I live in NZ, and the nearest track for trackdays is over 320km away.
The place names will be unfamiliar, and I hope none of you end up in the same sort of predicament, but I thought you might like to hear the story. My car is a 1998 A4 B5 TQ with an MTM chip from new; a DSR K04 and Manzo downpipe, It has the 312mm brake upgrade with dimpled rotors as per the Youtube video. Currently that's about it. A clutch upgrade is imminent, just figuring out which way to jump on that.
My son and I took my old Audi A4 Down to Hampton downs twilight trackday session last Wednesday afternoon. The car was driving well and feeling good. Hampton Downs is around an hour South of Auckland, about where the S in Morrinsville is on the map. I live in Kaitaia up in the Far North.
We all got four sessions of about 1/4 of an hour. My son drove his two. and I was set to do our remaining two. I was on about the third lap of my first set when, changing down to second for the S bends I put my foot on the clutch and it went straight to the floor. This was a mechanical failure, not hydraulic, and the clutch was still engaged. I managed to get into second and limp back to the pits.
After a bit of shagging around we realised we had a little bit of use of the clutch , albeit with a dreadful noise and a stink when moving from a standing start.
I was staying in Pt Chev,( An Auckland Suburb) and was able to get on the expressway and stay in gear from H-D to the Pt Chev interchange. We made it to where we were staying.
Next morning we waited until about 10.30 when we figured that rush hour would be over. We got on the motorway and headed North with my son driving and changing gear without using the clutch, which he became quite adept at.
Things went quite well until we got to Wellsford ( about halfway between Auckland and Whangarei) where somebody pulled out and brought the traffic to a halt. Cursing, my son took the car out of gear and stopped. When he put his foot on the clutch again there was nothing there, so we stopped and pushed the car back into a parking space.
After a couple of minutes muttering and swearing under our breath, we decided to see if we could start the car in gear---- it worked!
We were on our way again , and just before coming over the Brynderwyns passed a truck and couldnt believe our luck when the road was clear and we could get through the winding bits without having to change down to second. (That quattro system can sure hang on!)
We knew that Whangarei was coming up.
No bypass around Whangarei was available without going a lot more remote, so we decided to chance it through the five sets lights we would have to face.
I txted my Brother who lives there, to be ready to come and tow us if we got stuck. We had to stop a couple of times and start in gear, and got lucky on a couple where we didnt have to stop. We got through Whangaz and then realised that we would have to stop at Kawakawa for gas to make it home to Kaitaia. After explaining our predicament the nice lady at the gas station let us leave the car at the pump while we grabbed a quick bite at Stumpy's takeaways nextdoor.
On the road again we got up into top gear and cruised on home.
We got to Kaitaia and were busy congratulating ourselves on having made it when we had to stop for kids on a pedestrian crossing. We had a good laugh at the irony of thinking we were home and hosed and being caught out.
One last start in gear and we rolled around the corner into my driveway which had never looked so good!
Auckland to Kaitaia with an inoperative clutch goes down as one of my epic journeys!
I am having a few days without cars before I make a start on stripping things down and sourcing parts.
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