2013 AudiTron HPDE

What is an HPDE like at Thunderhill Raceway?

 

Joins us at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA for a fun weekend of high performance driving. It is an opportunity to drive your car in a fun, safe, learning environment, on one of the best tracks in Northern California. Over the weekend you will learn to increase your driving skill, learn more about your car, and socialize with a diverse group of people who love their Audi’s. The event is open to other marques as long as the drivers are Audi Club members.  In addition to two full days of driving, you will be treated to high quality food at lunch and our famous Saturday night banquet and auction where participants dine rather than just eat.  If it is your first or your tenth time attending an Audi driving event we're confident that you'll have a great time.

Novice drivers will spend a few hours on the morning of the first day in a classroom session, followed by an hour of exercises in a parking lot where they will develop skills and learn the practical side of vehicle dynamics. The class and exercises are designed to enhance your car control skills by applying them to your car, in a controlled and safe environment.  During the exercise session, students drive their own cars, and are coached by instructors that are observing their progress from outside the car as they progress through the exercise. This process provides each student with the foundational knowledge that they will need in order to get the most out of the event.

After the car control sessions, the balance of the learning is on the track. During all on-track driving activities students drive their own cars, and are accompanied by Audi Club instructors who sit in the passenger seat and assist the driver as they improve their driving skills. Students are aggregated into Run Groups which are established to allow students to be on track with other drivers of similar experience. Novice students always have an instructor in the car during on track sessions. To ensure that the club provides each student with a safe and secure environment, passing is allowed only on designated sections of the course, and under controlled circumstances. The race track does not have side streets, stop lights, pedestrians, or any of the other distractions that we must address while driving on public streets. Because of this, the time you spend on the track provides a great opportunity to safely learn advanced driving techniques, and explore the capabilities of both car and driver.

Thunderhill is a 3.0 mile SCCA track that contains all types of corners that you are likely to experience in your day-to-day driving. This track includes several elevation changes, short & long straightaways, and a number of technical turns, yet it is considered to be one of the safest and best tracks in America for drivers to improve their driving skills. This unique combination of safety and complexity create the recipe for a great driving experience. Thunderhill is a “first class” facility with a comfortable clubhouse, and a large covered area in the paddock. This Audi Club event will give you an opportunity to improve your driving skills and learn more about your cars capabilities in a safe and controlled environment. The skills you learn at this event will significantly enhance and improve your daily driving experience.

Event Details

The event will take place beginning in the afternoon of Friday, May 10th, 2013. Check-in and technical inspection will take place on that Friday afternoon at the track, with registration continuing until 7PM, and technical inspection ends at 7PM. During the check-in process, a light meal will be served. Friday evening will also include a meeting for all 1st timers, as well as a mandatory meeting for all instructors, and a mandatory meeting for all registrants. Details about the times of these meetings will come in your welcome packet, but you should assume that the meetings will take place from approximately 7PM - 9PM.

The track will open early on Saturday morning and Sunday morning, at approximately 6:30. Lunch will be served at the track, and is included in the registration price. The track will close at approximately 5PM each day, and we will have a banquet and raffle on Saturday evening. The banquet will take place at the track, within the main meeting center. Exact timing and details will be sent to you as part of the welcome packet, which will arrive by email, approximately 1 week prior to the event.

Special Celebrity driver appearance

We're very pleased to announce that Dion von Moltke will join us for AudiTron 2013.  For those of you that are race fans, you know that Dion is one of Audi’s top R-8 drivers, and he and his team members won the GT class in the 2013 Grand-AM Rolex race at Daytona just a few weeks ago, making him the winner of 2 of America's 3 endurance races in a 12 month period.  Dion also won his class in a Porsche GT3 at the Sebring 12 hours ALMS race in 2012.  Dion has a number of other racing accomplishments, and you can read more about his racing experience at his website. We've got a lot different activities planned for Dion while he's at the track with us, so read carefully, and act quickly.

Special Events

During the Saturday banquet, Dion be offering us a captivating dinner talk, and over the course of the weekend he'll be glad to talk to you one-on-one or sign autographs, and give out fan cards.  Dion has raced for several different teams, so he can share stores about driving for Alex Job Racing, APR Motorsports, and Audi Sport, to name a few.  He's also got numerous other anecdotes about the life of a driver and if we get him in the right mood, he might even share his thoughts about  Wolfgang Ulrich, the head of Audi Sport Racing Program worldwide.  In addition to the talk, we'll be sure to allow for Q&A time at the end of the discussion.

Special Auction

Dion has also offered to let us auction some of his racing memorabilia, which you can bid on during the night's auction.   We might even be able to raffle away some other collectables, but we'll provide you with more information in subsequent emails, and

Celebrity ride-alongs

Have you ever wanted a professional race driver to ride along with you while you make a few laps on the track?  Well, here's your chance to enjoy having a pro in the car with you, as you enjoy one of your track sessions over the course of the weekend.  Take advantage of one of the 10 available slots, and Dion will meet you at the grid, ride with you during the session, and spend some time debriefing afterwards.  While on the grid, you and Dion set an outline of what you want to discuss, and how you want to use your time, but with his ability to learn tracks quickly, and to cut fast laps, it seems natural what the two of you might want to talk about.  There will only be 10 sessions available to participants and we expect them to get reserved rather quickly.  The cost for a ride-along is only $50 for each session.  If you're interested, please select the "Celebrity ride-along" option during registration, and we'll get you scheduled for an available slot.  This offer is only available to drivers that are at Level C or D, or are instructors.  Once you register, send an email to cliff@audiclubgoldengate.org  and he'll get you scheduled for your session.  Sessions will be assigned based on a first come, first served basis, and all sessions will be reserved in advance.

Dinner Costs

For those of you that have already registered for the event, there are no extra costs.  In fact, you can continue to invite as many family members to dinner as you like, and the cost for any or all of them will continue to be $35.  We will however be opening this dinner up to others who have not registered for the event, but are interested in attending.  The cost to them will be $70/each.

Dinner Menu

For This year's Auditron, we're following the theme of Wild American BBQ.  So, we've arranged to have wild boar, and pulled pork to headline the evening's menu, along with all of the usual fixens.  For those that cannot eat or prefer not to eat pork, we'll be offering a number of other options, but we're arranging for the boar to be local, and very fresh.  Jim Thompson, the chef at Thunderhill tells me that it's pretty likely that we'll be smelling the Boar and Pork all day long, as he smokes it for about 14 hours or so.

Other Questions

This portion of the program is only now coming together, so if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Pat O'Neal (pat@audiclubgoldengate.org ) the event master, or Cliff Musante (cliff@audiclubgoldengate.org ), who is arranging for Dion to join us. 

 

Who are we?

 

The Audi Club Golden Gate is a chapter of the Audi Club of North America (ACNA), which is a 501c (3) non-profit organization with the purpose of educating its members in driver education, driver safety training, and education about the Audi brand. The Audi Club Golden Gate serves the members in Northern California, and Northern Nevada areas, but our events are open to anyone. To support the educational experience, Audi Club Golden Gate offers a variety of different types of events for our members.  In addition to HPDEs, we also offer our members access to new product launchs at local dealerships, technical seminars, fun drives, social events, tours, etc.  Audi Club Golden Gate enjoys an excellent level of support and participation in our events from our sponsors.  We often offer special arrangements with these Audi dealerships, and well recognized private service centers around the geographic proximity to Northern California. Many of our sponsors offer discounts to club members.

 

As a member of ACNA, you automatically become a member of the Audi Club Golden Gate if you live in the two states listed above. You will receive a quarterly magazine from ACNA, as well as periodic emails from us to keep you up to date on all the scheduled events happening throughout the year. 

 

This HPDE at Thunderhill will be an exciting, fun, and educational two days of learning on a terrific race track. Learn your car and how to use the advanced capabilities of your car, in a controlled environment. Leave the event with new driving skills that will enhance your daily driving experience. Mingle with other Audi owners and club members for new friendships and lasting memories.

 

Go to www.audiclubgoldengate.org for information about the club.

 

The headquarters hotel for the event is the Holiday Inn Express in Willows, CA.  Be sure to mention you re with the Audi Club to receive a room rate of $109/Night.  To obtain this rate, you must call the hotel directly during business hours, and book through the front desk.  You can reach the hotel at 530-934-8900.  If you call early in the AM, the front desk agent might transfer you to the 800 number, and the 800 number will not know anything about the discounted rate, so if that happens, hang up, and call back later.  There are only 35 rooms guaranteed at this rate, so act fast.

Our goal for this event is to register more students and instructors than we have ever registered for the May event at Thunderhill, in all of our years of running this event.  So, we've decided to try something a little different with the pricing for this event.  Please take a look at the new price structure, and if you're excited about the price reduction, then please share it with your friends, and bring some new A or B students along with you.  We're confident that with your help, we'll be able to put 120 registrants on the track for this event.  Pricing is as follows...

The cost of this event is $325 for students until and including March 31st, 2013, and $400 for students beginning on April 1st, 2013.
The cost of this event is $200 for instructors until and including March 31st, 2013, and $250 for instructors beginning on April 1st, 2013.

Registration ends on May 3rd, 2013 at 12:00 PM PDT

For this event, only students will receive a shirt.  We've listened to your feedback, and since Instructors already have a great deal of SWAG from previous events, we've decided that for this event, Instructors will not receive any SWAG, but all Instructors will receive an especially nice item when they register for AudiFest 2013.