Benman
September 19th, 2006, 15:45
WARNING: LONG!
As some of you know, my uncle Brian and I decided to purchase a bona-fide racecar. Going halves made sense in a lot of ways as the car would only see the track and therefore not get quite enough use to justify one person usage and ownership. We both have busy schedules and can only make a few track events/races each year and the most obvious reason would be to split the cost of the car :D . In the past, I’ve done numerous track events but never ventured into actual racing despite my father co-owning a team in NASCAR WEST and my uncle winning many circle and road course races over the last several years. With encouragement from Brian, I recently completed my very first race not too long ago in our shop’s 92 Prelude (a great learner car as I would have nowhere been near ready for the car we were about to get). After a total of three races in the Prelude I was signed of for my TCRA Race License (the local race group I run with).
So it came about that Stasis had a couple of B5 cars for sale. But these were no ordinary B5s. These were originally the B5s sold to Champion Racing for their World Speed Challenge GT program. They were purpose built, body on white racecars. They never had a street VIN assigned to them and actually have a Audi Sport UK VIN chassis stamp! When Galati raced the B5 S4s they were converted (by Audi Sport UK) to RS 4 spec with fenders and upgraded motors. They also wore serious 275/35/18 rubber with bespoke magnesium rims custom made to order by BBS. We contacted Paul Lambert back in May with interest in picking up one of these cars that they were now currently running in the World Speed Challenge with smaller rubber (235/17) and 1.8T motors. Originally, I would have liked to reunite the car with it’s 2.7T motor, but besides the cost factor, Paul convinced me it would be wise for us to sample the car with the 1.8T motor first, since the advantages of the heavier V6TT over the lighter 1.8T are not as much as one would think. That decision proved to be very wise as the 1.8T in this thing is far more than just adequate…
Some of things we had Stasis do to the car was to reunite it with its oh so sexy front flared fender sheet metal (as the quarters were already done) and to perform a two seater conversion (to take the wifes around during lunch breaks of course :D) as opposed to the single seater the car had always been (this ended up improving the looks as well IMHO). Also, of course in the World Speed Challenge, Paul and his team are greatly limited as to the amount of boost and HP they can use. Even with @ 280-295HP, his cars weighing in @ 2500lbs are extremely competitive so upping the horsepower is a big no-no for him. This however is not a factor for us :D. No such strict rules. For me, the TCRA guys are an excellent bunch and rules (with the exception of safety) are very lenient when it comes to power (just move up a class :D). Brian will be running mostly NASA events and occasional USTCC races where a little restriction will come into order. Paul and Stasis’s solution to this was a different ECU program for both myself and Brian. When Brian runs, he will run a lower boost and smaller World Challenge shoes (235/17s). Me, I get to run the big 275/18s and more HP (again, TCRA, less politics, more fun). And those 275 tires lead me to perhaps my favorite part of the car. Those wheels. Through much effort, Paul was able to track down the original, authentic Champion Audi BBS forge magnesium wheels. It wasn’t easy or fast for him to find these but he did. There are very few of these left and for him to snag these for me for a very reasonable cost, my hats off to him. Originally, all this was envisioned to take a set time frame. Things didn’t quite turn out that way.
After several delays and some frustration, we took delivery one week ago from this past weekend. I have to say, that despite our disappointment in the delayed delivery, Paul and Stasis were class A through the whole deal and went out of his/their way to try and make us happy as a way to make up for the delays and our missed races we had planned with the car. It again came right down to the wire as the car had not even seen a dyno until the Friday right before my Saturday race! At this point, Paul actually (at his cost I might add) had his engineer Shaun Gilliland (coincidentally, no relation to our NASCAR WEST Rookie of the Year Driver David Gilliland who's now in NEXTEL CUP) fly down to So Cal to complete the engine work at GIAC’s place (who Garret was kind enough to let them use). Shaun picked the car up from us (we took physical delivery just three days prior) and went to work. Also, something I was most certainly not expecting from Paul or Stasis, he had both Shaun AND Adwin Timmermans (crew chief for Chip Herr) come to my first race to coach me with our new car. Their info proved to be invaluable and their time away from more important matters was greatly appreciated to no end ( in fact, Shaun spends 80+ days out of the year traveling for his job at Stasis, so this just added even more :D and Adwin had his family visiting his wife and him all the way from Holland! Yet they took the time to be there for us for Saturday! Amazing!). Thank you.:bow: :cheers:
It was hard for me to get used to the idea of people who I had met for the very first time, tell me to drive a car harder that I had never driven before on a track I had never raced before! Seems, I was “grandma’ing” the thing way too much and therefore was not getting near enough heat in the tires for the car to handle worth a darn (this is a racecar after all :D). First session Saturday, I looped it. Embarrassing, but no harm, no foul. Second session, hit a patch of water and before you could say “Mother may I…” looped it again. Thought these things had Quattro? :D Cold race tires + water patch= bad. My times were horrible but it wasn’t the car, I just needed to grow a set and start driving like a real man instead of some sissy boy. Adwing and Shaun (not to mention Brain) were very patient and just kept encouraging me to have more “trust” in the car (keep in mind going from a front wheel drive 170hp Prelude “racecar” to something that weighs the same yet has double the power and much more rear bias [20%front/80%rear power distribution] took some getting used to :D). Now, you would think that owning (and tracking) a modded S4 (which I’ll now not be needing anymore:D) and an RS6 would prepare me for this car. No such luck. Those cars are like Geo Metros compared to this Beast! Seriously, that is not an exaggeration. This car is amazing. The steering, the handling (closer to 55/45 ft/rr weight distribution!), how responsive, that engine, the noise, this car was like no Audi I’ve ever driven. It is no Audi at all! It’s the real deal racecar! What did Nordschliefe call them, “silhouette” cars. Yep, kinda sums it up. Looks like a S4 with a RS 4 converion (did I mention how good that looks? :D), but it ain’t and you simply can not compare street cars to a real racer (upcoming R8 included).:bow:
Last session on Saturday, the qualifying race, went much better with me shaving nearly ten seconds of my sucky last session times. I was starting to actually DRIVE the car, although I did, and still do, have a long way to go with this car. After the race, got some more useful feedback from Shaun and Adwin before they had to go and packed up.
Sunday, I calmed down a bit (but was still pumped with excitement of course) and drove clean, without incident throughout the day. As for Sunday’s main event race, easy class win (well, almost. Two laps to go, could not get third gear to save my life. One of the things Shaun said they simply didn’t have time to fix as he did not realize the tranny was going till Friday’s dyno testing. So the last two laps, I had to fend of an old GTI (seen in pic below) that I had previously smoked, since going from 2nd to 4th was not exactly ideal circumstansces). Again, not me, it’s the car. It is so wretchedly excessive, so outrageously overkill… I LOVE IT! :hihi: Even though the field consisted of 43 cars comprising 5 different classes (think wannabe Le Mans race for speed differences between the cars) I finished in the top ten overall and took my class win. Only placed 2nd in the Prelude (and a 3rd), so taking my first win in the Audi was a nice touch (who cares if the car was too fast for the competition, still won! :D). To be honest, this car was the fastest car out of the entire field! I simply lacked the balls to drive it as such. A better driver/racer would have taken the overall vistory. Ah well… better safe than sorry. Main thing is I’m in one piece, cars in one piece and it’s ready for Brian’s USTCC race at Infieon Raceway in October (well, short of new tranny) and I come away knowing much more about the car than I did Saturday morning. :thumb: :D
Thanks to all my family and friends that came to see the “debut” and many thanks to Paul who made things right, Adwin and Shaun who took time to come help a wannabe, and Brian for the encouragement, very much appreciated. Most importantly, thanks to my wife who puts up with all my crap (even as I type all this jibberish, she lies in bed waiting for me to finish on the computer :D).
Wow, what an engine, what a chassis, what brakes, what a car! IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!
Pics to follow
Ben:addict:
As some of you know, my uncle Brian and I decided to purchase a bona-fide racecar. Going halves made sense in a lot of ways as the car would only see the track and therefore not get quite enough use to justify one person usage and ownership. We both have busy schedules and can only make a few track events/races each year and the most obvious reason would be to split the cost of the car :D . In the past, I’ve done numerous track events but never ventured into actual racing despite my father co-owning a team in NASCAR WEST and my uncle winning many circle and road course races over the last several years. With encouragement from Brian, I recently completed my very first race not too long ago in our shop’s 92 Prelude (a great learner car as I would have nowhere been near ready for the car we were about to get). After a total of three races in the Prelude I was signed of for my TCRA Race License (the local race group I run with).
So it came about that Stasis had a couple of B5 cars for sale. But these were no ordinary B5s. These were originally the B5s sold to Champion Racing for their World Speed Challenge GT program. They were purpose built, body on white racecars. They never had a street VIN assigned to them and actually have a Audi Sport UK VIN chassis stamp! When Galati raced the B5 S4s they were converted (by Audi Sport UK) to RS 4 spec with fenders and upgraded motors. They also wore serious 275/35/18 rubber with bespoke magnesium rims custom made to order by BBS. We contacted Paul Lambert back in May with interest in picking up one of these cars that they were now currently running in the World Speed Challenge with smaller rubber (235/17) and 1.8T motors. Originally, I would have liked to reunite the car with it’s 2.7T motor, but besides the cost factor, Paul convinced me it would be wise for us to sample the car with the 1.8T motor first, since the advantages of the heavier V6TT over the lighter 1.8T are not as much as one would think. That decision proved to be very wise as the 1.8T in this thing is far more than just adequate…
Some of things we had Stasis do to the car was to reunite it with its oh so sexy front flared fender sheet metal (as the quarters were already done) and to perform a two seater conversion (to take the wifes around during lunch breaks of course :D) as opposed to the single seater the car had always been (this ended up improving the looks as well IMHO). Also, of course in the World Speed Challenge, Paul and his team are greatly limited as to the amount of boost and HP they can use. Even with @ 280-295HP, his cars weighing in @ 2500lbs are extremely competitive so upping the horsepower is a big no-no for him. This however is not a factor for us :D. No such strict rules. For me, the TCRA guys are an excellent bunch and rules (with the exception of safety) are very lenient when it comes to power (just move up a class :D). Brian will be running mostly NASA events and occasional USTCC races where a little restriction will come into order. Paul and Stasis’s solution to this was a different ECU program for both myself and Brian. When Brian runs, he will run a lower boost and smaller World Challenge shoes (235/17s). Me, I get to run the big 275/18s and more HP (again, TCRA, less politics, more fun). And those 275 tires lead me to perhaps my favorite part of the car. Those wheels. Through much effort, Paul was able to track down the original, authentic Champion Audi BBS forge magnesium wheels. It wasn’t easy or fast for him to find these but he did. There are very few of these left and for him to snag these for me for a very reasonable cost, my hats off to him. Originally, all this was envisioned to take a set time frame. Things didn’t quite turn out that way.
After several delays and some frustration, we took delivery one week ago from this past weekend. I have to say, that despite our disappointment in the delayed delivery, Paul and Stasis were class A through the whole deal and went out of his/their way to try and make us happy as a way to make up for the delays and our missed races we had planned with the car. It again came right down to the wire as the car had not even seen a dyno until the Friday right before my Saturday race! At this point, Paul actually (at his cost I might add) had his engineer Shaun Gilliland (coincidentally, no relation to our NASCAR WEST Rookie of the Year Driver David Gilliland who's now in NEXTEL CUP) fly down to So Cal to complete the engine work at GIAC’s place (who Garret was kind enough to let them use). Shaun picked the car up from us (we took physical delivery just three days prior) and went to work. Also, something I was most certainly not expecting from Paul or Stasis, he had both Shaun AND Adwin Timmermans (crew chief for Chip Herr) come to my first race to coach me with our new car. Their info proved to be invaluable and their time away from more important matters was greatly appreciated to no end ( in fact, Shaun spends 80+ days out of the year traveling for his job at Stasis, so this just added even more :D and Adwin had his family visiting his wife and him all the way from Holland! Yet they took the time to be there for us for Saturday! Amazing!). Thank you.:bow: :cheers:
It was hard for me to get used to the idea of people who I had met for the very first time, tell me to drive a car harder that I had never driven before on a track I had never raced before! Seems, I was “grandma’ing” the thing way too much and therefore was not getting near enough heat in the tires for the car to handle worth a darn (this is a racecar after all :D). First session Saturday, I looped it. Embarrassing, but no harm, no foul. Second session, hit a patch of water and before you could say “Mother may I…” looped it again. Thought these things had Quattro? :D Cold race tires + water patch= bad. My times were horrible but it wasn’t the car, I just needed to grow a set and start driving like a real man instead of some sissy boy. Adwing and Shaun (not to mention Brain) were very patient and just kept encouraging me to have more “trust” in the car (keep in mind going from a front wheel drive 170hp Prelude “racecar” to something that weighs the same yet has double the power and much more rear bias [20%front/80%rear power distribution] took some getting used to :D). Now, you would think that owning (and tracking) a modded S4 (which I’ll now not be needing anymore:D) and an RS6 would prepare me for this car. No such luck. Those cars are like Geo Metros compared to this Beast! Seriously, that is not an exaggeration. This car is amazing. The steering, the handling (closer to 55/45 ft/rr weight distribution!), how responsive, that engine, the noise, this car was like no Audi I’ve ever driven. It is no Audi at all! It’s the real deal racecar! What did Nordschliefe call them, “silhouette” cars. Yep, kinda sums it up. Looks like a S4 with a RS 4 converion (did I mention how good that looks? :D), but it ain’t and you simply can not compare street cars to a real racer (upcoming R8 included).:bow:
Last session on Saturday, the qualifying race, went much better with me shaving nearly ten seconds of my sucky last session times. I was starting to actually DRIVE the car, although I did, and still do, have a long way to go with this car. After the race, got some more useful feedback from Shaun and Adwin before they had to go and packed up.
Sunday, I calmed down a bit (but was still pumped with excitement of course) and drove clean, without incident throughout the day. As for Sunday’s main event race, easy class win (well, almost. Two laps to go, could not get third gear to save my life. One of the things Shaun said they simply didn’t have time to fix as he did not realize the tranny was going till Friday’s dyno testing. So the last two laps, I had to fend of an old GTI (seen in pic below) that I had previously smoked, since going from 2nd to 4th was not exactly ideal circumstansces). Again, not me, it’s the car. It is so wretchedly excessive, so outrageously overkill… I LOVE IT! :hihi: Even though the field consisted of 43 cars comprising 5 different classes (think wannabe Le Mans race for speed differences between the cars) I finished in the top ten overall and took my class win. Only placed 2nd in the Prelude (and a 3rd), so taking my first win in the Audi was a nice touch (who cares if the car was too fast for the competition, still won! :D). To be honest, this car was the fastest car out of the entire field! I simply lacked the balls to drive it as such. A better driver/racer would have taken the overall vistory. Ah well… better safe than sorry. Main thing is I’m in one piece, cars in one piece and it’s ready for Brian’s USTCC race at Infieon Raceway in October (well, short of new tranny) and I come away knowing much more about the car than I did Saturday morning. :thumb: :D
Thanks to all my family and friends that came to see the “debut” and many thanks to Paul who made things right, Adwin and Shaun who took time to come help a wannabe, and Brian for the encouragement, very much appreciated. Most importantly, thanks to my wife who puts up with all my crap (even as I type all this jibberish, she lies in bed waiting for me to finish on the computer :D).
Wow, what an engine, what a chassis, what brakes, what a car! IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!
Pics to follow
Ben:addict: