Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / The Unfair Advantage: A Tribute to Hurley Haywood & The Audi Quattros

Transcript

The Unfair Advantage: A Tribute to Hurley Haywood & The Audi Quattros · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  We always have a blast chatting with our guests about all sorts of different
• 0:03
  topics, but sometimes we go off the rails and dig deeper into their
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  automotive and motor sports pasts.
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  As a bonus, let's go behind the scenes with this pit stop mini
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  episode for some extra content that didn't quite fit in the main episode.
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  Sit back and enjoy and remember to like, subscribe and
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  support break fix on Patreon.
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  Tonight we are honored to revisit the legendary career of Hurley Haywood,
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  one of the most decorated and respected sports car drivers of all time.
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  While many remember Hurley for his victories at the 24 hours at Daytona,
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  and his wins at Lama, his time in the TransAm series with Audi stands as a
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  defining chapter in American Motorsport.
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  Behind the wheel of the powerful Audi Quatro.
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  Hurley helped rewrite the rule book, showcasing the dominance of all-wheel
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  drive technology on circuits where traditional rear wheel drive muscle.
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  Once ruled his success not only brought Audi unprecedented glory and TransAm,
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  but also cemented his place as a pioneer who bridged innovation and skill.
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  We'll revisit those groundbreaking seasons and hear firsthand how
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  Hurley Haywood helped change the face of the series and get insight
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  about his time in TransAm and imsa.
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  From folks like Rick Huey from the I-M-R-R-C, legendary Pro driver
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  Lynn St. James, and Senior Director of Competition at imsa Mark Roff.
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  And with that, let's welcome Hurley to break fix.
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  Well, Hurley, it's awesome to have you back in the studio.
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  The last time we got together, we talked about your adventures at lama,
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  and during that episode we touched just briefly on your history with Audi and
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  with TransAm, and so we wanted to revisit that part of your motor sports career
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  Before we dive deep into the Audi era.
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  Can you take us back and explain how you ended up in TransAm racing, how
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  that fit into your broader career, and tell us about how Bob Tullia put
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  together the deal with the Audi program.
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  Uh, I had broken my leg back in 1983.
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  Bob Tullia called up Al Holbert and he said, I'm thinking about hiring Hurley
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  because you know, he can't push the clutch down on a Porsche, but we have
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  a gearbox and he only has to push the clutch to get in and out of the pits.
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  Al said to Bob, he said, if you can hire Hurley, do it today
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  because he's one of the best.
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  And that's exactly what happened.
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  So I raised for the Jaguar team, the Trulia team group,
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  44 for two and a half years.
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  And then when that program stopped and it moved over to Walkinshaw, Walkinshaw
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  decided that he wanted Brian Redman and myself to come help his team win the race.
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  Well.
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  We were told basically to keep our mouth shut and drive as fast as we could go.
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  'cause he wanted to be on television at the start of the race.
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  And so eventually all three cars had mechanical problems and we would
• 3:00
  move from one car to the other car.
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  And so I don't wanna get into the particulars, but it was kind of an amusing
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  round table of guys that were going from one car to another car, and then that car
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  would break and move to the third car.
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  So it was a, uh, difficult situation to be in.
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  Well, let me back up a little bit.
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  When Bob Tulio lost the Jaguar deal, at the same time Audi was thinking about
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  coming into race in the United States.
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  They wanted to sort of promote the Audi program and Joe Hopin called me up and
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  said, I want you to come to Atlanta.
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  We have a 12 hour night race in a Audi Quatra in a, basically a sedan,
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  200 sedan racing seat and seat belts.
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  And that was about the, the only extent of modifications that they made to the car.
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  So I would say.
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  You must be joking.
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  So anyway, the weather turned terrible and it was raining like hell and we were
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  third overall against really race cars.
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  So, you know, I was pretty excited about that.
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  And then about a month later, Joe Hopin called me and said, what would you think
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  about racing an Audi in the TransAm?
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  And I kind of thought about it for a moment and, uh, I said, what's the deal?
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  And he said, well, let's go over to English dot and I'll, let me show you
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  the, the car that they're working on.
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  So we went over, Walter Rule was there, and he sort of gave me the
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  background of the car I got in this thing and I was really surprised.
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  I said, this is pretty cool.
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  And Joe Hopin was of course, the guy that sort of negotiated
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  all the rules and everything.
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  He called me up and he said, well, what do you think we should do?
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  What team do you think we should get now Was that Tuus?
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  That was Tuus ran that program.
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  That relationship lasted five years.
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  I drove with the Jags for two years or three years, and then I drove for him with
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  the Audi program and he was a great guy.
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  A lot of people didn't like Bob, but.
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  I liked him.
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  He and I never had a crossword.
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  I was always kind of a little rebellious.
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  You know, you had to do the uniform thing on that team.
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  You had to be dressed in a uniform every time.
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  And Bob was very explicit about, you know, white shoes, white socks, white
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  shorts, green belt, gold army type style, belt buckle belt buckle, web belt, white
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  shirt, you know, the whole nine yards.
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  One of the only teams in history whose people were always dressed
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  in white and never got dirty.
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  Not sure how they did that, but I think they had enough uniforms
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  in the truck that if you did, you had to go change right away.
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  But yeah.
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  How many people have white crew guys, you know.
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  And I would always have one thing that was not quite up to team standard, different
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  color bells or a slightly different shade of sock or you know, something like that.
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  And he never said anything.
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  I knew he saw it, but he never said anything.
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  It was a nice relationship with him and I really liked the team and I
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  liked the discipline and you know, Bob was one of the first guys that
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  really brought professionalism up to a standard that's now enjoyed by everybody.
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  You walk down Pi Lane in Wisa or whatever it is, and the team and the philosophy
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  that you have with these teams, uniforms, detail preparation, always started by Bob.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Bob truly has really brought that discipline.
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  Look to sports, car racing and the preparation there was always excellent.
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  I mean, I know one of his mechanics used to work on Air Force One,
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  so that's gotta be second in.
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  He's got all the equipment, he is got the shop, he's got the transporters.
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  They're all spotless.
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  Totally.
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  In the Audi sort of way of thinking, you raced for a lot of
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  different teams over the years.
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  I mean, predominantly Porsche E, especially Porsche, I'll say.
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  What was it like racing for Audi?
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  What was it?
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  What was the team dynamics like?
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  What was the culture like?
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  What was the attitude?
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  Well, that was definitely a factory team.
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  And Bob, I think, had a hard time at the beginning accepting that role as to sort
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  of the mechanism that let the Audi happen.
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  But all of the decisions on how you would run the car during the race, how
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  you would set the car up and engineering wise was taken out of his hands and
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  replaced with the factory people.
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  We had a lot of factory people that went to Winchester.
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  Which is where the headquarters were for Bob, but it was something
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  that Bob was able to employ all his guys and his guys were very,
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  very quick to learn the process.
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  So it was a real team effort on both the American side and the German
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  side, where everybody came together and worked very nicely together.
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  I don't really remember any times when there was a lot of friction
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  between those two entities.
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  Everybody worked together.
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  Did you get a chance to work with or meet Roland Gum?
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  He was one of the masterminds behind Audi's success in
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  World Rally Championship.
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  Yes, I did.
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  So what was Roland like to work with?
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  Was he involved in the TransAm in the IMSA program too?
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  Trying to refine the car?
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  Yes.
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  I think he was.
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  And.
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  The development of those cars went on 12 months out of the year on both the TransAm
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  and the GT Os period, the SSA period.
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  It was a continual development on both types of cars.
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  It was a nice position to be in and then have guys like Joe Hopin sort of smoothing
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  the water out, making everybody happy, but it didn't work most of the time.
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  So that's what happened and he got the deal and everybody went over to
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  Ingles Scott to talk about the program and you know, work out the details.
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  But that was one of the greatest cars.
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  Everybody laughed, said, what are you doing with, this is a family sedan.
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  It looks like a family sedan.
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  I said, well guys, just wait and see.
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  They stopped laughing after our first race because we were just so superior
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  to everything else on the racetrack.
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  Your first impressions of the Audi completely different than
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  anything you had driven up until that point when you compared it
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  to the Porsches and the Jaguars.
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  What was the experience like with a front heavy all wheel drive
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  family sedan, as you put it?
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  It was actually brilliant to drive.
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  You had to make a little bit of an adjustment because, you know,
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  it was not a conventional car, so getting used to the all-wheel
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  drive and it didn't take very long.
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  And I sort of got the technique much quicker than, uh, Hans did.
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  Hans was very frustrated at the beginning of the season because
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  we had engineers with both cars.
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  My engineer.
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  Was different than Hans's engineer.
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  And Hans wanted to set up the car a little bit differently that I liked it.
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  So it took a while for him to get into the rhythm, but I found it,
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  okay, this is what the deal is and this is what we're gonna do.
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  And sure enough, the car was completely dominant in all the TransAm races.
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  I won the championship for myself and for Audi, and then the SCCA kicked us out.
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  They said no.
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  Four wheel drive is not allowed.
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  Then we moved over to imsa.
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  This is, uh, one of the coolest cars we ever developed with
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  Audi, which also became the biggest pain in the butt for us.
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  Uh, we started with a 90 Quatro, and the 90 Quatro, in my opinion, was probably
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  one of the best race cars I ever driven.
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  I mean, that thing was so incredibly awesome.
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  Full tube frame, five cylinder inline turbo.
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  It had over 700 horsepower hunch, stook, Hurley Haywood, and occasionally Walter
• 10:10
  Royal, a rally driver who even people like hunch Stook said when he showed up.
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  I raced for second.
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  The man was amazing.
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  The intriguing thing was the car is constant all-wheel drive
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  car, which meant it applied.
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  The drive you wanted on each wheel based on the grip level that the
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  car was sensing that it needed, it wasn't 20% front, 80% back.
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  It was applying that drive to the wheels as it saw it needed.
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  So the hard part of it was, we started it out.
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  Goodyear made 'em special tires 14 inches wide.
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  We realized after a couple races, they didn't go to Daytona and Sebring because
• 10:42
  they didn't think they could finish.
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  The cars were not really made to do long distance races.
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  So we didn't do Daytona.
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  We didn't do Sebring.
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  But then, you know, I think stook.
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  Won almost every race, and I was second in all those races.
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  So that thing was unbelievable.
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  700 horsepower, huge tires on the front end rear, and it was
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  really a pretty cool car to drive.
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  So they started on 14th, we summed down two, three races.
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  Changed that to 12 and then changed it to 10, a couple races later, and the
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  end result was, it made no difference.
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  The 10 inch wide tires worked just as good as the 14 inch tires.
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  We really dominated the whole series.
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  They were pissed off.
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  They kept adding weight to us and all kinds of restrictions
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  on the engines and the intakes.
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  It made no difference.
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  The cars were just brilliant with the four wheel drive systems, part of the
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  reasons and the learning experience for us was technically what's going on with
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  a car like this is the tire degradation.
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  Is way better.
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  'cause your lo, the load of slowing down is spread over all four wheels.
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  The braking was much better and the acceleration was phenomenal.
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  So it was an amazing car.
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  It is probably, in my opinion, one of the coolest, most technically
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  advanced things that IMSA created.
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  We did some other stuff, but this one was sort of a challenge for them and.
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  To do this.
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  They won the TransAm the year before with a car, an Audi 100 made
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  out of a real production shell.
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  This has nothing to do with that other than the greenhouse
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  silhouette and so on, so forth.
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  But spectacular car two remain.
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  One is here in the USA and one is in Germany.
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  And the significance to Audi is when they just showed their first concept,
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  formula One car, the car that's behind the Formula one car in their display
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  is that car, not the R eight prototype.
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  That's off to the side, but that car is right there that embodies.
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  Audi's performance thing and it's 1989.
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  Pretty amazing what they were able to do and how they did it.
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  And we mentioned marketing a little while ago.
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  They're still using video from those days to market the Audi all wheel drive now.
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  So it really stood out in history.
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  I think, you know, the all wheel drive is certainly something that has
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  found its way into lots of different types of production cars down.
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  It's just is a benefit that.
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  His, um, well worth people taking a look at, and Audi was the one that kind of
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  pioneered that system in a race car.
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  It was just phenomenal and that's why they basically banned them and don't
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  see four wheel drive cars anymore.
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  Everybody was out to get us and nobody really could.
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  There were cars were so dominant, the four wheel drive, regardless of what
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  the conditions were, rain, hot, sandy, you know, whatever the conditions are.
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  The Audis were dominant.
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  The reason we didn't win the championship.
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  Was because the cars were not built for long distance races
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  for Daytona and for Seabring.
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  Those were in the calendar for the series.
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  So we missed those two races, but we won everything else after that.
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  Practically.
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  I know you had one race here that you do the whole race yourself.
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  Yeah, I, I got it into, uh, Scott Goodier was supposed to drive with me.
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  Scott was new to the team.
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  I was having a great battle and just didn't want to give it up at the pit stop.
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  So I stayed in.
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  And the Audi, that was really the first time that I had been with a factory team.
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  That was excessive.
• 13:52
  Anything that we wanted, we could have.
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  I mean, if I said, Hey guys, you know, I want to have wood
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  paneling on the dashboard.
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  I mean, the next race, I have wood paneling on the.
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  It was like a driver's dream and the cars themselves were absolutely fantastic.
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  I mean, just, it was just a really nice atmosphere to be able to work
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  in that kind of situation where.
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  Anything you wanted was possible at that time.
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  The term that was used was borrowed from Mark Donahue, the unfair
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  advantage that Audi had because of the all-wheel drive, but it was cutting
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  edge technology, not just in racing, but in the production world itself.
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  Like Audi put itself on the map after many, many years of being in business by
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  putting all-wheel drive and production cars, and now they bring it to.
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  TransAm racing, this groundbreaking technology.
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  I mean, you dominated, but with all these penalties, with all the setbacks,
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  with everything that they tried to do to stop the Audi's advantage, how
• 14:45
  much did you have to adapt as a driver every time they penalized the car?
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  Yeah, as I said, it made no difference to the performance,
• 14:53
  weight restrictions on the intakes.
• 14:55
  None of that really had an effect.
• 14:58
  The cars were so good and the engineers.
• 15:01
  Behind the cars were so good that they, you know, said, oh, we need to do this.
• 15:05
  We need to change the weight balance a little bit.
• 15:07
  But in retrospect, it really didn't slow us down at all.
• 15:10
  Cars were so good.
• 15:11
  Were there some tracks where the Audi was at a disadvantage?
• 15:14
  Like, I remember watching the Long Beach races were super tight and,
• 15:18
  and watching you kind of struggle and saw it the wheel a little bit to get
• 15:21
  through the tightness of Long Beach versus something like Watkins Glen
• 15:24
  where you could really open it up.
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  It made no difference with the track.
• 15:27
  Some of the tighter tracks.
• 15:29
  Like Long Beach, you had a lot of different surface changes and
• 15:33
  where the other cars might have an advantage in one place, you had
• 15:37
  an advantage in the other place.
• 15:39
  So it sort of worked itself out.
• 15:41
  But still, you know, the worst conditions, like I remember we were running Texas now.
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  That was with the transient car, Texas.
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  That was a joke.
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  The uh, surface was just, there was one line through the corners and.
• 15:55
  If you made one step out of that line, you were in the wall and a very tight chords.
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  And I remember passing Willie Willie t ribs and I got up alongside of him.
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  He was on the inside on the clean track and I was in in the sand, and I sort
• 16:12
  of kind waved at him when I went by.
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  He gave me the finger.
• 16:16
  He said, you know, God damn.
• 16:19
  At the end of the race, he came up and he says, Jesus, this car is so
• 16:22
  good making us all look really bad.
• 16:24
  So, you know, went, it was fun.
• 16:26
  You know, it's funny you mentioned that we had Lynn St. James on
• 16:28
  quite a few times on the show.
• 16:29
  In one of her interviews we talked about this.
• 16:32
  Was it really like that when you guys were competing against the Audis?
• 16:36
  Was everybody so upset about it?
• 16:38
  Was it really that earth shattering?
• 16:39
  Yes, it was awful.
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  You would be hanging under your car in a corner.
• 16:43
  And then they just go driving by, you know?
• 16:45
  'cause you got that all wheel drive and it would be like, you would just
• 16:48
  cuss the hell out of everything.
• 16:51
  I mean, I could have killed Hurley and stuck, you know, because it was
• 16:53
  like, oh, I can remember Meadowlands particularly because you know, when
• 16:57
  you get in these temporary circuits and, and so it was maddening.
• 17:00
  It was totally, it was, it was brutal and maddening because
• 17:04
  it was an unfair advantage.
• 17:05
  I mean, it complete, I mean, there's turbos and there's normally aspirated
• 17:09
  that erase it against each other.
• 17:10
  They have different power bands.
• 17:12
  But you know that all eventually it evens out and there are certain tracks
• 17:16
  that are handling tracks, certain tracks that are more high speed tracks
• 17:19
  if you have a handling car versus, you know, one versus the other.
• 17:22
  But it eventually evens out when they had that all wheel drive bullshit.
• 17:26
  I mean, that was like, that was never gonna even out.
• 17:28
  There's no balance of performance there, right?
• 17:30
  No.
• 17:31
  Oh, of course now, yeah.
• 17:32
  I mean, there's the.
• 17:33
  That's a whole different thing the way the rules are.
• 17:35
  I mean, God, I'd hate to have to run a team right now because every
• 17:38
  week they changed the BOP, you know?
• 17:39
  And yeah, back then you were stuck.
• 17:41
  You know?
• 17:42
  You were stuck with what you got, the way the rules were, they didn't
• 17:45
  change the rules that much throughout the year, and if they did, it was
• 17:47
  usually to your disadvantaged.
• 17:49
  But that whole Audi all wheel drive thing was, it makes me just livid
• 17:53
  thinking about it again, because we.
• 17:55
  We struggled so hard.
• 17:58
  God, it was awful.
• 17:59
  You know, the struggle was real for the rest of the drivers, but was it
• 18:02
  the sanctioning body penalizing the car, or was it the drivers complaining
• 18:06
  so much that you guys were so dominant that they wanted to pull the Audi back?
• 18:10
  Do you know what, what the politics was like at that time?
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  Our politics were governed by Joe Hopin and Joe Hopin was a miracle man with
• 18:18
  the sanctioning bodies and the rules.
• 18:20
  So regardless of what they put on us.
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  Joe would talk to the engineers and say, what would happen if we added a hundred
• 18:30
  pounds or 50 pounds, and they would kind of look at Joe and say, eh, nothing really
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  wouldn't affect the cars at all, because the balance of those cars were so good
• 18:40
  that all of the things that they could put against us were irrelevant at that point.
• 18:45
  As far as the restrictions on the.
• 18:47
  On the engines, you know, the engines were way under stressed, especially with the
• 18:52
  TransAm motor, so there was a big margin.
• 18:56
  You know, we didn't show everything at the beginning.
• 18:58
  We held a little bit back on the performance part of it, and they could
• 19:02
  put the restrictions on us, and it really didn't make any difference in the end.
• 19:05
  So when you look back at TransAm in those days, obviously the road
• 19:08
  courses they use a little more rustic.
• 19:10
  You have things like the Meadowlands and Summit point on the list and whatnot.
• 19:13
  But even the cars were almost, in a way, an homage to the days of Can-Am,
• 19:17
  where you could build what you wanted.
• 19:18
  You had Nissans, you had Corvettes, you had Audis, you had all sorts of stuff in
• 19:22
  TransAm, you know what you're describing.
• 19:23
  I wonder, when you look back, do you think this was the beginning of almost
• 19:27
  like balance of performance where they were trying to figure out a way to make
• 19:30
  the cars more competitive and more even?
• 19:32
  Well, I think it was.
• 19:33
  All the other manufacturers ganged up said, you know, this car is not fair.
• 19:38
  We can't compete against these cars.
• 19:40
  And we really had a great car, great engineers, and Joe Hopin
• 19:45
  was a master at politics.
• 19:47
  That's the way it was.
• 19:48
  And I think that combination between the other drivers, the other teams and
• 19:53
  the other manufacturers all ganged up.
• 19:56
  Tried to get the Saxon bodies to put, you know, restrictions on us,
• 20:00
  but as I said it, they made little difference in the performance.
• 20:03
  So talking about some of those tracks, some are still used today in the
• 20:07
  TransAm series and others not so much.
• 20:09
  Are there some memorable tracks, favorite laps or moments that stick out
• 20:13
  for you behind the wheel of the Audi?
• 20:15
  Well, you know, the Audi was so good both on the TransAm car and the GTO car.
• 20:22
  That regardless of what track you were on, it was like you just
• 20:26
  could screw with the other guys.
• 20:28
  You know, you couldn't run up alongside of them.
• 20:30
  Go on the outside, go on the inside and kinda wave as you went by and that
• 20:35
  would just piss everybody off big time.
• 20:36
  So I remember one time Joe had said to both Hans and myself, you know, the cars
• 20:43
  are good, but don't rub it in their nose.
• 20:45
  So, you know, that's what we had to do.
• 20:47
  But you know, as a racing driver, especially with Hans,
• 20:50
  Hans was really good at.
• 20:52
  Pissing everybody off and, you know, making fun of it.
• 20:55
  So it, it was two years of great, great fun and there's some video of people like
• 21:00
  Ook would just pass people in the dirt or the grass because the car could do that.
• 21:04
  So the rest of the guys are like, what is he doing?
• 21:06
  He just drove me around me in the dirt.
• 21:07
  And it's funny you bring that up because I remember distinctly
• 21:10
  watching one of the races.
• 21:12
  With my dad watching you, Hurley, Hans and Walter driving the cars and at one
• 21:16
  point vividly remember him saying, I think he just passed him in the grass.
• 21:21
  I mean, the kind of shenanigans that went down during the TransAm era was
• 21:24
  absolutely amazing during that time.
• 21:26
  And I remember watching archive footage and so I wanted to
• 21:29
  ask you what was the deal?
• 21:31
  With Hans antagonizing, the other drivers with the doll in the rear glass that
• 21:36
  would like, basically moon, everybody.
• 21:37
  Where did that come from?
• 21:40
  I'm, I'm afraid I don't remember that part.
• 21:43
  Han Hans was, uh, always really great at coming up with, you
• 21:47
  know, really weird things and.
• 21:49
  You know, kind of rub it into everybody's face.
• 21:51
  Like, we're so good.
• 21:52
  We don't even have to try hard.
• 21:53
  Walter's also part of this equation, and he's coming from World Rally Championship.
• 21:58
  You and Hans coming from road racing, everybody coming together, obviously under
• 22:02
  the auspices of the Volkswagen Audi group.
• 22:04
  What did you learn from each other?
• 22:05
  What did Walter teach you about driving an Audi and how did you share your
• 22:09
  knowledge with Walter about road racing?
• 22:11
  I don't think really that I had.
• 22:14
  Much to say about, about how to drive the cars with Walter.
• 22:18
  He was so good and he had a long history with Dowdy.
• 22:20
  You know, he helped us to get our heads around the trick to driving in an all
• 22:25
  wheel drive car was, you know, Walter was so good and he was very good at
• 22:31
  sharing knowledge where most drivers are not willing to share setups or
• 22:36
  you know, how you would drive this corner, how you would drive that corner.
• 22:39
  Walter was really good.
• 22:41
  And I can remember many times going to Walter and said, you know,
• 22:45
  what are you doing in this corner?
• 22:46
  What are you doing?
• 22:47
  And he would sit down and take a map and said, okay, this is what
• 22:50
  you do with the front wheel drive.
• 22:53
  All wheel drive.
• 22:54
  Especially with the viscous coupling.
• 22:56
  You couldn't do it from the cockpit, but you would come in and have the mechanics
• 23:00
  adjust the uh, front to rear grip, you know, the traction in those tires.
• 23:05
  That helped us a lot.
• 23:07
  We really work with that.
• 23:09
  Depending on the track, we would go to.
• 23:11
  He was really, really helpful for me and the engineer that I had was really
• 23:16
  good, so we, we had a good combination.
• 23:18
  I remember reviewing some of the file footage and it alluded to Hans especially,
• 23:23
  had to do a lot more left foot breaking, especially with the early TransAm card.
• 23:28
  Because of the amount of turbo lag from the single turbo that you guys
• 23:30
  had on there, did you find yourself also doing a lot more left foot
• 23:33
  breaking to keep it spooled up and get it to rotate and things like that?
• 23:37
  You know, I learned how to do that with the Can-Am car, the nine, 17, and 10.
• 23:41
  And if you got off the boost in, in those cars, you were just lost.
• 23:46
  Everybody would go by you because you had to be very careful with the timing.
• 23:50
  So you would come in, do your braking, you would sort of fan the throttle
• 23:54
  to keep the boost up and then.
• 23:56
  When you would attack the throttle, you had boost and you, you didn't
• 24:00
  have a big lag that sort of went away.
• 24:02
  When you got into traffic, you really had to play your cards
• 24:05
  right on timing and pick where your windows of opportunity would be.
• 24:10
  Same with the Audi.
• 24:11
  The Audi on the lag situation.
• 24:13
  It was not really that significant.
• 24:15
  So you would late break, get the car turn, and then the balance
• 24:19
  between the front and the rear.
• 24:21
  Was almost perfect.
• 24:22
  So you didn't have any over steer, you didn't have any under steer,
• 24:25
  you just had power to the ground and that was what really separated
• 24:29
  us from the rest of the guys.
• 24:31
  That wouldn't be the last time you drove with Hansuk and Walter Rural.
• 24:35
  And if we jump forward a little bit and then we'll do, we will dance back.
• 24:38
  You actually ran in 1993 with Hans and Walter at Lama and a nine 11 turbo.
• 24:44
  Was that part of this whole group 44 contract?
• 24:47
  How did that come to be?
• 24:48
  No, it didn't have anything to do with the contract with Group 44.
• 24:51
  It was like a prototype nine 11 that we raced at Daytona and Sebring.
• 24:57
  I think it was really fast.
• 25:00
  It was really a great car.
• 25:01
  And then we were also gonna race that car at Lamont with Struck myself and Walter.
• 25:09
  That was the race, if my memory's correct.
• 25:12
  Was the race that Walter retired after, you know?
• 25:16
  So that was the end of that program.
• 25:18
  That was a really cool car, really fast.
• 25:20
  Did you guys choose to drive together or was that pre-ordained?
• 25:24
  It was pre-ordained.
• 25:25
  They wanted an American, which was me and Walter of course, and Hans.
• 25:29
  Were great friends and, and fantastic drivers.
• 25:32
  And very fast.
• 25:33
  So we were kicking ass in Daytona and then we had a, I think Danny
• 25:37
  Sullivan drove with us at Daytona.
• 25:39
  There was four guys at the on the team at Daytona and mechanical failure.
• 25:44
  We were out of the race.
• 25:45
  We were leading at the time.
• 25:46
  The sound of the five cylinder turbos is legendary.
• 25:50
  I mean, they sound like dragons with their tails on fire.
• 25:53
  I mean, they're pretty raucous and fans love it.
• 25:55
  But what's it like from inside the car?
• 25:57
  The tailpipe sat halfway inside the cockpit and then would jump on the
• 26:04
  right side of the car, but you could definitely hear the chirping sound.
• 26:21
  That's what everybody loved.
• 26:23
  It would made a very distinctive sound as you would get off the power and
• 26:27
  then gradually get back on the power.
• 26:29
  It'd make that sort of fluttering sound.
• 26:31
  People just love that and, and very distinctive, and you could
• 26:35
  tell it long before the car got within sight with your eyes.
• 26:39
  So you just knew what the car was coming.
• 26:41
  Based on the sound, I wanna highlight a particular period in Audi's
• 26:45
  experimentation, which I believe you were involved in with Bobby Unser, and that's
• 26:49
  the infamous NASCAR Audi 200 trial, the all black version of the TransAm car that
• 26:55
  was taken to Talladega for a test run.
• 26:57
  Can you talk a little bit about the why, the what and what happened?
• 27:01
  Vaguely remember, remember that I think that Bobby was more involved with the
• 27:06
  Pikes Peak stuff, the Talladega run.
• 27:09
  That was kind of outside of my book, so I didn't really pay
• 27:12
  too much attention to that.
• 27:14
  But when we decided that we were gonna do this, Audi decided that
• 27:18
  we were gonna do it, and Joe Hopin backed it up in United States.
• 27:21
  When I went over and saw the kind of commitment that Audi was making to
• 27:25
  this program, both on the Trans AM and GTO side, I said, this is gonna be.
• 27:30
  Really, really good.
• 27:31
  Very successful.
• 27:33
  So the move from TransAm to IMSA makes sense.
• 27:36
  You guys came and did what you needed to do there and moved on
• 27:39
  to an unlimited class in GTO.
• 27:41
  How did the GTO chapter end, was it just outta sheer frustration or had
• 27:45
  Audi proven what they needed to with you and Hans behind the wheel of the
• 27:49
  GTO car, or was there something else that said, no, we're done racing here?
• 27:53
  They proved what they wanted to do.
• 27:55
  They wanted to.
• 27:56
  Make the all-wheel drive system something that people would look
• 28:00
  at and say, ma'am, that would be great in my car, my streetcar.
• 28:04
  And then I really don't know what the politics were.
• 28:07
  The decision was made.
• 28:08
  We had won the championship.
• 28:10
  Hans did a great job.
• 28:11
  I was a backup.
• 28:12
  And IMSA Joe called up and said, that's it.
• 28:16
  We're not coming back the next year.
• 28:17
  And I was like, Ugh, you're kidding.
• 28:20
  And I think.
• 28:20
  One of the reasons were politics on how dominant we were.
• 28:26
  All the other manufacturers were threatening, you know, we're not
• 28:28
  gonna compete against this car.
• 28:29
  We're not not gonna spend the money to compete against
• 28:32
  something that we just can't do.
• 28:34
  And their all wheel drive systems were so far advanced from anybody else's
• 28:39
  system that, you know, it would take the other guys a long time to catch up.
• 28:43
  And in that same breath of a season, you went and drove a
• 28:47
  Ferrari F 40 at the Glen and imsa.
• 28:49
  How did that.
• 28:50
  Pan out.
• 28:50
  Um, yours truly at the Ferrari Museum.
• 28:53
  I throw this in there for my own benefit, but I was the guy that had to
• 28:56
  go over there and homologate this car, Ferrari F 40, which is 1989, to run in
• 29:01
  GT racing, both in the US and Europe.
• 29:03
  So whenever I go back there, they always remind me, I did two cars with Ferrari,
• 29:07
  that one, and the 3 3 3 SP prototype.
• 29:09
  So this one sits in the Ferrari Museum.
• 29:11
  Hurley Haywood actually drove it.
• 29:13
  People don't realize Hurley Haywood drove Audis.
• 29:15
  He drove Porsches, he drove Ferrari, he drove Jaguars, he drove a lot of stuff.
• 29:18
  But he lives and breathes.
• 29:20
  Porsches great guy.
• 29:21
  Don't ask me.
• 29:22
  Team was from Italy and they brought fantastic food with him
• 29:26
  and we have these incredible luncheon, which they would cook.
• 29:29
  And you know, all the cars that I've driven, I've driven
• 29:32
  lots of different stuff.
• 29:34
  But that was really kind of a, a strange deal.
• 29:37
  I can't really remember what the conditions were that I had going.
• 29:42
  That allowed me to drive the Ferri in the first place.
• 29:45
  But it was so unique that everybody said, yeah, let Haywood try it.
• 29:50
  You know, see what he thinks.
• 29:52
  And let me tell you, it was a missile that was ready to explode anytime.
• 29:57
  So I don't think we really finished any race without a major problem.
• 30:03
  And because of the mystique of the F 40 and the sort of the emotion
• 30:08
  behind that card, behind the brand.
• 30:10
  It was sort of fun to be part of that, but from a racing
• 30:14
  standpoint, it was a real truck.
• 30:17
  You were kind of wishing to be back in the Audi at that point.
• 30:19
  I can imagine.
• 30:20
  Yeah.
• 30:20
  At that time there was a lot of things going on, and the struggle
• 30:24
  was real, especially with all the penalties that they were putting
• 30:26
  against and threats of banning and and everything against Audi at that point.
• 30:30
  But when you look back, do you feel a sense of responsibility for really
• 30:34
  representing a new era of technology?
• 30:37
  I mean, you were on the cutting edge.
• 30:39
  Racing across all disciplines outside of rally.
• 30:42
  It's like all wheel drive in racing.
• 30:44
  Look at this.
• 30:44
  I mean, obviously it had been experimented with before, but winning behind the wheel,
• 30:49
  as you said, it proved it didn't matter the conditions, it didn't matter the
• 30:51
  track, what they did to the car, but when you look back, what does that mean to you
• 30:55
  to have been behind the wheel of the Audi?
• 30:57
  You go through history, you look at cars that are really, really good cars that
• 31:02
  are really bad, and I have been really, really lucky in my career that I've always
• 31:06
  had the opportunity to drive great cars.
• 31:09
  Very seldom in my career have I driven a car that I didn't like most of the time.
• 31:14
  Those are with Porsches.
• 31:15
  You know, with the Audi deal, Porsche wasn't racing against us, so that was
• 31:20
  a cool thing to do in the interim.
• 31:22
  You know, if you look back at my racing career, I have always
• 31:26
  driven from manufacturers that had the unfair advantage.
• 31:29
  You know, look at Porsche's, everybody was.
• 31:32
  You know, looking at us with a nine 11, basically a nine 11 that was running
• 31:37
  against Corvettes and Mustangs and all those stars, and we were wiping them up.
• 31:41
  I mean, it was just like we wouldn't be too great at the beginning in
• 31:45
  qualifying, but by mid race, we'd caught up and pass all those guys.
• 31:49
  So I always had the ability to drive cars that were cutting edge cars.
• 31:56
  Look at all the Porsches that I've driven over the years.
• 31:58
  You know, the 9 62, 9 11 RSRs.
• 32:01
  I mean, all those cars were really, really fast and very, very advanced
• 32:07
  as far as the technology goes.
• 32:08
  Same with the, the Audi, a very short period of my raising career, but I was
• 32:14
  able to drive the latest technology and had it all work in my favor.
• 32:18
  So I was used to that.
• 32:20
  I was not an engineer.
• 32:22
  One of the things that Peter Greg taught me was drive the cars as
• 32:26
  fast as you can go, articulate what's going on to engineers and
• 32:31
  let the engineers figure it out.
• 32:33
  Don't you try to engineer the car?
• 32:35
  I was not an engineer and I've always maintained that.
• 32:37
  I'll drive the car, come in and tell the engineers what's going on and
• 32:41
  they can fix it, and then I'll go out.
• 32:43
  And if it works, fine.
• 32:45
  If it doesn't, I'll say that wrong direction.
• 32:47
  So if I have a good car underneath me, I'm gonna do well with it.
• 32:51
  If I have a bad car, which has not happened often, but you know, I'll drive
• 32:55
  it to its extent sometimes that's enough.
• 32:58
  Well, when we visited the LAMA chapter of your career.
• 33:01
  One of the questions we asked was, what did Lama teach you?
• 33:05
  And so I wanted to rephrase that to ask, what did the Audi teach you?
• 33:09
  What did it bring to your driving style that you carried with
• 33:12
  you to the rest of your racing?
• 33:14
  I don't think I could take what the Audi was doing with me driving it and translate
• 33:21
  that into any other car I've driven.
• 33:22
  All-wheel drive on a race car was something that only lasted for a very
• 33:28
  brief period of time, and then all the other manufacturers and sanctioned
• 33:32
  bodies banned four-wheel drive technology because it was so good.
• 33:36
  You kind of learn how to cope with the advantages and disadvantages of race cars
• 33:41
  that you're driven, and we learned how to maximize that four wheel drive technology.
• 33:46
  But when that technology was then banned worldwide, that was the end of that deal.
• 33:52
  Hurley in the last couple of years, there was an Audi Heritage video that came out
• 33:56
  where they brought out all the drivers and going back to the Silver Arrows days,
• 34:00
  and it was a very long retrospective and homage to Audi's racing legacy.
• 34:04
  And so I wanted to ask you, you know, if you could climb back in
• 34:08
  to one of your cars that you drove back then, either the TransAm or
• 34:11
  the GTO, how do you think revisiting that car today would feel for you?
• 34:16
  In the day that technology proved to be better than anybody else's.
• 34:21
  When you fast forward to current cars that are on today, you know it's a
• 34:25
  driver's responsibility to maximize the performance of any car that he's driving.
• 34:30
  Whether it's a sedan, streetcar on street tires, in a kind of vintage
• 34:35
  car racing scenario, you maximize.
• 34:38
  The limits of that car.
• 34:40
  You draw that line with a sharp pen or you draw it with a big crayon, it's
• 34:45
  your job getting close to that limit.
• 34:48
  And every car has a different limit.
• 34:50
  Every car has a different personality.
• 34:52
  You know?
• 34:52
  Yes, we were dominant in a TransAm and GTO, but other cars.
• 34:57
  Let's just fast forward to the 9, 9 3, the Penske car, that car.
• 35:01
  Is so good and the engineers behind that car are so good that a lot of times
• 35:08
  the competition just can't keep up.
• 35:10
  And they, they won the manufacturer's championship.
• 35:13
  They won the driver's championship, and the racing was really, really good.
• 35:17
  They're up against really good cars.
• 35:20
  Action Express Car, the Chevrolet, the Fords, all those cars.
• 35:24
  But Porsche has made these great cars.
• 35:27
  They've had great engineers and that line goes through all the cars.
• 35:31
  We, we didn't really race against any other Porsches in
• 35:34
  the TransAm and the IMSA days.
• 35:37
  They were all big block Detroit iron.
• 35:39
  That we were up against.
• 35:41
  So Porsche kind of sat back and said, okay, let's check this out.
• 35:45
  But they went more conventional side and the, and the conventional,
• 35:48
  like the 9 62 was brilliant.
• 35:50
  And that car's life span was really a long period of time.
• 35:54
  It was 10 years.
• 35:55
  I won the last major race in that car in 1991.
• 35:59
  And then they canceled that program and went with more GT based cars.
• 36:04
  So you mentioned earlier, I think the key word is.
• 36:06
  Dominance.
• 36:07
  They dominated in World Rally.
• 36:09
  They dominated in TransAm.
• 36:11
  They dominated in imsa.
• 36:12
  They went on to dominate at lama.
• 36:14
  Do you think Audi can dominate in Formula One?
• 36:17
  You know, that's a hard question.
• 36:19
  I don't know if they're going to just supply the engine.
• 36:23
  Or whether they're gonna supply the chassis.
• 36:25
  Formula One is a very difficult series to be in.
• 36:29
  You know, you really have, you have to have a truckload
• 36:32
  of money to make it all work.
• 36:33
  You know, the sanctioning bodies and the FIA and you know, all the people
• 36:37
  that are involved in Formula One is a hard nut to, uh, break into.
• 36:41
  So if Audi's willing to spend that money, then they will be successful and
• 36:46
  they've been successful in every racing endeavor that they've chosen to go into.
• 36:50
  And.
• 36:52
  We just have to see what happens.
• 36:53
  Well, Hurley, I gotta personally thank you for taking the time out and
• 36:58
  connecting my boyhood fantasies and and dreams and watching you on television
• 37:03
  with the reality of what was going on on the track with you behind the wheel.
• 37:07
  I mean, it's been an absolute honor to be able to interview you, but talk about such
• 37:11
  a. Influential time when I was coming up as a motor sport enthusiast and so this
• 37:16
  has been absolutely incredible to get your insight and your view on what it was
• 37:19
  like to be behind the wheel of the Audi.
• 37:21
  So I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
• 37:23
  My pleasure.
• 37:24
  Always have a good time talking to you.
• 37:26
  Thanks Harley.
• 37:27
  Bye.
• 37:27
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• 37:34
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