Audi R8 V10 Road Trip: Splitting Hares on the E.T. Highway

It just appeared there at the outer reaches of the R8's LED brights. A half-second before, there was nothing but blackness. Then there was a half-ton of living beef just standing there, covered in black hair. Okay, we get it, those "open range" signs we'd been seeing back up the road started to make some sense. And the sign's silhouette of a prancing bull matches our cow's color, if not his demeanor.

After turning the wick down a little, we trundled along wide-eyed and quiet. Another 10 or so long miles pass before a towering deer appeared from the side of the road and leaped into the R8's path. Good GOD! A heavy does of Brembo brakes and a little steering angle allowed us to continue on without Ed receiving an impromtu lap dance from a not-bad-looking doe.

This is about when the rabbits arrived. And we don't mean just like a cute bunny or two. No, we mean, like an Old Testament-style plague of bunnies.They were everywhere, materializing on the road's shoulder, sometimes in packs, sometimes alone. All of them looked identical. "Dude, look at that pack of rabbits. Holy...," I exclaimed at one point as our headlights began carving the outlines of a pack of...no, a clump of brush on the road side. Ed did me the favor of not commenting on this. We just drove quietly until we saw the rabbit, buff-colored like all the rest in our headlights. It occurred odd to me at the time that our headlights stopped time and motion like a camera flash, the bunny-clone frozen, alert, in between our headlights. Then, "Thwack!" Oof. Trust us, our furry friend didn't feel a thing. And we can say that the Audi R8's front splitter works in ways it's not specifically intended to.

We left the remains in the grille as a warning to the others. And other than your standard-issue meat deposition and blood splattering, there was nothing at all wrong with the front end of the R8.Good work, Audi.

We decided to drive to Las Vegas -- where things are, you know, normal -- and stay for the night.