eagleeye

It was somewhat of a bittersweet, but predominately sweet, day at the AMG challenge at Homestead Raceway on Friday. As soon as I got on the Florida turnpike at 5:30 am, on a freshly paved, very black, very dark, unpainted section of highway, I noticed half of a tractor trailer tire sitting sideways right in the middle of my lane. Unfortunately, I noticed it when it was 100 ft. away while giong 75 mph! I swerved left big time, skidded a little, but caught part of the tire with the passenger side lower fascia. Big thud. Pulled over at the next rest area for a damage assessment. Mesh piece around fog light gone. Fog lamp in place but now not working. Big scuff on fascia (which I was later able to rub out with some Goo-Be-Gone and Meguiar's Cleaner). Tiny scratch on the passenger rear lip of my new HRE's. That was it. Not too bad, worse things in life happen.
Arrive at the raceway. Parking lot was filled with AMG vehicles driven to the event by the participants. There were 43 brand new AMG cars lined up in three rows ready to be driven as hard as we wanted to. There was a large tent set up where a great breakfast was served. Outside the tent was a G55k, SL65, and CL65 for our inspection. A short yet inspiring AMG racing video was shown on two large flat screen monitors which led into the welcome and introduction of the professional driving instructors for the day.
The participants were split up into four groups of about 18-20 each, and there was a schedule of events/stations that all groups rotated through. These included Lead/Follow, where you got to drive on the track with an instructor learning the lines and so forth, timed autocross, team timed autocross, skidpad, a short classroom period/ q&a, slalom, evasive maneuvers, more racing on the track(this time all out), and a hot lap where you did two laps as a passenger with the pro's driving, and man were they pushing these cars to the limit! Also the head of AMG in the US (Rob Allan) was there and available all day long for questions. He confirmed that the 6.3L n.a. will be the next engine.
We got to drive these cars as hard as we wanted to. It is nice to know what our cars can really do....they really perform alot better when you push 'em than I thought they would.
The lunch was great ( grilled tenderloin and grilled chicken) and there was a champagne toast, awards for fastest driver, best course redesign(haha), and a nice personalized goody bag at the end. It was a fantastic experience to drive these cars hard and fast and meet great people who share the love of AMG.
The most interesting experience I had was during our fast laps. I wanted to get an E55 to see what my car could to on the track. When I got behind the wheel there was a red message in the MFD saying "Caution brakes overheated use caution". I ask the instructor before we took off if that was a problem and he told me not to worry about it. So I take off. I'm doing pretty well...was able to pass two guys in front of me (when you are driving through the course faster than the guy in front of you, the instructor radios ahead to the instructor in the car you want to pass so that you can pass safely) and I hit the straightaway doing about 100. I begin to brake for a sharp right when....guess what....NO BRAKES! Not a particularly nice feeling when you are doing 100 and you have no brakes! I release my foot and break in an emergency manner and the ABS locks up, I go into a sideways skid through the turn, and into the kitty litter, kicking up a small mushroom cloud of dust all over this black E55. The car had to be towed out as it was up to its axels in gravel! You wanna talk about a shot of adrenaline runnin' through ya. Damn!
Wish I had my camera in the car for that one. MFD said in red "total ABS failure". Let this be a lesson to those who drive their cars aggressively. If you get the brake warning TAKE HEED!!!!

BklynBenz

sorry to hear about the mishap on the way down there but the event sounded like fun and pics are awesome. what did the instructor say after the e55 had to be towed out?

cte430

Were the doing one of the events other than hot laps on the track? Does that mean you did not have the whole track to use? I would be disappointed if that were the case as we had the entire straight after exiting the road portion of the course.

theitalianjob

Looks like a great event! What color was the CLS55? Pewter or the new Indium Grey?

eagleeye

The instructor just asked if I was OK and what happened. He to saw the MFD message stating ABS failure.

On the hot laps we drove, there were two straights where you could get to 100 before agressive braking was required. When you left the road course onto the track, we only got to experience one end of the oval, the banked portion. The instructors said there was a 100 mph limit on the bank, but I think up to 110 was allowed.

I think the CLS was Pewter.

gmdebruyn

the interesting thing i noticed at our event here in california was that after switching the cars between teams, back and forth, there was never any indication of brake dust on the rims. ever. and i didn't see any stealth mercedes cleaning elves running around. are they using different brake pads than we use?

cte430

Ok. I was there last year and we had the whole track. No limits. We would leave pit row and get up to about 115 or so on the back straight before breaking hard to enter the road course. We would then enter the long straight where you (depending on how good you came out of the road course ) 130-140 was possible before you hit the bank. 110 on the bank is about what we did. The bank is fun, huh! Sounds like they put some restrictions this time around, but as you said it's a great day anyway. I'll be doing both days at Lime Rock in August.

Doctodd33

Great meeting you eagleeye. My instructor didnt tell me we had any speed limit. I guess it just depended on who you had. To answer one of the questions, there was that pewter CLS55 that we got to hotlap, but there was also a red CLS55(more like a light burgundy....dont know the color) and a black CLS55 as well. The track configuration was different this year compared to last year at Homestead because this year they used Nascar turns 1-2 for the hotlapping, albeit in the opposite direction, and turns 3-4 were used for the autocross, also in the opposite direction.

Last year the autocross was some cones arranged in the flat parking lot and it took about 22 seconds to lap it. This year the autocross was about a 43 second course with the banking, but with a 70mph speed limit, which made no sense since we were doing 100+ in the hot laps section on the other side.

On a lighter note, i made my instructor throw up in the morning hot laps section while hotlapping the black CLS55. He already had a bit of a stomach bug, but i tipped him over the edge. The other instructors wre ribbing him hard. Our celeb drivers were Tommy Kendall, Stuart Hayner, and Linda Pobst(Randy Pobst's ex wife and current CART pace car driver as her daily gig).

Great meeting you guys and hope the damage isnt expensive to repair eagleeye.

T

jtc55

thanks for sharing w/ us the experience and pics sounds like you guys had a great time. glad to hear you and your car are OK.

Chappy

lol...I heard about that. There was a guy in Red Group who made the instructor hurl after the autocross as well.

sergioinmiami

I was at the event with Jeff Andretti as our yellow group instructor. I must say, I highly recommend this event to everyone. Spend the money and come away with a HUGE smile!

I had op to sit in CL65 on a 2x hotlap. SWEET!

Sergio

M5KILLR

damn those pics look unreal, the sky, all those bnzes, aaaahhhh! so the n/a is the guaranteed next motor eh? no talk of an additional engine for amg's? unless the new e is 500lbs lighter, a s/c car is the way to go. i dont want to hear an f1 whine, *****ES whine! i want my blown v8 sound damnit. so i guess ill be hanging on to mine for a while.

oblax4

Yeah - I'm proud to say I'm the guy in the red group who made the instructor blow corn on the autocross!

Doctodd33

Congrats dude.....we are an elite fraternity. The hurlers club. I had to pull over on the hot laps straightaway just before the banking to let my instructor hurl. I was kinda pissed cuz i had to stop and let everyone i had passed back by me. But i take solace in the fact that everyone got to see it. :v

edit: i was in green group

T

ima55r2

I think we all got the Caution Brakes Overheated display but there was never any brake fade...which was pretty impressive considering the conditions.

I wonder how you went from no brakes to locking up. I thought losing the ABS would mean losing the brake moduation, not the brakes too because of the hydraulic back-up. What was your emergency manner besides trying to push through floorboards that caused the lockup?

Do you think the evasive driving session helped to safely avoid the tire?