I guess what you think. SLK — far from the best car for sorties to a racing track. Of course, in this respect you are right. But, even despite my own skepticism, I decided to check what our 350th is capable of, and one of the Evo racing weeks at the Bedford Avtrodrome was perfect for these plans.
At the moment, when I arrived on the highway, it was already pretty wet by the recently rain. It was very helpful-I had long wanted to get acquainted with MERC habits on a wet coating, but the opportunity was somehow not provided. I definitely extracted conclusions from new experience. The main conclusion is this: if on the dry coating of the pirelli p zero tires, they pleased with a brilliant clutch, then on a wet asphalt they already allow themselves to dilute the stern of an elegant relatives in a ski, but they do it very easily and absolutely controlled. At a racing pace, they still hold on to the road, but if you attack a little harder, and also turn on the Sport mode, then the car will pass the nearest turning in spectacular sliding. Proper work with a lever gearbox helps to make this sliding even more beautiful. For a boring effect, you can lower the roof, which we did.
As it turned out later, this window dressing is not as harmless as it seems at first glance. Even modest experiments and amateur performances on wet asphalt show that an inattention second can be very expensive. Fortunately, when such moments arose, the emergency electronic systems Mercedes came to our aid (so do not turn off ESP). The ESP system must be used precisely because of the nature of the 350th on the slippery coating, since in other modes it is absolutely safe, and the management of control from control will most likely arise-after a good rain.
Although the 7G-Tronic transmission on an ordinary road “does not differ in mind and quick wit”, on the track at a very high pace, it showed herself very worthy. Since the track is often and sharply slowed down, you need a quick shift to lower gear, so as not to lose traction. And there are no problems with this — the “automatic” does not jump from the transmission to the transmission in corners, there are no sharp shocks on switching — in general, all the criteria that can change the trajectory in the bend are taken into account. Due to this, the car is felt stably controlled. Thanks to the coordinated work of the box, you can completely focus on the steering wheel, hold it with both hands. And at the same time, the transmission allows you to twist the motor in each of the gears to the red zone. For «Automat» in Mercedes brand machines without AMG prefix, this is a serious achievement.
Throughout the session of the races on the Avtodroy, the programs switched very «tenderly», but at the same time quickly. The box gripped only once on Palmer Curves, which is why we went over too wide. In other cases, the car behaved very confident in all areas, the 350th pace set very high. Tracted 3. The 5-liter V6 in 306 forces twisted the speedometer arrow up to 220 km/h in the straight line before turning GT-the same amount Impreza STI showed by Peter Tomalin a couple of months ago-but at the end of the clutch of the SLK tires it was not enough and it was not necessary to drop the speed, otherwise We would end a turn outside the track.