About 2 months ago (I haven't had time to write about it before) I had a chance to drive an Audi R8 at the Audi Event organized by Audi in a few European capitals (Warsaw was on the list). I must say I had luck because it wasn't me who was invited there but my father. Fortunately it appeared he had a serious hang-over after partying the previous night so thanks to the fact our good friend is an influential Audi/VW dealer in Warsaw, I had a chance to go there. Despite the fact I love sports cars as everyone here I guess, I must admit I was a bit nervous. Simply because I realized I had never driven a 400 Hp car before! The most powerful car I had ever driven was a Mercedes SL. Many strange things came to my mind, I recalled for example images of crashed Vipers, Ferraris and a clip on YouTube showing someone running into group of people in a Corvette
I finally calmed down and decided to go. One R8 was exhibited on the one of the main shopping streets in Warsaw. The rest 7 cars were being taken for a one hour trip around town and to a track located at the local airport. Audi prepared a Cafeteria only for guests and provided drinks and food. We were told to sit and have a tutorial about the car. It was quite boring because I had read about R8 in many magazines before. What was interesting, were the guests. I realized I was the youngest person there. I sat among people I knew mostly from TV, who own 911 Porsches and other posh cars. After the tutorial the cars came and I was asked to choose a car for myself. I said I wanted one with manual transmission of course
, so I got a graphite R8. I was told it was the only one with the 'special' suspension produced by Delonghi company. What's more interesting the Audi host I drove the car with, told me that Delonghi was a...Polish company. It's Italian, but that guy probably wanted to tell me the suspension was produced in Poland. I must say still don't have clue if they have a factory here, I will have to check it. Coming back to the car, I was very impressed. The interior is lovely designed unlike many of today's BMW, Mercedes interiors. Audi R8 beats them hands down in every territory. The only thing I could complain about the interior was the aluminum gear-shifter, it is almost impossible to change gears in a comfortable way without wearing gloves.
However, I am still not sure about the exterior because of the side profile of the car which always looked awkward to me. The rest is OK, especially the brutal rear end with the V-8 engine under the glass.
A pace car lead the group of R8s. It was a silver S6, the last car was a white S3. My R8 was the second R8.
It took me a long time to find a proper position behind the wheel because I am a tall guy. Finally the steering wheel felt to be a bit to low, almost touching my legs, but I got used to it. The view from inside of the car was very good though.
We started, everybody began to roar their engines so did I. For a moment I felt like a star. People were pointing fingers at my car and taking pictures of me inside the car
. Honestly I was sure that we were not going to speed in a city traffic, I was wrong. The S6 guy was speeding like we were on a track. The problem was, we weren't there yet. I didn't look at the speedo for a longer time because I was concentrated on the road but we probably were doing at least 80-100 Mph overtaking typical sunday European Skoda, Toyleta drivers who seemed to be shocked. Yes, it was fun but It could have been too dangerous in my opinion. Finally we reached the track. It was quite big and we had an opportunity to make three laps around it. My first lap was embarrassing. The cars like that are so low to the ground that I didn't see the posts and missed some of them. I was too fast and stomped on brakes panically, I thought I had lost control of the car and I would hit a nearby standing car. But the fabulous AWD system gained the control of the car! I had two laps left and didn't want them to be as embarrassing as the first one. I was fully concentrated and told the Audi worker to give me more tips during the lap. It helped very much. During the last lap he didn't say a word and after that he told me I was very talented driver and I used the car pedals in a very wise way (he said I used the brakes only when there was a must to use them)
. One more funny thing, when we were in the city traffic the Audi guy asked me a question 'What car do You drive sir? Porsche, Ferrari or Corvette?'
. I told him the truth of course, but I almost told him I have a brand new Z06 in my garage, the problem is people my age don't own such cars here and most of all I don't like to lie
Conclusion
It was one of the best automotive sundays of my life. The car is a gorgeous handling machine. The rest is just a matter of taste. To me Corvette is still number one in terms of looks in the 'affordable exotics' category. The most surprising was to me that R8 didn't feel fast on the straights (I didn't experience neck muscles pain unfortunately
), I supposse a Corvette would be faster on straight lines. But I don't think many cars would beat R8 in twisties. As I said Corvette Z06 keeps the 1st place in my dreams, but thanks to the experience with Audi I can easily say that I would take the R8 over 911 or BMW M6 without a doubt.
Coming back to Corvette, nobody should be surprised that still many rich customers don't even know that Cadillac&Corvette dealerships exist. The main problem is the lack of events like the Audi R8 show and lack of sponsorship. Mercedes for example supports almost all tennis tournaments in Poland including amateur VIP tournaments, no wonder it has a solid reputation among rich customers.
Here are 2 pictures I took with my mobile phone. There are also Youtube videos of that event. Unfortunately I don't see myself there
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWqZrHg-3nY
track:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peAtX...elated&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yloAD...elated&search=