One of my favorite liveries of that era. Also the cars were amazing in WC too.
Photograph by Audi Monterey
Story by Peter Nelson
If you’d told Northern California native-slash-Audi-nut Brandon Maack that he’d campaign an ex-factory Audi S4 Competition at last year’s Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, he’d probably scoff in disbelief. He’s been wrenching on street-going, early 2000s S4s for years, but campaigning a purpose-built piece of historic, ex-pro hardware is a whole ’nother ball game.
But the cool factor doesn’t stop there. Tell him he’d not only work with one of the car’s previous owners, but also get professional race car driver and GRM contributor Randy Pobst behind the wheel–almost exactly 20 years after Pobst himself drove the wheels off of the exact same car at Road Atlanta–and you’d probably get one of the wrinkliest scoffs that the human face has ever expressed in return.
[Randy Pobst: Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities only found at Monterey]
But it did happen. In spite of a few minor mechanical setbacks, the muscular sedan successfully raged through an iconic American circuit once again.
Photography by Audi Monterey
But first, let’s discuss Audi Sport’s–Audi’s factory motorsports division–North American GT racing curriculum vitae in the early 2000s. Fresh off a successful run in the FIA’s Super Touring (also commonly referred to as Class II) category all over the globe with its B5-generation A4, the brand wanted to spice up its North American marketing efforts for the A4’s high-performance sibling, the S4. The method: competing in SCCA Pro Racing’s Speed World Challenge GT Class.
Audi Sport went to work giving a handful of leftover Super Touring chassis a new lease on life. It outfitted them with a mess of S4 components and borrowed some bits from the more powerful B5 RS4, which the North American market sadly never got. Legendary engine builder Cosworth produced the road-going, twin-turbo V6 under the RS4’s hood, so the firm was brought in to massage the 30-valve lump even further for racing duty.
The resulting silver-and-red sedan tipped the scales at around 3000 pounds and put out about 400 horsepower to the wheels–impressive, but to the casual observer, seemingly not a traditional GT racer that could square up with C5 Chevy Corvettes and 996-chassis Porsche 911 Cup cars.
But sure enough, it did so quite well with Champion Racing at the helm. Audi claimed the manufacturer’s title in 2001, was runner-up in 2002, and team driver Michael Galati grabbed the driver’s championship both years.
Photograph by Mikey Noga
Audi/Champion changed things up for the 2003 season. The B5-chassis car was no longer in dealer showrooms, so the team brought in the fresher, turbo-V8-powered, C5-generation Audi RS6 for duty–an even bigger sedan but with bigger power to match. Randy Pobst joined on and claimed two victories at the end of the 2003 season, good enough for the top spot in the driver’s championship and yet another manufacturer’s title for the four-ringed firm.
However, something neat went down later in 2004. “Audi was fighting for the championship, and the S4 got pushed away because they had the RS6s,” longtime motorsports industry professional Fabryce Kutyba shared with us trackside at last year’s Monterey Historics. He partnered with Maack for the weekend, as he owned the exact car many years ago–but more on that in a bit.
The RS6 was still the chassis of choice for the 2004 season, and now with Peter Cunningham in the mix, another top spot in the championship was within reach. To increase the car’s chances of getting there, Audi and Champion kicked it into high gear for Road Atlanta–the second-to-last event of the year–and brought the S4 back. The S4 received some freshening up and tweaking and thus was referred to as the S4 Competition Evolution.
“They gave Peter Cunningham the RS6, and Randy chose the S4–but he actually outqualified the RS6s. Something happened and he started in the back, but he caught up to Galati and Cunningham by the end of the race,” Kutyba regaled with all the enthusiasm. The field was packed, but Pobst still managed to sail up to P13 from P31.
Based on the Evolution’s specs, it’s no mystery why. “Because this car was brought out of retirement for that one race, Audi and Champion rebuilt it,” Maack explained. “It got upgraded turbos from the RS6, upgraded differentials, and they took a lot out of it to get it down to 2900 pounds.” More power, less weight; it’s no surprise that Pobst made quick work of most of the grid.
But Audi wasn’t in the clear just yet. Once the dust settled in Braselton, Cadillac tied them in the points chase. At the season’s final stop in Monterey, Pobst and Cunningham finished fourth and fifth–both in RS6s this time–which was just good enough to secure the title from the German manufacturer once more.
Photograph by Mikey Noga
“It’s kind of serendipitous after all these years to be able to support and race this car,” Kutyba shared. He and Maack partnered in running the Audi at RMMR under the team name of Audi Parts UNLTD LLC, Maack’s Audi parts company, which all started with a simple phone call.
“Brandon reached out to me and was like, ‘Hey, this used to be your car. Do you remember it?’ because nobody had any information on it.”
Kutyba sure did. In fact, he still had all of the documentation on the chassis from both Audi Sport and Champion. In fact, he shared, not only did Pobst grace its cockpit, but motorsports legend Derek Bell drove the car in its original, pre-Evolution form, too. Additionally, Michael Galati drove it as a backup car in 2003, and multi-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen drove it in a practice session at one point.
Reaching out to Kutyba proved to be fruitful in other ways, too, like getting the right driver to send it through Laguna Seca’s illustrious 11-turn circuit.
“We were talking about who to get to drive it, and I said, ‘Why not get Randy?’” Kutyba recalled. “Randy and I always had a good relationship in the paddock. We’d stayed in touch.” So he called up the famed hotshoe, who gleefully signed on.
Besides Kutyba’s stewardship while he was executive vice president of Global Motorsports Group during the era, the car had changed quite a few hands over the years. It would need a bit of work in the garage and trackside before it could show up traditional GT fare on Laguna once more–like it did more than 20 years ago.
Photograph by Mikey Noga
“The shifter’s broken. It broke while going under the checkered,” Pobst reported shortly after rolling into the paddock after Race 1, when we spoke with him and the others about the weekend’s effort.
“You were driving it so hard you snapped the welds!” Maack quipped from nearby, wounded shifter in hand. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry about it.” Besides the lesson in 25-year-old German metallurgy, there were a few cobwebs to dust off during sessions on Thursday and Friday.
They had to adjust brake bias by hand because the adjuster broke, sending too much bias to the rear. This led to some entertaining corner-entry oversteer, which isn’t typically characteristic of an all-wheel-drive car. Luckily, after making adjustments both days, the car felt a lot better, although there were still a few things to iron out.
“They had to raise the driver front to clear the tire–it’s a taller tire than the car normally runs,” Pobst explained. “And the driver-rear wheel was lifting like a front-wheel-drive car.”
Pobst then explained that due to the car’s Quaife gear-type limited-slip differential, if a wheel was in the air, it wouldn’t do its slip-limiting job. Even so, he was still able to put down some respectable times. “I had a 37.0 the last two days and a 36.7 today.”
The development, as usual, had a quick pace. “For the first half a year I had it, I didn’t really do anything with it, it just sat,” Maack admits. He’d bought it from the folks at 2Bennett Audimotive in Davis, California, a specialty Audi shop that he frequently works with, around two years ago.
“But eventually I got around to taking it out on the track, and once Fabryce put this event together with Randy, we figured, ‘Let’s redo the whole car.’”
He pulled the engine and transmission, changed the clutch, gave it fresh paint, zinced the bolts–the works. This was the first time it’d received a thorough going-over in a long while.
Photography by Audi Monterey
“I’ll be honest with you: I’m completely new to this whole racing scene,” Maack explained about the weekend’s effort. “I literally rebuilt this car in a garage in Roseville [California], and we really didn’t know how to set it up in terms of brake bias, alignment and such. It was lifting the inner-driver rear wheel, and the sway bar was off, but we figured out a way to correct all that. We’re learning.”
He was glad to have Pobst there to help get the car zeroed in. “It’s great that Randy is driving it because he’s giving me all the input I need.”
Maack had driven the car on track a few times, but not at this level. “I was never driving it hard enough to realize those were issues. He’s 5 or 6 seconds faster here than me on this track!”
Maack affirmed that he and the friends crewing for him had never done anything like this before, and that Pobst had been very helpful and kind all weekend long.
The Audi Parts UNLTD LLC No. 141 Audi S4 Competition Evolution (say that five times fast) went on to finish Race 2 the following day, which always counts as a win in any form of historic racing–especially considering the surprise metallurgy lesson the day prior.
As far as plans go, Maack’s not sure if he ever wants to race it himself. But he’s learning a lot and would like to get Pobst back in the seat for a testing session at Thunderhill to continue dialing it in. No events are planned for the immediate future; instead, he’s thinking more long term: “We will be at the Rolex next year for sure.”
One of my favorite liveries of that era. Also the cars were amazing in WC too.
Great article-love the history behind these cars!
Pete - great article. Saw the Audi on FB and had a suspicion you may have been involved. Hope you're doing well.
In reply to EchoTreeSix :
Thanks so much!
Was great era in Florida when two powerhouse Porsche/Audi dealerships campaigned full time racing efforts. Champion Porsche/Audi of Pompano Beach in South Florida (R8 prototypes, Porsches and aforementioned Audi sedans) and legendary Brumos P/A of Jax in North Florida (long history of privateer and factory Porsche racing). I recall my dad buying an MGB in the 1960's from what later became Brumos. My brother and me sitting on small jump seats behind our folks.
Sadly Brumos dealership closed though the museum is quite nice and Champion isn't involved in motorsports as they were.
Great memories! Glad to see one of the Champion Audi's Randy raced brought back to life!
StanO87 said:Was great era in Florida when two powerhouse Porsche/Audi dealerships campaigned full time racing efforts. Champion Porsche/Audi of Pompano Beach in South Florida (R8 prototypes, Porsches and aforementioned Audi sedans) and legendary Brumos P/A of Jax in North Florida (long history of privateer and factory Porsche racing).
I remember somewhere around 2005 when one of the Champion Audi R8 LMP900 cars showed up on ebay. It was an obsolete, no-longer-class-legal race car and sold for something like $50K. I hate to think what that car is worth now. :)
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