Audi RS4 Avant takes on the Noosa Hillclimb

Taking on the ‘hill’

So I’ve packed the family into the wagon and headed up to the Sunshine Coast for a bit of a driving holiday. Nothing extraordinary about that you say? But I’m tackling no ordinary piece of road and I’m piloting no ordinary family wagon.

My trusty stead for the weekend is the recently released Audi RS 4 Avant. This has to be one of the world’s fastest wagons with 331kW and a huge 600Nm. Now as a disclaimer I’m in an Audi a lot through my involvement with the Audi Drive Experience, but being so new, I actually haven’t driven one of these and to try it out – I guess they know me well enough to entrust the keys and let me loose up arguably Australia’s toughest Hillclimb.

The Noosa Hillclimb is 1.5km and 14 turns of gruelling narrow bitumen. It has almost zero margin for error and you if make a mistake here, you’re in a tree or a concrete block. The best way I can describe it is a mix between a tight twisty Targa stage and a concrete lined street circuit. As if that’s not enough, set in the forest and lined with tall trees, the sun doesn’t always see the tarmac and those wet shaded areas are just waiting to catch you out. Its reputation does truly proceed it.

Across the weekend 140-plus competitors are expecting between six and eight runs up the hill and the aggregate result determined by the driver’s fastest times at the end of each day.

Quick, or really quick?

I’m told the really quick single-seaters will cover the track in just over 50sec, the better race sedans around the minute mark. I would be doing well to break 1:05sec in a quick road car, they say.

Diverse is somehow not the correct word to sum-up the range of competition vehicles. Never have I seen such weird and wonderful machinery! There were off-road buggies that the boys just bolted a set of slicks on and even an old front engined Indy Car. The Noosa Hillclimb is grass roots racing at its absolute best and, like most motorsport events, the people are fantastic and just love their racing.

Competing in a Hillclimb is something I’ve never done but always wanted to and although I’ll tackle climb, I won’t actually be competing. I’m here to perform ‘demo’ runs and to take a lucky few along with me for a once in a lifetime experience up the hill.

After a couple of slow passes sticking to the left of the road the night before, my first run on Saturday morning is performed solo. I get a feel for the conditions after the overnight rain and it somewhat slippery. Believe it or not – and I guess aided by the RS 4 Avant’s quattro all-wheel drive traction – my time was in the 1:07sec range and good enough for Position 1 outright!

To be fair, most of the cars were on slicks in mostly wet conditions, but are still race cars; and I’m in a street car on street tyres.

Being in a road-registered car does have its advantages, however. I get to get back to the pits straight after my run. After crossing the line, I dispense with the helmet and leave the precinct through a manned gate and return via public road to the pit area. The race cars must wait in a holding area and return wrong direction down the hill in groups of 20.

Shot gun!

Time for ‘passenger’ runs, which must be performed at 80 per cent pace. I’m not quite sure what that’s 80 per cent of (speed or time), but the organisers settle on a time for me to stick to after the officials may or may not have had a quiet word to me…

Even four-up, the RS 4 Avant was pulling an astonishing 1G off the line and was the quickest car to turn two. Using launch control to get off the line meant there was no wheel spin, all 600Nm put to good use through all four wheels.

The passengers remarked about the brakes, but virgin ‘hot-lappers’ usually do. I got many “I didn’t know a car could do that” quotes.

According to the G-Force taddle-tale button, the RS 4 Avant was pulling 1.4G laterally, 1.1G under braking, along with its 1G on launch. Very impressive.

It’s a very safe car on the limit and has a very neutral balance tending to mild understeer in steady state cornering. I think where it feels most dynamic, is in the change of direction. It’s very responsive, and an area Audi must have improved upon over the previous generation.

It’s fair to say, all the passengers were blown away by the experience, and I’d have to say it’s arguably a better ‘hot-lap’ than most things you can do on the circuit. Attacking a narrow course so close to trees with 14 corners in quick succession is a hell of a rush!

A genuine Sports utility vehicle

I had a ball over the weekend and the event is extremely well run. The action is non stop and the whole town seems to embrace it. I’ll definitely be back.

Now, I couldn’t leave without actually doing another solo run in the dry and getting a more accurate picture of what the car could really do... a 1:05sec! Good enough (if it counted) for the top 10 – and petty amazing for a car literally straight out of the showroom.

I basically drove up from the Gold Coast with two car seats, a pram, a cot and four suit cases, dumped the gear at hotel and blazed out to the track. I’ve done nothing to the car except check the tyre pressures. It’s absolutely stock-standard and I’ve put in an astonishingly quick run up the hill.

If you need a practical car with more space but don’t want to sacrifice get-up-and-go, maybe take a look at what’s happening in the performance wagon segment. Let’s be honest, there’s not much ‘sport’ in the typical SUV.

Maybe it’s time to change the mindset and perhaps look into a genuine Sports utility vehicle.