By Johan Laubscher
The exciting “Race Sunday, Commute Monday” project (#CommuteMonday) headed to the SCCA
National Championship Runoffs held at Laguna Seca this past weekend. The
stunning red and black #93 Audi S4 of Marc Feinstein was entered in the T3
class.
This Audi S4 is a collaboration project between AWE Tuning and German
Performance Service, aiming to demonstrate a road car with off-the-shelf
performance upgrades on track in competition. The near-stock Audi S4 has
shown great pace all year.
The car has been seen at the Mount Washington Hillclimb (pictured above) and selected
events in the SCCA U.S. Majors Tour Eastern Conference. Ramana Lagemann piloted
the car to fourth place overall at the Hillclimb and Marc Feinstein performed
well in the U.S. Majors and secured an invitation to the Runoffs.
The Runoffs is a very special invitational SCCA event which ends off
the season each year. It is a week-long event for each of the various SCCA categories.
The event was held at Laguna Seca this year, following a number of years at
Road America.
Audi teams have performed well at the Runoffs in recent seasons. Joel
Weinberger and his Continental Racing Audi A4 (ex-Stasis SCCA World Challenge
touring car) claimed the first and so far only Runoffs class victory for an
Audi race car when he won the STU class in 2011, backed up with runner-up finishes
in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Limitless Racing and Dr. Jason Lee also performed well
during the 2013 event, where they finished twelfth within the GT2 class with
their Audi R8 GRAND-AM.
For 2014 there was only one Audi on the Runoffs entry list, the #93 AWE
Tuning Audi S4 of Marc Feinstein.
As was the case during 2014, the Audi S4 showed great pace in the hands
of Feinstein and performed well during the weekend.
He qualified sixth on the T3 class grid and progressed well during the
race. He moved up to second position following a first lap crash involving the competitors in front of him. The Audi S4 sustained minor detail damage on the front left in avoidance during the incident which brought out a full course yellow.
Following the restart Feinstein was able to defend second position and defended well up until the cork screw, when he was passed by Tom Wickersham’s Mustang. He was able to maintain third position until Wickersham, who had taken the T3 class lead, suffered a problem and dropped back to third position, behind Feinstein in the Audi S4.
Wickersham gradually closed in on Feinstein and repeated his pass from earlier in the race, making the pass going into the cork screw once again, relegating the Audi S4 to third position on the penultimate lap.
Marc Feinstein maintained his third position to the finish, crossing the line less than eight seconds behind the race winner. The Mustang and Audi S4 pairing finished behind the race winning Nissan 370Z of David Daughtery. It was a well-deserved podium result for the “Race Sunday, Commute Monday” Audi S4 project.
The T3 class Runoffs race can be watched HERE. (Starting at 3:11:00)
The weekend’s Runoff results can be seen HERE.
AWE Tuning
German Performance Service
Photo credit: AWE Tuning
