Lime Rock Park, 20 August 99 -- Greg Amy

1991 200q 20v
H&R Springs, Bilstein Sport shocks
17x8.5 Borbet wheels, 3/4 tread Dunlop SP8000 tires, 245/40-17

Test Conditions:

Mid-80's most of the day, light breeze, mostly cloudy.
Stock A8 rotors, with CarboTech Engineering Street-F compound pads

Comments:

I had a FREAKIN BLAST at Lime Rock Park this weekend. What a hoot that car is! I tell you, I never thought a 3800 pound car could handle so well.

Saturday was dry as a bone, cool with a light breeze. I quickly got back in the swing of things, feeling comfortable on the track after such a long hiatus. I guess it's like riding a bicycle.

Once I felt more comfortable I started pushing it, and that car's limit is clearly defined. If you push that big car too hard, it understeers. It really rewards smoothness and consistency.

Of course, I beat the HECK out of the brakes. Lime Rock is not a hard track on brakes, there's only one good hard braking area: Turn One. I was slowing down the barge to about 50mph from 115mph. I was using CarboTech Street-F compound pads with the stock A8 rotors, and I never felt even a twinge of brake fade, not a hint of brake boiling, and they were completely predictable and consistent with a very good brake pedal feel. I could go into Turn One with ANYONE, even the small light cars, and even the bigger cars with "Big Reds". The BIRA brakes were trouble-free the whole weekend, and I REALLY tried to hurt them. I kept a vigilant visual inspection on them, and I was never disappointed.

It's funny when you get together with a group of Audi quattro owners: everyone starts bragging about how cool it would be if it rained. You know the old saying: be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Today (Saturday) it rained all day. The track was wet with standing water all over the track. Everyone appeared to driving conservatively (I heard a lot of complaints about the rain) and it appeared that BIRA was one of the few that were really pushing it.

Not only did I get a real hoot with driving this barge in the rain (even more impressed with the handling in the rain), but I used it as a test bed for the brakes. I STILL had no fade problems in the rain, no water-induced light pedal, and excellent bite. I could outbrake anyone going into Turn One, and I trusted it enough to really brake late (however, I do want to shake the hand of the folks that invented ABS -- I certainly wasn't too proud to use it).

After the event was done (and the rain let up shortly thereafter -- go figure) I pulled the brakes and looked the system over. No problems. The CarboTech pads were in great shape, except for being about 1/3 used after about 2-1/2 hours track time.  The rotors are in virtually new shape with no wear grooves and no significant wear off-pad. I dropped in a set of Porterfield R4S pads for street evaluation, and drove it home.

I'm very impressed. Frankly, I see no need for more brakes than this, unless someone wants to build a real race car (and you're not going to do it with an S6). There's more brake on this car than I have the balls to use.