Joey's Totally Predictable DD V2.0

[SlimKlim]

In Which Joey Tracks the New Commuter Car He Swore He Wasn't Going to Track

Shortly after purchasing my first new car ever, and opting to skip the "performance package" and summer tire options because it's "just a commuter" and would "never see any track time, except maybe an autocross here or there", I signed up for Dub Deliverance #5, which is an annual event put on by Trackdaze and subsidized by VW North America. $90 for 4 25-minute sessions on the Shenandoah course at Summit, plus access to the skidpad.

Overall impressions: 1.) Shenandoah is the most fun course I've ever driven. I've been out on VIR Main, the Patriot course, Jefferson and Summit main and Shenandoah is by far the most satisfying with "pistol grip" long left into a downhill right, and the uphill dash into the carousel. 2.) For something that is very much not a turn-key race car, the car did a surprisingly good job of pretending to be one.

Alright, so my day started at 5:30 AM, which sucked, but I was rewarded with a gorgeous sunrise out on Rt. 9.



I got down there around 7:15, unpacked, went through tech & registration and wandered around for a few minutes when a wild Jake Thiewes in a coked out 90s convertible showed up. The first session was supposed to be a lead-follow deal, where an instructor would lead 3 student cars at a reduced pace so we could get to know the line and practice safe passing, Jake being Jake, he arranged permission to ride with me for the first session and help me learn the course. When the second session came around, it turned out they were a smidge short on instructors, so Jake became my personal Trackdaze instructor for the day.

I think I made a lot of improvement through out the day on the line for each of the corners, and did a pretty decent job of keeping my eyes up and not just following the car in front of me. I picked up a lot of confidence about the braking zones, although I'm still way too soft and too early. The biggest challenge for me, at least on Shenandoah, is remembering the goddamn course. There are so many blind entries and elevation changes that without Jake I would've gotten lost like James May.

The car felt & performed much better than I expected. It's still a FWD hatch with a tendency to understeer, but not nearly as bad as you would expect, it's lightyears ahead of the MKV/MKVI cars. You can feel the chassis has a willingness to dosome lift-off oversteer but the ESC will only let you get so naughty before it cuts in. The lack of a limited slip was most apparent when you came out of the apex into the uphill straight towards the carousel and burned all your power off on the inside wheel, I'd love to see what a performance package car on summer tires would've done.

Between my 2 sessions and Jake laying down a hot half-session in the afternoon, we absolutely caned the shit out of the car. The oil temps spent a decent amount of time hovering around 260*, and we didn't really get significant brake fade and/or tire gooey-ness until about 15 minutes into a session. Really not that bad for a not-a-racecar right off the showroom floor.

[youtube]vd_qLKMMCgk[/youtube]

Matthew came down to hang out and grabbed a shot of us going under the bridge.



We also went and dicked around on the skidpad for a few minutes. The "ESC" can only be reduced to a "Sport" mode and not fully deactivated. This became a problem when trying to get the car to hold an angle. I could introduce a tiny bit of oversteer just by lifting off the throttle and cutting the wheel but as soon as I opened it to try and counter steer the ESC grabbed the brakes and straightened us back out. I ended up standing on the throttle, letting the front wash out, then jabbing the brakes and cutting the wheel hard to get the rear to come around far enough where the ESC couldn't fix it.

I think I may have accidentally cut the best footage out of the youtube clip, a few seconds before I started this clip we got a less dramatic angle but held it for a lot longer, maybe 1/3-1/2 a rotation of the pad. The ones in the video I could get it to turn in but couldn't keep it there.

[youtube]Y0l3_zPDA80[/youtube]

Off the track, the event was a total kick-ass nerd fest for hopeless VAG lovers like myself. NGP and APR had tents set up and were doing brake pad/fluid jobs and tunes for people.



I got to talk to the APR engineers that do the actual product R&D, and sit in and start their current testbed car, a white 4-door MK7 like mine with a Golf R turbo swap, most of the common parts out of their catalog and a few prototypes.

This car to be specific:



I also got to talk to one of the REVO engineers, check out their test bed car and the CAI prototype he's been working on lately. Virtually every cool VAG was in attendance. I parked next to a guy that had an STI swapped VW Type II Notchback, who disappeared over lunch and came back in his completely custom '73 911 with a 3.5 stroker motor in it. There were a ton of dedicated track cars, lots of fast Audis and VW R street cars, and some super weird stuff like what appeared to be an off-road prepped MKIII Golf.



I also caved and bought myself a boost gauge from NGP, I've been eyeballing it for a while and figured it was only a matter of time, so I might as well get the event day sale pricing.



I installed it yesterday morning, and it was way more of a pain in the ass than it should've been. The instructions that came with it really were not comprehensive and I was left to figure a lot of stuff out on my own. Such as how to run the boost line through the dash, or having to guess at which wires to tap for the illumination. The gauge makes a whistling/buzzing noise and flickers when it's under boost, after doing some googling it sounds like the knuckleheads forgot to give me a t-fitting which supposedly fixes that. I'm gonna give them a call and ask them to drop one in an envelope for me. Totally and utterly useless mod, especially since it doesn't even read vacuum, but it makes me happy when you stand on it and the gauge starts jumping around like crazy. Apparently a stock MK7 will peak at a smidge over 20psi and maintain 17-18psi in the higher gears.

Overall I'd give the experience a 10/10. Awesome track, great low-key event, awesome cars, cool people. Will probably do it again next year.

EDIT: I doublechecked the NGP site and the goobs gave me the "TDI" gauge which doesn't show vacuum for some reason. I called them and they set aside the correct one for me, but I gotta go pick it up in Lorton.