Test drove the new RS7 Performance at Daytona International Speedway Gallery

It'll be very difficult to top this single lap at Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway in the new Audi USA 605-ponies #RS7 Performance. I have no idea how our friend Mark Dahncke at Audi managed to pull it off but we were the only folks that actually got to drive a hot lap (and by hot I meant pretty "warm" – that I'm aware of).

Aside from being super-exclusive — what made this drive so unique? Well, we initially thought this would be a lead follow or more or less a parade lap. On the contrary, instead of driving at moderate speed, we sped out of pit lane at 75+mph — no lead car and no one behind us. There wasn't a practice, let's get to know all the turns or try out the two long 31° banking in the turn after the horseshoe and 18° banking at the start/finish line.

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Luckily, I had an awesome drive partner Chris Walton from MotorTrend to be my coach and navigator.

One lap around the track was all I needed to appreciate and utmost respect for the athletes in the 24 Hours of Daytona race taking place tomorrow. It takes physical and mental power combined with big cahoona the size of Texas to drive on the banks at 180mph (we did it at 125-165mph this afternoon). Imagine all that plus factor in dealing with 59 other cars in five different racing classes!

Each driver will do 1, 2 or 3 stints and each stint last an hour before switching driver. These guys are so good at what they do, there's literally roughly three-tenth of a second between first, second and third place!

Anyways, this post is getting too long – stay tune for my first-drive impressions of the new S8 Plus and RS7 Performance (next week) as well as my coverage of Rolex 24 at Daytona race tomorrow. slashgear.com/audi