Yahoo Autos 
Safe at Any Speed
At the 327-acre Consumer Reports Test Track in Colchester, Connecticut, it’s all about safety, reliability, convenience, economy, and comfort.
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We have seen worse driving before, but not very often. Heading into a long looping “S” curve, the man at the wheel of the Audi A7 accelerates toward the apex of the turn then, yanking the wheel hard into the turn, lifts off the gas and brakes. The result is predictable; with the tires squealing and the driver and passenger lurching hard to the left, the big sedan’s tail slides around and fishtails through the bend.
This, it seems, is precisely the effect the car’s driver, David Champion, Senior Director of Consumer Reports Auto Testing, has in mind. “With some cars the tail will swing all the way around and you’ll go off the road or hit something coming the other way,” he says.
Champion is accustomed to this kind of driving; his father was a tire engineer for Goodyear and he recalls going to test tracks in England as a boy and seeing the orange pylons flying everywhere.
He would have no such issues today; the Audi’s brakes and suspension enable Champion to keep the car moving in the intended direction and we continue motoring down the track looking for the next predicaments – skids, panic braking, and side to side careening – before turning back to the man’s garage. Anywhere else in the country — say, a highway or a back country road – this kind of driving would be discouraged if not illegal. But not here; for automotive designers, engineers, executives, and car buffs around the world this is hallowed ground, the 327-acre Consumer Reports Test Track in Colchester, Connecticut.
At first glance the track looks much like any other but unlike garden variety ovals this one isn’t intended to coax drivers to pulse-pounding levels of speed and high performance. Au contraire, it’s all about safety, reliability, convenience, economy, and comfort. “When we’re driving the track we don’t look for the best line through a curve,” said Champion. “We’re trying to drive the way the average driver might.”
In the process the British-born Champion and his colleagues — some twenty automotive engineers, technicians, and support staff — subject some four score cars and trucks each year to the kind of rigors most drivers would be well advised to avoid. By the time the evaluation process testing is over a vehicle will be subjected to at least 50 individual tests as well as thousands of miles of on-road driving.
Some of these criteria employ sophisticated electronic gear to measure economy, pre-crash systems, and power trains. Others are more subjective, reflecting an awareness of the real world you don’t get from digital instruments. Some cars, for instance, are ‘ten minute’ cars, said Champion, walking over to a Honda Civic in the garage. “After ten minutes the kids in the back seat will start squabbling because the side window sill is too high. All the kids can see is the interior, and they get bored.”
Far more desirable, from the kids’ perspective, at least, is the roomy Chrysler Town & Country. “The sill is much lower; the kids have far better visibility and they enjoy the ride more.”
Headlight testing showed that while Xenon lights were whiter than conventional headlights, they weren’t really an improvement. “They didn’t really light up farther down the road. And how you see down the road with low beams is more important than with high beams.”
