Driving at high speed around a race track requires an altogether different level of concentration, to the extent that I can often not remember anything about a race other than what happened immediately around me. Focus is everything. Without it, you simply do not go fast. Drivers call it their "groove". Once you have managed to line your brain up for the race, you are in your groove.
This is important, especially in places like Turn 4 at Killarney, also known as Malmsbury Sweep. It's a scary place. On paper it looks fairly benign. It's a long sweeping right hander with a double apex. Get your turn-in right, hit the first apex and you should be able to hit the second apex dead on without moving the steering wheel at all. So what's the problem? It's the exit that is the issue. A lapse of concentration at the start of the corner with be punished at the exit. If you overcook the entry and spin off around the first apex you are ok as there is plenty of speed arresting, mole hill studded sand to stop you pretty smartly. You are also still fairly ok if you come off around the second apex. The real trouble is if you manage to make the first and second apex, but then lose it on the exit, which is more common. You see, the exit to Malmsbury is also where the tunnel under the track is located. This necessitates a narrowing of the run off areas and essentially creates a funnel of tyre walls leading onto the back straight. Your chances of hitting something unforgiving on either side of the track is exceptionally high if you muck up the exit.
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| Malmsbury Sweep with the "funnel" effect at the exit |
To make matters worse, the sweeping nature of the corner makes Malmsbury the fastest corner on the track. I usually enter the corner at around 140km/h and exit at around 165km/h. History is speckled with bum puckering crashes at Malmsbury. Bottom line is, you treat turn 4 with the utmost respect and you concentrate hard.
Which is what I neglected to do during the Saturday practice before race weekend. Reality has this habit of stepping in with it's swift sobering slap when you start getting cocky. I was starting to get cocky, drifting the car out of corners, squirming it into corners, it was feeling good. I thought I was getting the track nailed. So it should have been no surprise. I cut into turn 4 right on the limit, clipped the first apex fractionally late. The meant a little correction for the second apex which upset the car slightly. No matter, second apex clipped and fully onto the loud pedal. A glance at the speedo showed 168km/h. The tail was feeling a little loose, but that was ok, there is a little bit of curb to run up on at the exit. Problem is that the little bit of curb runs out soon after the exit. I ran up the curb with the rear of the car and then the curb ran out. After that there just sand, which offers not grip. The tail twitched left, which I instinctively corrected for. Mistake number one. By the time I had corrected for the rear wheel that had been on the sand, it was back on the tar. My not-required correction caused the tail to swing out right, again I corrected. Mistake number two. I over corrected. The car did a complete 360 at around 160km/h. Things happen very fast at that speed, but thankfully my skid pan training come into play and I had my foot on the clutch as the spin started. I ended up facing down the back straight directly in the middle of the funnel. The car was still moving, so I hooked third and shot off down the track. By the time I rounded turn 5 and headed into pit lane the adrenalin kick was in full swing. I could taste metal.
I pulled up in the pit and climbed out. Thankfully it was a quiet day and there were few spectators. Steve wandered over as I clung to the garage support wondering why my legs were so wobbly. He'd been working on his car in his garage and had heard the commotion. "Enjoy your spin" he asked, "I was waiting for the bang" he added encouragingly. Craig, who had come to spectate the day, also wandered up. He was blissfully unaware of the action as he had been on the main straight side of the track. We went over to take a look at the tyre marks. The rear of the car had missed the right hand side tyre wall by less than a metre! Talk about guardian angels!
So it was with this reality slap fresh in my mind that I packed my car ready for race day early on Saturday morning. The fact that is was pouring with rain and that I had a sinus headache from hell did not help my mood. Anyway, the forecast was for clearing showers and we were racing at midday so it should be fine. I donned my helmet and set off for the track.
Luckily I managed to skirt around the edge of the rain clouds and arrived mostly dry if somewhat frozen. Open top sports cars in Cape Town winter are a blast. It was around 8am and most folks were conspicuous by their absence. Louis was busy unloading his Lola T212 as was Godfrey, but there were few other Sports & GT folk around. I headed off to scrutineer. By the time I arrived back at the pit, Paul and his GT40 had arrived. He unpacked his massive set of wet tyres. We discussed the weather for a bit when the heavens opened and rain pelted down. We went off in search of coffee. Qualifying was at 9:30am and slowly the S> crowd filled out. The rain had stopped, but the track was still very wet. Craig arrived minutes before we were due to go out in his Type 5 sporting a shiny new body and colour scheme. A trip to the weigh bridge will reveal a 30kg weight saving over his old body, dropping his car just under the 700kg point. He scuttled off to scrutineer as we lined up. I opted for a slot near the back since I only had semi slick tyres for my car. Semi's are basically slightly harder compound slick tyres with shallow groves cut into them. The groves are mostly cosmetic and, at best, a mere nod towards wet usage. It was a good call. I tip toed around the track. With 390Nm on tap low down the curve it was ridiculously easy to step the rear out in the corners. Coming down the main straight I was treated to a fine pirouette by Paul's GT40 as he did a 720 into turn 1. It was hardly qualifying with virtually everyone having some kind of "excitement" during the session.
Back in the pits Craig set about tracking down the source of a top end misfire as I nursed my worsening headache. He quickly diagnosed a faultily ignitor and we headed to the clubhouse for the ritualistic egg and bacon roll. We only raced at 12:00 pm so had some time to kill. The weather taunted drivers as the rain and sun fought for supremacy. Wheels where swapped and swapped again until eventually around 11:30 the sun came out to stay. The track was drying and lap times were coming down. We were in for a decent race after all.
Our race was finally called and we rolled out to form up on the holding grid. I caused a bit of chaos by parking up in the wrong slot forcing Paul to take my slot two places up. I could have sworn I was in the right place. Anyway, we quickly sorted out the placings once on the track and duly lined up for the rolling start. The lights went out and the race was on. Although my brain appeared to have other ideas. My headache, which I was later to discover was the start of a bout of flu, was seriously impeding my ability to concentrate. I have already eluded to the importance of being able to concentrate during a race. It quickly became apparently that I was not really in the race at all. Try as I might I was unable to break the 1:30 barrier. Brake makers were off and lines were all over the place. I was scarcely able to hold off the two class E cars and the end of the race could not come quickly enough. It was not enjoyable at all. My average lap time was a full ten seconds slower than my best ever time. Not an ideal result.
Back in the garages I commiserated with Paul. I had managed to beat Paul in the end, but only because he had run out of petrol. Craig, on the other hand, had come perilously close to lapping me and had taken the win in Class D. Theories where presented covering all possible excuses for my lacklustre performance, but in the end it was simple. My mojo was missing. Ah well, we had a couple of hours until the next race, maybe lunch would bring it back.
It didn't. Race two was a factionally faster version of race 1 with me clocking a best lap in the 1:27's. Not exactly stellar. We were not amused. By this time my throbbing head coupled with my dire performance had eroded any vestiges of the fun factor for the day. Not even my chance second placing in Class D could lift the day. I do prefer to achieve results by skill rather than other's mechanical misfortune. Both Hennie and Steve had suffered punctures resulting in them only completing once race each.
It was time to call it quits so I packed up my goodies, bid the others farewell and headed home.
Sunday morning brought a gloriously sunny day and shone a good deal of light on the events of the previous day. I had full blown flu and felt like somebody had stuffed my head with cotton wool while I was asleep. Chats with other drivers yielded sage nods and stories of similar illness induced concentration lapses.
It just goes to show how important a fit mind and body is to any sport that requires a high degree of concentration. There is a lesson in that for sure.
Sadly, also due to a lapse in concentration, I forgot to charge the camera so there is thankfully no video of me driving Miss Daisy around the track.
We race again on the 7th of July. I seriously plan to be back on form by then and ready to kick some Harper butt!
Luckily I managed to skirt around the edge of the rain clouds and arrived mostly dry if somewhat frozen. Open top sports cars in Cape Town winter are a blast. It was around 8am and most folks were conspicuous by their absence. Louis was busy unloading his Lola T212 as was Godfrey, but there were few other Sports & GT folk around. I headed off to scrutineer. By the time I arrived back at the pit, Paul and his GT40 had arrived. He unpacked his massive set of wet tyres. We discussed the weather for a bit when the heavens opened and rain pelted down. We went off in search of coffee. Qualifying was at 9:30am and slowly the S> crowd filled out. The rain had stopped, but the track was still very wet. Craig arrived minutes before we were due to go out in his Type 5 sporting a shiny new body and colour scheme. A trip to the weigh bridge will reveal a 30kg weight saving over his old body, dropping his car just under the 700kg point. He scuttled off to scrutineer as we lined up. I opted for a slot near the back since I only had semi slick tyres for my car. Semi's are basically slightly harder compound slick tyres with shallow groves cut into them. The groves are mostly cosmetic and, at best, a mere nod towards wet usage. It was a good call. I tip toed around the track. With 390Nm on tap low down the curve it was ridiculously easy to step the rear out in the corners. Coming down the main straight I was treated to a fine pirouette by Paul's GT40 as he did a 720 into turn 1. It was hardly qualifying with virtually everyone having some kind of "excitement" during the session.
Back in the pits Craig set about tracking down the source of a top end misfire as I nursed my worsening headache. He quickly diagnosed a faultily ignitor and we headed to the clubhouse for the ritualistic egg and bacon roll. We only raced at 12:00 pm so had some time to kill. The weather taunted drivers as the rain and sun fought for supremacy. Wheels where swapped and swapped again until eventually around 11:30 the sun came out to stay. The track was drying and lap times were coming down. We were in for a decent race after all.
Our race was finally called and we rolled out to form up on the holding grid. I caused a bit of chaos by parking up in the wrong slot forcing Paul to take my slot two places up. I could have sworn I was in the right place. Anyway, we quickly sorted out the placings once on the track and duly lined up for the rolling start. The lights went out and the race was on. Although my brain appeared to have other ideas. My headache, which I was later to discover was the start of a bout of flu, was seriously impeding my ability to concentrate. I have already eluded to the importance of being able to concentrate during a race. It quickly became apparently that I was not really in the race at all. Try as I might I was unable to break the 1:30 barrier. Brake makers were off and lines were all over the place. I was scarcely able to hold off the two class E cars and the end of the race could not come quickly enough. It was not enjoyable at all. My average lap time was a full ten seconds slower than my best ever time. Not an ideal result.
Back in the garages I commiserated with Paul. I had managed to beat Paul in the end, but only because he had run out of petrol. Craig, on the other hand, had come perilously close to lapping me and had taken the win in Class D. Theories where presented covering all possible excuses for my lacklustre performance, but in the end it was simple. My mojo was missing. Ah well, we had a couple of hours until the next race, maybe lunch would bring it back.
It didn't. Race two was a factionally faster version of race 1 with me clocking a best lap in the 1:27's. Not exactly stellar. We were not amused. By this time my throbbing head coupled with my dire performance had eroded any vestiges of the fun factor for the day. Not even my chance second placing in Class D could lift the day. I do prefer to achieve results by skill rather than other's mechanical misfortune. Both Hennie and Steve had suffered punctures resulting in them only completing once race each.
It was time to call it quits so I packed up my goodies, bid the others farewell and headed home.
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| A grumpy driver heading off into the sunset |
It just goes to show how important a fit mind and body is to any sport that requires a high degree of concentration. There is a lesson in that for sure.
Still, the Type 6 has contended and completed every race of the season so far, so while the driver might not have been holding up his end of the bargain, the car certainly was.
Sadly, also due to a lapse in concentration, I forgot to charge the camera so there is thankfully no video of me driving Miss Daisy around the track.
We race again on the 7th of July. I seriously plan to be back on form by then and ready to kick some Harper butt!
