Today I took the RS6 (2009 V10) to Keevil Airfield for an organised track day. It was my first time in my own car and only my second time ever on a track so I was fairly nervous. It's an expensive car and obviously my insurance would be totally void in the event of an accident.
I've had the car for a while now and I wanted to see what it could really do since you can't really exploit the cornering abilities on the public road. It's a 2 ton car so I wasn't expecting miracles.
The weight became apparent after the first session (4 laps) when I pulled into the pits
I had basically gone into this with the mindset that I needed to wrestle the car around to get any kind of pace. As such I was braking as late as I possibly could and totally cooked the brakes and boiled the brake fluid to the extent that I had to top it up. To be fair, I was very quick and went around pretty much everything out there but it clearly wasn't good for the car.
I calmed it down after that and managed 25 fast laps, getting smoother and faster every time and trying to preserve what was left of the brakes. It was absolutely excellent fun, especially with the traction control in 'sport' mode which allows for some controlled tail end action. Power out of the corners was just biblical.
I was overtaking all manner of 2 seaters (Elises, MX5s, Caterfield type stuff), various modified Japanese cars and even a Ferrari 360 was reeled in with relative ease. I was quite pleased considering it's my first go although it was probably 99% down to the car. In the bends I would say it was on par with the Lotuses but out of the corners and on the straights it just blew everything away.
The surprise of the day was how awesome everyone was. The organisers, the marshals and especially the other car owners who were more than happy to take strangers out for passenger rides and chat about cars between track outings. Track etiquette was spot on and the mix of abilities was quite refreshing - plenty of veterans as well as complete novices like me.
This is definitely something I'll be doing again, although probably not in the RS. Can anyone recommend another good novice day with plenty of run off area?
I've had the car for a while now and I wanted to see what it could really do since you can't really exploit the cornering abilities on the public road. It's a 2 ton car so I wasn't expecting miracles.
The weight became apparent after the first session (4 laps) when I pulled into the pits
I had basically gone into this with the mindset that I needed to wrestle the car around to get any kind of pace. As such I was braking as late as I possibly could and totally cooked the brakes and boiled the brake fluid to the extent that I had to top it up. To be fair, I was very quick and went around pretty much everything out there but it clearly wasn't good for the car.
I calmed it down after that and managed 25 fast laps, getting smoother and faster every time and trying to preserve what was left of the brakes. It was absolutely excellent fun, especially with the traction control in 'sport' mode which allows for some controlled tail end action. Power out of the corners was just biblical.
I was overtaking all manner of 2 seaters (Elises, MX5s, Caterfield type stuff), various modified Japanese cars and even a Ferrari 360 was reeled in with relative ease. I was quite pleased considering it's my first go although it was probably 99% down to the car. In the bends I would say it was on par with the Lotuses but out of the corners and on the straights it just blew everything away.
The surprise of the day was how awesome everyone was. The organisers, the marshals and especially the other car owners who were more than happy to take strangers out for passenger rides and chat about cars between track outings. Track etiquette was spot on and the mix of abilities was quite refreshing - plenty of veterans as well as complete novices like me.
This is definitely something I'll be doing again, although probably not in the RS. Can anyone recommend another good novice day with plenty of run off area?
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