You never know what to expect driving through to the Changi Exhibition Centre. It’s like waiting at the gates of a giant amusement park with emotions of some anxiousness and ever ready to spark up !
Arriving at the impressive set up of the Audi Driving Experience, with my invitation that needed both my hands, a customised helmet. Imagine my surprise when a large box arrived and I pulled off the lid and an invite to experience the Audi’s latest romance of the Audi R8 Coupe, V10.
With a tracker placed on our wrists, a unique feature of the event was the ‘Emotions Dashboard’ . With a recording of our heart rate before the drive and after, we were able to track our rise in heart and rise perspiration.
I had a total of 37% in heart rate rise, I bet most of that was from the ultimate surprise of being able to put my foot flat on the metal to then test the ‘Acceleration and ABS breaking’ and it has been a while since I received that much power on a road car, my stomach did a mini flip of joy.
It’s true when they say “The high-revving naturally-aspirated 5.2 litre V10 engine powers the Audi R8 to a top speed of 320km/h and guarantees to leave your chest pounding when it takes you from 0 to 100km/h in 3.5sec.”
You could hear the nervous chatter when we were able to experience the Quattro Playground with the Q7, SQ5 and Q3. Always on the road, we aren’t able to try out the off-road capabilities of these carriages, putting them in awkward angles on ramps and giant see-saws.
The Motorsport element came through with the surprise guest Tom Kristensen, 9 time, 24 hours of Le Man winner. An astonishing feat for any driver , and the opportunity to have a chat and sit in the passenger seat while he pushed the V10 engine around the circuit.
I’ve put off for a long time to try any of the R8’s, but I think when fate and reality crash in to each other, its for these ultimate moments of getting the best experience possible and that is still an understatement!
The next time you get an opportunity to sign up, DO IT! It’s not often, if not never that these one of a kind of events pop up!
