Content > Masa's Audi A3

Building content for the renewed carfreaks site is an interesting challenge. So much to say, yet so few words come to mind right now. Let’s get started regardless.

It’s supposed to be the middle of the winter now in Finland, yet it would be next to impossible to guess that from the weather so far. Global warming 1 – Finnish winter 0. As this year winter fun on the snowy countryside roads has been something to just dream about so far, let’s take a short look at the past instead.

Up until the summer of 2005, I would have hardly called myself a carfreak. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ve been interested in cars for as long as I can remember, and I most certainly am not (and never have been) one those to whom a car is nothing else than a means of transportation. My previous ride was a ’00 E46 BMW 323i, and as visible in my profile, the current ride is a ’05 Audi A3 Sportback 2.0T quattro. Although very different in many aspects, both are well built quality cars. Sportish – yet elegant and smooth in their own ways.

So what happened back in 2005? All it took was a couple days during a roadtrip in Europe. A couple days spent at the Nürburgring to be precise. And a few tourist laps of the Nordscheife to be even more exact. I can still remember the first lap quite vividly, and propably will for a very long time to come.

It had started to rain shortly before we arrived at the Ring. Being limited in our visit to only two days, and with no guarantee of the weather getting any better, it was time to hit the track almost straight away – regardless of the weather. To make the atmosphere a bit more interesting, if even possible, just prior to our arrival a friend (and fellow ‘freak) had had an accident at the track. Not the best of circumstances for one’s first lap, eh? Oh – did I remember to mention that I had no experience what so ever on driving on any track prior to this? GT4 on a PS2 does not count!

Needless to say, the first lap was slow. And terrifying. And at the same time absolutely amazing. It must have taken me close to, or maybe even above 12 minutes for the first lap, but that wasn’t the point. At that moment I was sold, most likely for life. I had time for a couple more laps during the visit, and once we had to leave, atleast one thing was very clear – I *would* be back.

Except for a couple quick local track days, not much more happened during 2005 – the winter came quite quickly. 2006 on the other hand was quite a year, both in terms of car modifications and driver experience. But more on those a bit later..