Performance Cars

On Sunday July 1st, I had a chance to drive the new Audi R8 at the Oulton Park race circuit in Cheshire (Nr. Manchester). Having seen the pictures of the car (http://microsites.audi.com/audir8/html/index.php ), I wasn’t sure about the shape, but in the flesh it’s absolutely stunning.

The day started with a classroom introduction to the technological features of the car. The most interesting bits were the ESP (Electronic Stability Program) which is now switchable between normal, sport and off. In sport mode the slip angle of the rear tyres can go up to 35 degrees before it interferes. That’s great for the track and it works really well! Secondly, the magnetic ride system which uses a closed loop monitoring system to control the voltage applied to the magnetic fluid in the dampers. This allows the suspension to adapt to the steering and bump loads to adjust the stiffness of the suspension. Again on circuit, this works superbly and I hope this will become available on other cars.

We were then told to team up with someone and pick a car. I ended up with a guy who decided he’d drive first as he’d been round the circuit before and I hadn’t, which was fair enough. Once we’d done our 2 sighting laps each, we then proceeded to follow our instructor through various parts of the circuit. The weather was extremely variable throughout the day changing between dry and sodden wet, with all the varying conditions in-between - sometimes the variations depended on where on track you were – very challenging! I only got to drive in totally dry conditions during an exercise that used the exit of cascades round the hairpin and back to the chicane, and the car was very impressive – for a road car, the brakes were fantastic on track and despite getting a hammering, they only grumbled a bit, with no fade. Once we got back to the pits, my ‘passenger’ had to disappear to the toilet :-). The rain then returned and despite the difficult cambers of the circuit, the car was very sure footed in the treacherous conditions. Way better than any road car I’ve driven on a track.
Despite having the 4.2 V8 putting out 420bhp, the chassis felt like it could take much more power, so the expected RS8, with the V10 engine, should be quite a beast!

The more I think about it, it just seems kind of pointless to actually own any high performance car, because in the UK, if you try to use the performance, you’re going to get charged with speeding sooner or later. When even the entry level cars are capable of safely exceeding the maximum speed allowed on the public roads (70mph), it does seem a bit low. But having seen the standard of driving on the roads, you have to wonder why the government are so focused on speed as their primary road safety message. For years, the UK was on a downward trend of road casualties, which in the last few years has been reversed. At the same time as this reversal, we have built a network of speed cameras generating millions of pounds in fines every year. See a connection? Cameras can’t spot drunks, bad lane discipline, tailgating and take no account of the road conditions. As an example, there are drivers that seem to believe that as long as they don’t exceed the posted limit, then they are safe drivers, even if they are 10 feet from your rear bumper in the pouring rain. The present focus on speed enforcement by automated cameras has only succeeded in creating more quangos (the Camera Partnerships) and increasing the numbers killed on our roads. Bring back the traffic police!