Has anyone done one of the Audi Driving/Tour/Racing Experience packages?

[grizzles]

My Dad and I are looking to do one of these this summer or fall and I can't find a whole lot of feedback on them. The R8 experience in Sonoma (link) looks pretty damn cool but that's a good amount of money for one day's worth of driving...then again it is on Infineon. Another option would be to do one in Europe, possibly one of the tour experiences where you drive around the country for a couple days (link)...it's a good amount less but the car type isn't guaranteed.

[MichaelC]

You might check out one of the driving programs from World Class Driving, http://www.worldclassdriving.com/?_k...FYEUKgodJ1wkHg. My spouse gave me one of the road course programs for my birthday last year, which gave me 45 minutes in each of the 5 exotics, driving with a lead and trailing car on country roads in Wisconsin. Most fun I ever had with my clothes on.

[grizzles]

Thanks Michael, that looks like a good option as well. Did you do the USA XL Tour? I see the time varies but how long did the whole event last?

[MichaelC]

When I did it a year ago, they were half-day sessions. I think they now call this the USA XL Tour - at least it's priced the same and the mileage looks like what I did. We started right after lunch with a short talk and slide show by the organizers. There were 7 drivers for 5 exotics. We were each assigned to our first car, then started off with one of the organizer's employees (a former race driver) in a lead car, the 5 exotics in a group, and another employee in a trailing car. There were walkie talkies in all the cars which the lead driver used to inform us of road conditions, upcoming turns, and police. We were on public country roads near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, but the roads were pretty remote with little or no traffic. You'd drive for half an hour or 45 minutes, then we'd pull over, talk for a few minutes about the cars, and you'd get your second car of the day. That continued until you'd driven all 5 of the exotics. Since there were 7 drivers and 5 cars, each person had 2 legs when you were a passenger in a car driven by one of the other participants. It was a serious blast! I had a great time. It's not cheap, but it's definitely a memorable experience. It was very cool to be able to drive the 5 cars back to back and be able to compare their differences. I definitely recommend this.

[grizzles]

So we ended up deciding on doing the Audi South Tyrol tour:

The World Class Driving thing looks really cool and I bet it's something I will do in the future but we really wanted a mini-trip experience rather than a half day or something. This should be pretty cool as we secured an R8 Spyder and we start the whole thing off with a factory tour in Ingolstadt...needless to say we are really excited. Not going until late August but will come back with a trip review and pics.

[donkeysaudi]

Oh yea definitely need to post pics. For us

[FastEddie]

wow all those trips look incredible! thanks for links. i might try and do the same tour your doing in the near future!

[Anthony]

If you're ever in Northern California you should absolutely attend an event at The Audi Forum Sonoma. Their driving programs aren't cheap, as you mentioned, but they're worth every penny!