I guess I should try and write this one up within a month of the event unlike usual
So, Audi Driver International!
Due to a string of unfortunate events, the last time we were able to attend ADI was back in 2015!
Back then, the car looked like this:
Look at that little narrow body and baby wheels
So, roll the clocks forward and just a few things have changed!
Friday night came, and Ed arrived with the worlds largest trailer.
I say largest, it's about 30ft long, but less than an inch wider than the width the car, because some muppet stuck some huge wheels on a short stumpy car
We loaded the tools and spare tyres into the van, and loaded the car on the trailer.
Knowing the car had some pretty front bias weight distribution we kept the car back a little to avoid overloading the hitch. it seemed to balance up about right, but it just looked so far back!
Still, we strapped it down and gave it a try. The plan was to load everything up on Friday night, then Ed would take the car away top secret location, then pick me up in the morning on the way:
It felt SO strange seeing someone else drive off with the car on a trailer. Never again! haha.
Saturday morning came and I was up at 5am with the small person, we shared a cup of tea, it was good
Ed arrived just after 6am and off we went!
First stop was the shell station to fill up with V-power:
Eds van is truly lovely for this. It's only about 160bhp but it pulls it with ease in complete comfort.
I watched the A3 the whole way on the rear cam:
Quick stop at Membury for coffee:
At this point Ed noticed that I'm really quite partial to a picture or two, so decided he'd try and take a picture of me every time I took a pic. Arn't mates great
We arrived at Combe, found a lonely looking Leon owned by a certain Badger, and unloaded:
I obviously took more pictures:
So of course Ed took more pics of me
We got signed on, had a drivers briefing, and met up with Bill, then it was time to head out!
We decided to go out on the AD08s first.
It was wet and miserable, but we wanted to get some sort of baseline rather than jumping straight to wets, otherwise I wouldn't know how good the wets were.
Robin jumped in the passenger seat and we headed out on the AD08s cautiously, onto what can only be described as a lake!
This photo by Anthony Boothman:
https://www.instagram.com/anthonyboothmanphotography/
Clearly a brave man to be out in that weather taking pics!
I've not had much wet track running in the car full stop. We've been generally pretty lucky with weather, so it was a bit of an unknown. the limited wet running I have done has always been on a proper semi slick too, so not exactly tyres known for clearing water. It's never really been fun in the wet, and it's always just felt like I'm trying to avoid crashing, rather than learning anything.
This was different though. This wasn't an exercise in not crashing. This actually worked! Genuine surprise
AD08 arn't known for their wet abilities, but I was pleasantly surprised that we were still reaching respectable speeds and still generating some sort of load in the corners despite the conditions.
We started out at 10psi low boost, but I was soon able to turn it up to the mid map around 17psi and was pleased to find the GT30 delivered power in such a lovely smooth way that traction wasn't an issue even in these conditions.
Lap times from that very first session had been ~1:32, not overly representative of anything in particular as it's the first session of the day and just finding out how the land lay, but it's still information that's nice to have.
We came back in, and for a short moment the rains stopped. We debated going back out on the AD08s, but then the heavens opened once again, so I decide now was the time to use my wets if I was going to get to try them!
We swapped to the wets, rain pouring on us (thanks
@RobinJI for braving the weather with me!) and headed out. This time Ed jumped in. he's never been in the car before, and I've never driven it on wets, so this was going to be fun!
Exiting the pitlane with some throttle it was immediately obvious that these had decent grip. What I usually do in the rain is give the brake pedal a little stab on the straight to see just how easily it'll lock up. I stabbed the pedal, and instead of locking up, we lurched forwards on our belts!
'oooooooooooooooooooooh'
Ed and I looked at each other. That's got a lot of grip!
Up to quarry and I carefully turned in, only to find that rather than the usual washing out feeling you can get in the wet, the front end bit and turned in. Feeling the steering load up and the car generate some grip was most bizzare, because it certainly felt like we needed a boat for the conditions!
We pressed on and after a few laps it was feeling really pretty comfortable. The rain seemed to come on and off around the lap, but the track remained wet with lots of standing water. the 250 section yokohamma wet tyres just seemed to deal with it all so well. I'd never gone this quick before in the wet!
Here's a little clip from that very first session on wets. me driving, Ed as passenger: