Driving an Audi R8 in Sonoma
Hello!
A few fun things to talk about this week. The ski season is right ahead of me, which is exciting. I have been spending lots of time in the gym, doing PT and at Athletic Engineering (AE) classes, which Olympic PT offers. I do my usual work outs on the bike and in the gym and then once or twice a week I go and get my butt kicked by Ben at “AE.” We do a lot of circuit training with a lot of core and balance. It is good to mix it up. Feeling good though and ready to go to Colorado for some on-snow training!
I do have to mention that I had a ridiculous opportunity last weekend that Audi offered Ted, Marco and me. I flew down to Sonoma, CA and rallied the new Audi R8 around the Infineon raceway. After some instruction in the class room, we started out with some cone drills, a slalom and some larger radius turns to get a feel for the car off track on this clear flat area. I chose the manual transmission, which took a few starts and shifts to get used to, but it was awesome on the track. I drive a manual at home, so it was just getting used to the power.
Our instructor would lead us around the track so we could follow his line and see where he was breaking and generally learn the track. It turned out to be really nice because we learned the track pretty fast and there were sections that I would have been more cautious in that he would hammer through and there were sections that I would have hammered into that he came in slower to get the line on the exit. We followed him (and each other) the whole time, but he started pushing it a bit more each lap. It was also a bit wet, so he would be pushing it as the track was drying out.
All in all though, it was amazing. Racing around a pretty rare and exotic powerful car, pushing its limits, getting some four-wheel drift and correcting our driving mistakes as we went. The biggest thing was learning how much this car could handle. With good driving and a smart line, the R8 would hold on very strong to the radius. There were some pretty obvious similarities between racing cars and skiing. The apex, line and general strategy is all pretty similar.
I am off to Colorado soon. My next update will be on snow!