Hillclimb Challenge: Skoda Superb Estate - 280BHP - 4x4 DSG -

[RickTT]

Hillclimb Challenge: Skoda Superb Estate - 280BHP - 4x4 DSG -

 

First off - full credit goes to the below site for the article and video -

 

http://www.roofsideup.com/hillclimb-challenge-skoda-superb-estate/

 

Found this interesting article which i think is worth sharing..

 

Copy and pasted the content below from the article.

 

 

 

 

It had been apparent for a long time, or at least seemed to be, that the final round of the 2016 Primo plc Multi Vehicle Insurance / Nationwide Association of Blood Bikes Hillclimb Challenge would be a relatively relaxed affair, with more of an emphasis on having a jolly weekend with good chums than on going for a good result. Skoda had been kind enough to offer its Superb Estate 280 DSG 4×4, and while it’s the most powerful car the Czech arm of the Volkswagen Group has ever put into production there was little reason to believe it would be competitive at Loton Park in an alarmingly strong field of Road-Going Series Production Cars.

 

So much for the theory. The Superb (incomprehensibly and hilariously referred to in the event programme as the “Super B”) turned out to be the surprise of the season, exceeding expectations to an almost unbelievable extent.

 

History shows I’m not great at predicting what time a car I haven’t driven before will achieve on a hillclimb, but I thought I was on safe ground when I went round telling everyone that a 66-second run would be as much as we could hope for by the end of the weekend. Not for the first time, my team-mate Alisdair Suttie made me look silly by recording a 66.58 in first practice on Saturday morning – a startling performance given that his entire experience of the Superb up till then had consisted of driving it from our paddock spot to the start line, a distance of less than 100 yards.

 

My own first attempt was dismal by comparison. I had chosen what seemed to be the right settings for the car (Sport mode on, traction control off) but left the DSG semi-automatic gearbox in Drive. DSG has its own Sport mode, but I’d assumed that the one you select on the central touchscreen took care of that. Well, it doesn’t. The Superb just didn’t want to play, and as amused onlookers lost no time in pointing out I was nearly three seconds slower.

 

Lesson learned, I put DSG into Sport for the next run and set a 64.62. Nice, but Alisdair had by now got down to 64.30. Must try harder.

For the third practice run I stood next to Ian Richards as he watched his team-mate David Garnett leave the start line in their shared Renault Clio. David went on to set a personal best, eclipsing Ian’s best time up to that point. Ian shook his head and stomped off, muttering, “You just can’t trust some people.”

Photo copyright Jerry Sturman.

I knew how he felt shortly afterwards when Alisdair completed his next run in just 63.88 seconds, damn his eyes. Returning to the paddock in chirpy mood, he explained how he’d done it. Quick and comfortable on the road, the Superb made up a lot of time on the tracks thanks to its four-wheel drive and the DSG box, particularly at the start.

 

On the corners, it handled like a school of porpoises, but Alisdair guessed that it probably wouldn’t feel much worse if you pushed it harder. Attacking Loton as vigorously as he could, he found out he was right.

“Drive it like you stole it,” he advised as we swapped over. “Yes,” I said. “Or like it’s a press car.” “Yes.” “Or like you stole a press car.” “Yes.”

Sure enough, in full-scale turn-it-up-to-eleven mad nutter driving mode the Superb felt no less secure than it had before, and it still gripped well. It was a hell of a run and I thought I might at last have become the quicker of the two Skoda drivers present, but in fact I was still half a second behind on 64.38.

 

Of the thirteen drivers in the class (two of whom were subsequently to drop out for different reasons) we were currently lying ninth and tenth, which seemed more than reasonable for an estate car so large you could move house with it. Closer examination of the times revealed something interesting. The top four were miles ahead and there was no way we could catch them. However, John Harding’s splendid Jaguar E-Type, in fifth place, had gone up in 63.58 seconds, only half a second quicker than Alisdair’s best. Dave Parr’s Sierra Cosworth and the Porsche 911s of Simon Tarling and Peter Herbert were even closer. With a few more runs under our belts, could we . . . no, surely not . . . or maybe . . .

Heavy rain overnight made the track very slippery for the final practice run on Sunday morning. Two of the top four declined to take part, but of the remaining pair only Jamie Powell, who went on to win the class in his Mitsubishi Evo, was quicker than we were. Quite improbably, we were now second and third.

 

Nothing that had happened so far counted towards the results, which as usual would be determined by the better performance in the two competition runs that followed. The track dried, then became slightly damp again after a brief shower, then dried once more. Not everyone in the class was prepared to believe that conditions had gone back to normal, but we did.

At this point, Alisdair’s weekend fell apart and mine blossomed. His next start was very slow for some reason we couldn’t work out. I thought he’d accidentally left the traction control switched on, but he said there was no sign of it once he’d finally got going. Either way, his first competition run took 65.69 seconds. For me, the Superb shot off the line, and since I knew I was now ahead of Alisdair I thought I’d better keep going and maintain the advantage.

 

I don’t think I tried any harder than I had in practice, but somehow everything came together. That run took 63.28 seconds (just 0.13 longer than my personal best at Loton in a Vauxhall Astra VXR) and since Dave’s Sierra blew its turbo and John, Simon and Peter were more concerned about the track conditions than I was and were therefore slower, I found myself in the bizarre position of being in fifth place with one run to go.

 

I was sure it couldn’t last. Alisdair, for example, had been driving so well that he was probably going to pop in a 62. The enormous amount of tyre squeal that echoed through the trees during his final run told me that this wasn’t going to happen. The rain had returned – not to any great extent, but enough to mean that a very slightly later braking point into the Triangle righthander sent him way off line. He recovered from this and set a 64.38, which was pretty good going but not enough to catch me.

 

My last run was one of those where you need the windscreen wipers but hope the track surface isn’t being affected. In fact there was less grip than before (the Superb went through the double-apex Loggerheads in a four-wheel drift, which is more fun to think about now than it was to experience at the time) so I was chuffed to record a 63.59 even though it didn’t help my result.

What did help was that the villains, despite being faster than before, weren’t fast enough. Incredibly, Simon, Peter and John were covered by just 0.11 seconds, but they were all in the high 63s, so I stayed fifth.

 

Admittedly, I had several advantages over them. Their cars were rear-wheel drive and the Skoda was a 4×4. They had manual gearboxes and I could leave the DSG to make superfast changes on its own. Together, those things were probably worth two seconds for me. It must also have been significant that if they’d crashed they would have to pay to repair their cars, whereas if I damaged the Superb it would be Skoda’s problem. There had to be a few tenths in that.

 

Then again, the Superb was possibly less powerful and definitely heavier than all of them, and it must have had about twice the body movement. Despite all that, the handling was friendly and the level of grip from its standard Pirelli tyres remained impressive even when it was being chucked around way beyond the intentions of its chassis engineers. If it had finished tenth, I’d have been impressed. I can still hardly believe it finished fifth, and can’t help wondering if it was all a dream from which I’m yet to wake up.

[BillyJim]

Nice. I appreciate he was unfamiliar with the car but it does make me wonder if he'd have done even better using launch control and the manual/paddles rather than relying purely on the DSG.

[aarrgg55]

Nice. I appreciate he was unfamiliar with the car but it does make me wonder if he'd have done even better using launch control and the manual/paddles rather than relying purely on the DSG.

 

How do you do launch control? Is that by disabling TCS and auto engine start/stop?

[BillyJim]

It's in the manual...

 

Launch control

The launch control function allows the vehicle in mode S or Tiptronic to reach its maximum acceleration when starting off.

    

› Disable the TCS.

› Deactivate START STOP.

› Fully depress and hold the brake pedal with your left foot.

› Fully depress the accelerator pedal with your right foot.

› Release the brake pedal.

The vehicle starts off with maximum acceleration.

[ionelmc]

What's the difference between 0-100kmh with launch control and without?

[TomasT]

What's the difference between 0-100kmh with launch control and without?

This is the only good comparison I've seen

I have yet to try launch control... I have floored it a couple of times at red lights and it's incredible but I have to find a good place to try the launch control! Exciting thing to try I'm sure

[FelisBengalensis]

What's the difference between 0-100kmh with launch control and without?

Less smell of overheated DSG clutch pack.........