Unfair Advantage Podcast by Audi Club

Nish Pillai has become a notable expert on the RS 6 and the community around it. His Nogaro Blue Tribute has been on the cover of quattro Magazine, and he's an active leader on RS 6 owner group chats and Facebook Groups. We caught up with him to talk about the new RS 6 GT.

During Audi Club Nationals 2023 at Tail of the Dragon, we caught up with Charles Shackelford, the YouTuber known best as Humble Mechanic who was on location to take part in the event.

Freeman Thomas is best known in Audi circles as the designer behind the first-generation Audi TT. That car and its Bauhaus style simplicity influenced Audi design and that of the greater automotive industry for years to come. He also had a hand in cars like the Porsche 964, VW Concept 1, and stints at Ford and Chrysler before landing at his current role as partner in the rebirth of Meyers Manx. Freeman took a pause for a long chat on all of that, and of course we went super deep on the TT back story.

In the final podcast of our women takeover for the summer Q3_2023 issue of quattro Magazine, Lucy and Lia Block join Leanne Kopras and Mina Achorn to talk about rally from the perspective of a 16-year-old (Lia) and a mom (Lucy). They also chat about current projects including Lia's ur quattro restoration, Lucy's e-tron Sportback, Blockhouse Racing, American rally, taking on Pike's Peak and of course the 43 Institute that they've started to honor Ken Block.

Continuing in our women takeover series, Leanne Kopras catches up with Amie Palo to talk about her pursuit of drag-racing a forced induction R8, her move to upgrade to an R8 LMS GT4-based Build, plus being a woman and a mom in motorsport. Check out our feature about Amie in our Q3_2023 issue of quattro Magazine out in July 2023.

As a prominent European automotive parts distributor, FCP Euro is already a leader in the car parts business. That they're also a leader in employment diversity only makes them that much more impressive. Audi Club New Jersey's Louli Kourkounakis catches up with FCP's Nicole Batista, Andrea Penta and Christine Pfleckl (and also Nathan Brown) to catch up on FCP and also discuss the unique challenges of operating as a female in the often male-dominated automotive industry.

Erin Vogel is an Audi Club legacy. She started her performance driving hobby attending Audi Club Southern California High-Performance Driving Events (HPDEs) with her dad, and has quickly progressed from student, to instructor, to aspiring racecar driver. She's an example for ALL Audi Club North America members who may aspire to such a path, though she's especially relatable for women for whom she has made a conscious decision to help elevate. As part of the women's theme for the upcoming Q3_2023 issue of quattro Magazine, Audi Club staff members Leanne Kopras and Talia Pakkala catch up with Erin to cover all of that and more, plus things you might not expect such as airline perks and the relevance of band kids to racing.

When AJ Campo relocated from New York to North Carolina during the pandemic, she didn't really know anyone in her newly adopted home. Fortuitously, she'd meet Audi Club Carolinas' Jessica Ewing who approached Campo about her S3 at a cars and coffee. What resulted was a fast friendship, including trips to Tail of the Dragon, high-performance driver training, and further evolution for Campo as a driver and an enthusiast. Both are now in the leadership of Audi Club Carolinas, so they sat down to chat about AJ's Audi experience in that time, then cover various subjects from Audi Club Carolina's hosting of the Audi Club Nationals event at Tail of the Dragon this coming September, the offshoot sub-chapter Queens of quattro, and their own experience as women in the automotive space.

The upcoming Q3_2023 issue of quattro Magazine takes on a thematic focus on women members of Audi Club North America. Several key female members of the club have stepped in as hosts and guests of the Unfair Advantage Podcast. This is the first of that series, and it serves as the basis for a feature story about AJ and her experience in the pages of this summer's issue.

When George Achorn produced the latest issue of quattro Magazine with a heavy focus on electromobility, he thought he knew just about everything he needed to know. He's owned an e-tron since 2019. Even still, driving the new Q4 on the autobahn, the RS e-tron GT on Angeles Crest Highway, diving into the makings of Electrikhana with Hoonigan and real world experiences have opened his eyes to a lot. So what'd he learn and where does he stand? Listen and find out. It may surprise you.

When Marcus Holzinger revealed his new Elegend EL1, a modern and electric reinterpretation of the Audi Sport quattro, he turned a lot of heads. Initially, it was only going to be a promotional design to celebrate the 40th year of operation for Hote Design, a German design and modeling studio founded by his father who was a former designer at Audi. Hote had worked on the Sport quattro and many, many more Audis over the years, and the Sport quattro made for the perfect starting point for an idea that would eventually form to create a car company intent on reinterpeting iconic performance cars in a modern EV form. In October we visited the Hote studios and saw the car, which will be featured in the Q1_2023 issue of quattro Magazine. More recently, we caught up with Marcus to learn  about the Elegend project, his studio, his family history and more.

We recently got back from the North East RS 6 Treffen (@NERS6T) at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania where 37 RS 6 Avant came together for one incredible event, all of which is organized and put on by Ray Reyes. Ray's a regular contributor in the pages of quattro Magazine and a fixture in the Audi enthusiast community, specifically amongst RS 6 owners. In this interview we learned more about his background, his event, roll racing and his preference in unhealthy yet delectable fast food.

When we received an invite to attend the press launch of the new RS 3, Audi Club President Ryan Compton seemed like the perfect ringer. The launch would include track time, and Compton is an instructor in our High Performance Driving Education program. He's also got a pair of TT coupes, including a street version and track-prepped racecar with performance Haldex box. He's about as expert as it gets in Audi's transverse Haldex-based tech, so his assessment of the car was valuable to us. In this podcast, he covers a lot of ground talking about his impressions of the car, how well it does on track and actually drifting. 

Having spent much of his career at Microsoft working on the Forza driving video game franchise, Justin Osmer now owns and operates Turn-In Point Consulting, drives and RS 6 Avant and recently took that car and his automotive passion (and Avant) on a bucket list road trip covering the full length of Route 66 and then some. Justin covers a lot with us, from his passion, to his business, from driving sims and games to a deep dive on the trip itself. Listen along, and then catch a full feature on his trip in the Q3_2022 issue of quattro Magazine due to be published in the summer of 2022.

In the fall of 2021, Jeff Beyda and his sons flew to Burlington, VT to finalize a deal to purchase perhaps the last remaining works Audi quattro rally car from American rally legend John Buffum. The car had won the 1982 Rally Portugal at the hands of Michèle Mouton, then was sent to the USA later that season where Buffum logged Audi's first win at Pike's Peak and eventual rally championships in the USA. The car is now in Michigan with Maskus who is performing a sympathetic restoration. quattro Magazine on location in Burlington to cover it for a story in our upcoming Q2_2022 issue, and so we caught up with Beyda and Maskus to chat about the experience for a deeper dive about their process and of course the car.

New Jersey exotic car dealer and vintage Audi specialist Kevin Ginsberg talks about his own Audi enthusiast history, his former ownership of our Audi Club quattro Sweepstakes '85 "ur" quattro 20V, and multiple other subjects.

Over the summer we caught up via conference platform with Audi Sport and Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen for a chat about his biography "Mr. Le Mans". The book is as much about the man as it is about racing, which led to a conversation about documentaries like "Truth in 24" and the "F1 Drive to Survive" series by Netflix. We also got Tom's take on Le Mans 2023 and Audi's return.

"Mr. Le Mans" is published by Euro Publishing. It can be found here and possibly with autographed copies ( https://www.evropublishing.com/products/mr-le-mans-tom-kristensen) and can also be found on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Mans-Tom-Kristensen/dp/8797260304).

When a mysterious RS2 pops up for sale in South Florida with a VIN saying it's a 1.6-liter 80 front-wheel drive, importation expert and well connected man Jamie Orr and quattro Magazine Editor George Achorn do some sleuthing to get to the bottom of just what the car is.Think we can't get nerdy with background on the Audi RS2 Avant? Think again.

Aaron Plante enjoys raising eyebrows from his back-of-the-book Rear Spoiler column in quattro Magazine. For the upcoming Q2_2021 issue, he joins editor George Achorn and casts a critical eye at modern electric car naming practices, messing with engineering-based nomenclature, and the problem with too many prefixes and suffixes. The pair also look back at the history of e-tron concepts and products, and the significance of owning one of these cars.

By day, Ivan Shmatov is a designer at Audi Sport in Ingolstadt. He's worked on racecars like the R8 LMS GT3, R8 LMS GT2, and liveries for Audi racers in Formula E and Le Mans. In his free time, he's also @sell_porsche_to_buy_porsche on Instagram where he takes on commissioned jobs of sketching cars for enthusiast owners be they Audi, Porsche or whatever. quattro Magazine editor George Achorn catches up with Ivan to learn more about Ivan and both his roles as professional designer and enthusiast for an article in the upcoming Q2_2021 issue.

Following Monterey Car Week 2019, quattro Magazine editor George Achorn swung by 2Bennett Audimotive in Davis, CA to take a tour of their massive facility dedicated to the restoration, maintenance and augmentation of mainly vintage Audi models. This recording was waiting for the accompanying story in the pages of quattro, and that goes into circulation this week to member subscribers with our Q2_2020 issue.

quattro Magazine editor George Achorn and Audi Club events manager Bill Cho recount their experience on their e-tron Roadtrip as they return from Avantoberfest in Vermont and electrically motor back to home base. They chat roadtrip, Avantoberfest and go for a deep dive on day-to-day electric car ownership.

Apologies in advance. Since we were recording mobile from the e-tron, we were trying a new recording configuration. Bill Cho's microphone doesn't appear to have been working so we've tried to compensate by dialing up his portions of audio. Even still, we found the conversation to be valuable for those considering electric cars and so we wanted to make this available despite the low audio quality.

quattro Magazine editor George Achorn sat down with Audi Sport Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen for a chat at Audi Club Nationals 2019. The venue was the Smithsonian's Udvar Hazy Air & Space Museum in Dulles, VA and the conversation happened live in front of the assembled attendees of Audi Club's annual national event. Listen to the whole conversation here.

quattro Magazine editor George Achorn and Audi Club events manager and digital editor Bill Cho sit down to talk Monterey Car Week, walk through all of the events and tell you what not to miss for Audi enthusiasts. The chat begins from the start, and the focus on Monterey Car Week begins at about 12 minutes in.

We recently traveled to Montreal to attend the Eurokracy car show at the ICAR Mirabel faceility and caught up with Audi Club board member and Audi Club Canada whirlwind Gordon Varney to talk about the Canadian car scene, Eurokracy, other Canadian shows, the Audi Club Canada and also his own TT ALMS.

While on location at the New York Auto Show, we had a chance to go Facebook Live with Audi of America e-tron specialist Matt Mostafaei and talk a bit about the new Audi e-tron.

In this episode, quattro Magazine editor George Achorn walks the Audi show stand at the New York Auto Show with Anthony Garbis, Audi of America product planner for A4, S4, A5, S5, RS 5, Q5, SQ5 and R8.

In this third episode, Bill Cho catches up with George Achorn about his background in the Audi space, plus a look at the redesign of quattro Magazine and a preview of the upcoming Q2 2019 issue due out very soon.

quattro Magazine editor George Achorn and events manager Bill Cho head to Audi of America headquarters in Herndon, VA to catch up with Will Barber, current Audi of America liaison to Audi Club. In addition to his tenure at Audi working with the after-sales business, Will's professional past lives include editor of Fourtitude.com, VWvortex.com and also a stint at AWE Tuning.

Audi Club events manager Bill Cho sits down with quattro Magazine editor George Achorn to kick off the Unfair Advantage podcast and go over the vast mix of events in the USA and Canada for Audi enthusiasts over the upcoming 2019 event season.