My Audi R8 Experience

MY R8 – Audi Sportscar Experience!

Opportunity knocked on my door on Friday.

It was the day after my birthday and I was given the opportunity to take part in the not so well known Audi Sportscar Experience. (A lot) More information can be obtained at www.audi.in/drive

So on a not so bright and definitely not early Saturday morning, I decided to make my way to the Sri Perumbudur MMST Race track, now one of only 3 full-fledged race tracks in India. The traffic was a mess due to the incessant rains which as usual meant Chennai roads were water logged and due to the various constructions (Metro) going on were sometimes non-existent. How I wished I had an all-wheel drive/4WD vehicle with higher ground clearance. (Note to self – check this stat on all cars that I wish to buy!)

I reached the track about 20 mins too late for the session to start, but Shelly – one of the organisers, was very nice and allowed me to still take part. Ashwin Sundar of racing fame was in the middle of a theory session and I soon settled into the theory part of driving in a car on the track. Most of you will know that I instruct on motorcycles at Indimotard’s Throttle Wide Open School usually held at the Kari race track in Coimbatore (another of the only 3 tracks in India), so for me the experience was something that I was looking forward to given the fact that I needed to know the differences in Car physics and unlearn bike physics!

We did a few minutes on over steering – when the car turns more than you want it to and under steer when it doesn’t turn as much as you want it to, followed by methods to compensate for these vehicle dynamics. The fundamental difference is that there is one! This is based on what car you are driving, how heavy it is and in the case of the R8 – what wheel drive it is! The R8 has what is known as Quattro Permanent 4WD which brings in its own component in to the equation (In lay man terms meaning that it will do a lot of the thinking for you!)

So rather than regale you all with technical data which can be found (In German!!) on the Audi Website, I will just go through the points that impressed me – a lay person when it comes to Super cars and why I liked the R8. Having said that – any vehicle that can get me from 0 to 100 in less than 4 seconds, doesn’t really take long to impress (3.9 seconds to be exact! ;))

Since I was late, I spent a few minutes reading through the disclaimer form and then with slight hesitation I signed above the dotted line. I was given an ID card and then asked to head to the cars. One of the instructors pointed to a car and said get in and then all hell broke loose!

I walked up to the car, opened the driver’s door (did I mention it’s a 2 door!) and just stood there gaping for a few seconds. There was no steering wheel, no pedals, NOTHING! What?? I hear you ask – yep, it was after those few idiotic seconds I realised that it’s a Left Hand drive! And I was on the wrong side! Oh well, one learns.

Not successfully hiding my embarrassment, I plonked my phones on the wrong side and moved to the left where the next embarrassment happened! The seat had been pulled up front and my long legs wouldn’t go in. Thankfully each car had an attender and this gentleman graciously pulled a few levers and made the seat go back so I can get in and then he handed me a helmet and a balaclava that I was asked to put on. I then started fiddling with all the small buttons in there and even honked! ;) Next surprise – err – where are the gears?? I then realised that this was a Semi-automatic – and the damn gears didn’t even have the normal P/N/D/1/2 that I have seen in pictures. How on earth would I start the car??

Whilst I was trying to figure this out, an instructor instructed ignorant me on how to put the car into automatic mode, phew I could drive. Before we started one of the other instructors then walked up and checked the radio (Walkie Talkie) and ensured it was working. The model was simple. 3 cars per instructor, all directions would be given by Walkie Talkie with us stopping and having more sessions where necessary. There were 2 batches and our first drill started. What is a drill? – A series of actions that highlight one particular aspect of driving, example – Braking, Steering Control, acceleration etc.

In retrospect, I wish I had had the second drill first but I realise it’s impossible to do it all in sequence. So the first drill I had was a braking drill. The R8 has ABS as everyone knows but perhaps what everyone doesn’t know is how you actually use it. I know the theory that its Anti-Lock Braking system and the fact that it doesn’t let you lock the car up! (Doh!) What I didn’t know was that this system can therefore allow you to steer while braking as opposed to just braking as it won’t let you skid if you swerve the steering wheel.

Let me explain, as my nice instructor did. Think of driving down a highway faster than you should! now think of a 2 wheeler with 2 adults, 2 kids and one baby suddenly coming across from nowhere (remember when it happened to you ?) Well, in a non-ABS car, you would slam the brakes, twist and turn the wheel and of course start praying. Normally what would happen is that your wheels lock up and then you skid as the wheels have no traction and you are trying to avoid them by steering. It’s a mess.

In the R8 (with a lot more practise) you can actually steer out of the way while braking. So our drill was to start and accelerate like no man’s business, enter a predefined area, brake and turn out of the area – without knocking down the traffic cones that were places strategically to mark the braking area, the turn off area and importantly the imaginative 2 wheeler with kids.

The first time was nice and easy as this was the first time I was ever in an Audi with a V10 Engine with over 5000 cc of displacement. So like the instructor said, it was a walk in the park – did I mention that he also said that at this speed I don’t have to worry as the loaded 2 wheeler had just zoomed off as I was so slow.

The second and third time, I was really on the gas and shall we just say that whilst I figured out the logic of what I was doing, the world is a little less populated now! 2 motorcycles less and a few traffic cones less.

Moving on…. The second drill we had was Slalom driving which was to give us an idea of the steering capability (which as I had mentioned, had I done this before maybe no crashes with imaginary motorcyclists!) The experience that I got on the steering exercise made me realise how heavy the car actually is – about 1700 Kgs! And therefore the stability it has is phenomenal. The steering is quite meaty, ergonomically designed and makes you feel you are in control. You don’t have to do many turns of the steering wheel to do a complete 360. Thankfully I didn’t kill anyone (imaginary or otherwise) in this drill.

We had a small break and then we went out on to the track. Yay!

The instructor car was in front followed by 3 students. And the first lap was just to explain to us the actual entry, apex and exit points and to generally show the students the “perfect” racing lines. The good thing about this experience was that the instructor was good enough to drive and also instruct the students via the walkie talkie in the car, so we knew where we were off line, where we had to step on the throttle and where to start braking etc.

On the straight, the car right behind the instructor would move out and let the other cars come in closer and the first car would become the third. This enabled each person to have a lap right behind the instructor car which added to the students value add.

We had another pit stop, where refreshments were brought to the car and we re-energised. Did one more session on the track – 3-4 laps at higher speeds, instructor led. After which there was a debriefing where we could ask questions and then we closed for the day.

It was a great experience and honestly if I could afford it I would go for the next levels, but let me just say it doesn’t come cheap! My experience with the R8 clearly opened up my eyes as to why these cars were so expensive, and it’s not just because they are “branded” or have immense amounts of power. The experience included the wipers coming on automatically when rain water splashed the windscreen, the dehumidifiers working perfectly well to ensure that vision is never affected, the grip/traction at high speeds on curves was mind-blowing. The car itself with its comfy seats, the joystick gears (which was quite easy to understand when you got the hand of it and the semi-automatic gearbox. And let’s not even talk about the adrenaline rush due to the acceleration.



Phew, all in all a Saturday well spent. Now time to think.


Pictures can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/ AudiR8Experience