For motorsport fans, this past weekend was an embarrassment of riches. Chief amongst them based on must-watch and preferred bucket list must-travel-to-at-some-point were the Pike’s Peak International Hillclimb (PPIHC) in Colorado and the 24 Hours of Nürburgring (N24). Both of these races inspired this week’s A.I. project.
FIRST THE ACTUAL HISTORY
Audi has a rich heritage in each, whether that’s with factory-backed efforts, customer teams or wholly independent enthusiast driven efforts. And while the two are markedly different -the first a a one-and-done hillclimb in rural America and the other is a 24-Hour endurance race in equally rural Germany, Pike’s Peak and Nürburgring share some wonderfully common qualities. For starters, they represent the most grueling challenges for race teams to overcome. Second, their remarkably open class structure means that even enthusiasts with a motivation to race a relatively home built car can take part.
Most of the Audi lore at Pike’s Peak centers around the brand’s outright wins in the 1980s. Primarily efforts by Audi Sport North America with significant support from Audi Sport proper, it wouldn’t be wholly inaccurate to consider those a “customer effort” whereby that customer was Audi USA. German staff and factory drivers were ringers of course, just like similar support in leading Audi Sport customer racing team efforts at Nürburgring in modern times.
Back in the 1980s and with Group B canceled, Audi Sport North America chief Jo Hoppen saw further promotional value in the then-obsolete yet highly expensive Audi Sport quattro S1 E2. Sure, those cars were racing when Michéle Mouton netted her victories at Pike’s Peak. However, the final two wins came after Group B ended. Even still, the S1 E2 marched on beyond its FIA homologation lifecycle in the less restrictive classes at Pike’s Peak.
NEXT THE AUDI R8 LMS PIKE’S PEAK
Maybe you see where I’m going with this experiment. The idea was to create further purpose for the R8 LMS. Like the Sport quattro S1 E2, the R8 LMS’ homologation days are numbered. No, the FIA GT3 class isn’t going away, but the R8 has already ended production. If or until there is an R8 successor, the clock is ticking on the current R8 LMS’ eligibility for races like Nürburgring.
Not so Pike’s Peak. You can run whatever you want providing you meet the class criteria.
Want to run gas? Sure.
Add turbochargers? Why not.
Hybrid? yup.
Full EV? That too.
So, I’ll leave just what drivetrain this experiment could run up to the imagination. However, what I wanted to create was a Pike’s Peak-specification R8 LMS. The A.I. image-generation engine queries then focused on creating an R8 LMS in all white on white in order to carry the theme of several of the former factory Pike’s Peak competitors – namely 1984 and 1987. It also had to be wider and with larger aerodynamic downforce aids than the standard car.
Interestingly, the Midjourney A.I. image generation tool used had no problem doing most of that. Where it fell short was making larger aerodynamic aids. Largely, this just required some post processing using Photoshop.
To do that, I kept things simple. Isolating the aero pieces like chin spoiler, side flicks and rear wing, I simply duplicated those elements and grew them in size. That was simple enough and it kept them looking cohesive with the car.
Integrated wider fenders were created by Midjourney. Final touches like cleaning up unnecessary or unrealistic details and adding correct logos, all weaknesses of Midjourney, were also done in post processing. Of course I used the anniversary tri-colore rhombus logo design given it harks the Pike’s Peak era.
So, what do you think? Should someone take the R8 LMS to Pike’s Peak? Should it be a V10 like the current car? Should Audi overhaul it to run an EV drivetrain? Should it be perhaps an experiment using the Temerario’s hybrid V8 biturbo powertrain? And… who should drive it?
If you want to see more work like this, make sure to give @4Rings.AI a follow over on Instagram, or check out our A.I.Imagined series on this website HERE.
PHOTO GALLERY
