled holes in the rotors had clogged with brake dust stopping any air coming
through the ventilated disks and onto the braking surface. Fortunately, this
session was followed by lunch allowing plenty of time for the brake fluid to
cool. When I returned from lunch, there was a good pedal. I topped up the fluid
and then went to stage for my next track session.
This was going to be the big
one. Randy Pobst, Speed GT World Challenge Driver’s
Champion was to drive my baby for a couple of laps. I had spoken to Randy the
evening before at the Event Dinner. I was surprised how enthusiastic he seemed
to be when I asked him to drive my RS6 … after all, he
has his own whizzy racing one to drive. Randy was jumping from one car to
another all Tuesday making a lot of people very happy. One can only marvel at
his talent to switch between such diverse cars and still drive them at their
max. So my time came to witness the master drive my car. Randy got into the
drivers seat and said something like, “Hey great, it’s one of these” … we
accelerated out of the pit lane and onto the track and Randy seemed excited …
how could he be? He drives fast cars all the time, maybe he’s sitting on
something and cursing … no wait, he really seems to be enjoying himself … and
oh so smooth. He isn’t having any problem feeding in the power or transitioning
between brake and throttle. All the time Randy is imparting gems of wisdom to
me but with the windows down, helmets on, engine roaring and tires screeching,
I couldn’t make out hardly any of it. I did catch Randy say, “this is just like
my race car” … but who knows what he was referring to … could have meant loud
and big! As we came up on another car just before a corner, I did catch Randy
say, “this is what I do with my race car … drive right up the back going into
the corner and use the power and quattro to pull yourself out of the corner (faster
than the guy in front)”. At first Randy had gone for the gear lever to change
gear but a quick mental adjustment and Randy was switching between sport mode
and manual mode, never using the paddles but preferring to use the +/- of the
gear lever. I was particularly impressed with how Randy seemed to rotate the
car at Oak Tree and I saw 145 mph on the back straight … I never did see the
top speed on the front straight for either Randy or me and I think that is
because it has a right hand curve in it that you take flat out while you are
already going very fast and all I want to do at this point is watch the road,
particularly for cars joining the track ahead from the pit lane. I asked Randy
what he thought of my car … he said, “it has awesome (or some such adjective)
torque and for a luxury sedan it is fantastic. For a track car, it needs a
stiffer rear sway bar and a tighter diff. Ok, I have the sway bar on order from
my friends at Speedtechnik, but I don’t know what Randy meant by “tighter” diff
… I’ll try and email him sometime.
Randy brings the RS6 in while Charlie gets ready to
get in
Once Randy had left me in
the pit lane, Charlie got back in the passenger seat and I took the car out for
the rest of the session. I was inspired by Randy’s drive and found some extra
speed … but in the back of my mind was the concern for the brakes … put the two
together and here I was trundling down the front straight at a great rate of
knots, leaving my braking a little later which would have been just fine, but
half way into the braking my concern for the brakes sent alarm bells ringing in
my mind and I eased on the brakes a tad before reapplying … bad move … we ran
out of track and onto the grass we went. Fortunately we had scrubbed off enough
speed to turn the car and drive right back onto the track. No damage except my
pride! There was one more session left. I have to say that the RS6 had not
missed a beat and was still pulling as strongly as ever …. Until
a few laps from the end in the last session. We exited turn two and the
engine momentarily missed a beat and then it did it again … Charlie asked what
was happening and the answer was on the dash … we were out of fuel … we still
had most of a lap to go to get back to the pits but we made it … and we made it
out to the fuel pump on fumes … the fuel pump was making a lot of noise as it
sucked at the air in the tank, but we had made it! Enough excitement for two
days and time to replace the track pads, load the car and head for home.
Incidentally, the RS14 pads had enough meat left for another event and the
rotors showed none of the heat discoloration that they had shown the last time
I had tracked the car with stock pads.
My thanks to those in the
Potomac-Chesapeake Chapter of the Audi Club of
Audi RS6: The best all round
Luxury Sports Sedan