Tuesday 14th October 2014
Hillclimb school in a Golf R
Hillclimbing in a hot hatch?
Hillclimbing in a hot hatch? PH goes back to school at Harewood and competes at Shelsley Walsh
Timing strut attached, stickers on; let's hillclimb!
The chosen branch of motorsport for this caper is hillclimbing for three good reasons. First off, this writer gets dizzy going round the supermarket, never mind a circuit. Secondly, hillclimbing is affordable and accessible, so almost anyone can replicate our experience. Lastly but perhaps most importantly, hillclimbing is a lot like driving on your favourite stretch of road but without others to worry about, so is quite a real-world test.Back to the start
Our chosen hillclimbs offer two extremes of this gentlemanly sport in the form of Shelsley Walsh and Harewood. Shelsley is the oldest working motorsport venue in the world and is very much about power as there are only really two proper corners along its course. Alternatively, Harewood is all about corners and how they flow from one to the next, so getting it right here is down to handling and grip.
This should be something very much in the Golf R's favour thanks to four-wheel drive courtesy of VW's latest fifth-generation Haldex 4Motion system. Throw in 300hp from the 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine and a six-speed manual gearbox, and you have an ideal hillclimb spec.
We could have chosen the quicker DSG-equipped Golf R, but a manual allows the driver full control of gear selection on a hillclimb rather than risk waiting for the car to decide to change down as you enter a corner.
Run what ya brung
There is a reason for the odd wheels...
Our first trial for the Golf R was a 350-mile drive to Shelsley Walsh, which it knocked off in refined style. It even managed decent fuel economy when cruising in Eco mode.
This was soon forgotten with the car warming up for the first practice on Saturday morning. Then it was ESP off, traction control off and into the selectable Race mode. Shelsley has an endearingly shambolic selection process for Saturday practice where it's first come first served for the running order. Being even more shambolic, teammate David and I found ourselves running quite far back in the day. Even so, we managed two practice runs and both showed improvements in times.
Much of my improvement came from getting the Golf R off the line much more cleanly than David. Where he suffered from the engine bogging down and limiting its rev ceiling, I was able to catch the revs before they sank back to the car's preferred default limit after an initial burst of revs.
Impressive start
The result was a best start of 2.33 seconds for the first 64 feet, which is a key marker in hillclimbing as two seconds to 64 feet means the car is pulling 1g of acceleration. To put the Golf R's performance into context, it was only 0.2 seconds slower than Tony Bunker's Nissan GT-R, which was running on super-soft Toyo tyres and the Golf was on standard road rubber.
Diverse line up waiting for the hill
It's worth mentioning we did run with 19-inch wheels on the front as they have a softer rubber compound than the 18-inch wheels the Golf R comes with as standard. Did it give us an edge? Not really and it would be nigh on impossible to measure, but it's always worth trying. We did tweak the tyre pressures though, to get the best from the standard set-up. All we did was drop the pressures a little at the front to get the most grip and upped them at the back to help the rear move around a little more to improve turn in. Obviously they were put back to factory to drive on the road!Off the line and up through Kennel and Crossing, the Golf felt composed and quick, with a very slight lift off the throttle required for Crossing. Then it was all about choosing the right braking point into the Bottom S. For once, I got a good line sorted and carried the speed into Top S and on to Main Straight and across the finish line.
Each run was quicker than the last and ended up with a 36.17 second competition run. Not quite into the 35s where I was aiming but a personal best and the Golf R had proved it was quick in a straight line, even if the brakes miss a little sensitivity when slowing.
Yorkshire grit
A couple of weeks later, the Golf R's second test was Harewood, which has 10 corners to Shelsley's two and you only need second and third gears at Harewood where Shelsley has the Golf revving hard in fourth.
64ft time indicator of a good start
Our visit was for one of the excellent Harewood Driving School days, which cost £175 for a day's tuition, driving and video souvenir. The day starts with walking the course with your instructor, who explains the lines and provides plenty of tips about getting it right.From there, your first run is with the instructor to put theory into practice, and there are cones to mark out entry, apex and entry points. At Harewood, there are a lot of late turn-ins, so paying attention pays dividends. After that, it's practice runs in running order, which means about three runs before lunch.
With a bit of nutritional ballast on board, the afternoon offers a quicker turnaround of runs, helped by Harewood being one of the few hillclimbs where you don't have to use the track to return to the paddock. The real difference is the marker cones have been removed, so it's all down to you.
The Golf R began to shine at Harewood in a way it didn't at Shelsley. Four-wheel drive and easy to predict slight understeer made it simple to place the car and use all of the track to its benefit. Even the brakes seemed more progressive and in tune.
Be brave Al, be brave!
While the R's 5mm lower suspension than a Golf GTI's might not make much difference in most circumstances, the R certainly felt roll-free for a road car. Its steering too was more suited to Harewood than Shelsley, with a quick turn-in and a front end less prone to running wide.All of those corners meant more stirring of the gear lever, but the Golf R has an accurate shift that never refused to slot home, even during the less than sympathetic changes of a committed competition run. By the end of the day, I was a lot hotter than the Golf but was rewarded with top prize for most determined driver of the day.
So, two very different tests for the Volkswagen Golf R and it passed both with flying colours. Perhaps most telling of all is how easily the Golf R slipped from road car into hillclimber and back, fully earning its R for Racing moniker.