928 S4 at Texas World Speedway

This is just a quickie web page for photos of my trip to Texas World Speedway. I went with members of the Austin Audi Club to the 21-22 April 2001 The Driver's Edge event. We drove the 2.9 mile road course.

This is a driver's education (D.E.) event. It is not a race nor is it timed. It is practical driver training with an experienced instructor. This was my first experience at a D.E. and I spent the time concentrating on learning smoothness and precision. I'll let the speed come up on its own and slowly it did. The first day I spent adding rubber to my tires cast off from faster cars running racing rubber. The second day I melted rubber off my tires. I had a great time learning the line, when and how to turn in, apex and track out. Anyone who says roller coasters are the ultimate thrill ride hasn't driven a 90° right-hander at 80 mph in a controlled four wheel drift. If you haven't done this yourself I highly recommend it.

The participants are split into different run groups in decreasing order of speed and experience: white, red, yellow, blue and green. Unsurprisingly I was in the green run group. The goal is to minimize passing since that is when cars are closest together and the potential for trouble the highest. Passing may only be done in designated passing zones on the straightaways and only if one is given a passing signal from the car ahead. Safety is the foremost concern. More experienced run groups have more passing zones.

These photos were taken during the third session on Sunday. They are mostly in chronological order except that I grouped all my photos and those of my friend Hugh's Audi S4 rather than leave them interleaved as we both rounded the track. A big thanks to Scott Shine for snapping the green run group on-track frames.