Audi sets a new record

Audi engineer Uwe Bleck repeated a feat that only rally driver Harald Demuth had achieved before him. Demuth had climbed the Pitkävuori ski jump in Kaipola, Finland in a Audi 100 CS Quattro. He set a record that had stood until Bleck got behind the wheel to mark Audi's "25 years of quattro" anniversary.

The ski jump, which is located around 300 kilometres north of Helsinki, had been closed down in 1994. Repair work started three weeks before the actual start of filming in January this year.

Keeping the car in the steeply angled position at the top of the jump is rather less than easy. As soon as it stopped it would immediately slide back down again. The A6 therefore had to be "held on to" at the top. To solve the problem, an ingenious "roll-back safety device" was fixed to the ski jump and to the bottom of the car.

This was fitted with three independent systems comprising an electromechanical brake circuit and two mechanical brakes (a rope clamp and two symmetrically positioned arrester hooks). The entire system was located on a steel baseplate and weighed around 65 kilograms. This "sled" was installed to the underbody of the Audi A6.

The Audi A6 4.2 quattro with 6-speed tiptronic that drove up the ski jump was otherwise a perfectly normal production version. Two minor exceptions: the automatic transmission was kept in first gear - the slight power loss that occurs when changing gear would have made it impossible to climb such a steep gradient - and the tyres' six-millimetre spikes. Tyres of this kind are also used in rallying.

The first two attempts were made using 2.5 millimetre spikes on the tyres. These tyres are approved for road traffic in Scandinavia and are just as common there as winter tyres are in Germany.

The first attempt ended after a good half the distance. The wheels had already started to spin at the start because too much snow had accumulated on the takeoff platform.

On its second attempt, the A6 managed to climb almost two thirds of the jump. No mean achievement considering that it was fitted with commercially available tyres. The decision was then taken to switch to tyres with six-millimetre-long rally spikes.

In first gear, at 4 200 revs per minute and at about 60 kilometres per hour, the A6 storms up the 80% gradient.