Schumi for a day – VSP driving guide for soft citizens
|
|
I’m a petrolhead. That is, I like fast cars and the idea of
me driving them, but champagne tastes and a beer income don’t give the
opportunity to be a regular racing driver. So like most enthusiasts I
spectate at circuits when I can, and watch all the F1 action from my
living room and dream on. I’ve got the fastest armchair in Jan Smuts avenue, tuned to perfection, balanced cushions and armrests. Nobody is as fast as I am. Then one day the spark-plug fairy decides to call my bluff and invites me to have a drive in a VSP – a proper full-blown sports racing car – at the VSP open day at Zwartkops circuit. Can this really be very much different to my Opel Astra, which features so often in the William Nicol Grand Prix? OK there’s no CD player (or roof or windows) but maybe I could learn to live with that. What an opportunity! Although I have followed the VSP series for a couple of years now, I have never so much as sat in one. So it wasn’t too smart of me to arrive late enough only to catch the tail-end of Neil Lobb’s (current championship leader) briefing for rookies “… so take the hairpin in first, or second if you like, and don’t forget guys, at 5000 revs change gear. OK that about covers it. Enjoy yourselves.” Erm, OK. I had come armed with some incisive technical questions like ‘which side is the gear-stick?’ but sheepishly decided to keep all that to myself, and try and learn by observation and osmosis. I expect that’s just how Michael Schumacher got it all so well taped. Some of the early participants went blasting round the track at a pretty hectic pace. I was relieved to find that most of them were current racers checking out a possible switch to VSP next year. This was important. I mean, me and my chums, who also turned up to have a go just to see what it felt like, knew we weren’t going to impress any one. That didn’t mean that we wanted to go home in a ‘Dumbo of the day’ T-shirt either. But we’d never be that quick. We had three priorities. 1) Stay on the track, 2) don’t crash into anyone else, 3) complete a lap in under 5 minutes, (a racing lap time is about 65 seconds) 4) try to avoid creating any explosive noises from the gearbox. From an outside viewpoint, the impression was that the cars might be very unforgiving to drive and would punish the ineptitude of first timers like us. To put a complete beginner in front of a competition tuned Nissan V6 3.5litre engine with a couple of hundred brake horse power, easily capable of attaining 100kph+ in first gear alone, potentially has all the ingredients of a major cock-up. No-one was more aware of that than the beginners themselves. We were all paying attention. We had helpful tutors in the VSP drivers themselves, who had put their cars on the line so that people like me could have a taste of proper driving. It was a serious act of faith by the VSP racing fraternity to put their precious wheels at the disposal of us novices, so we could share a glimpse of their weekend addiction. Thank you all for making this possible; it was an incredible effort. In borrowed helmet, gloves and overalls (three more people for the Christmas card list) I stepped gingerly into the slimline cockpit. A good snug fit, everything fell easily to hand. I ran a quick dry-practice to locate gears. Pedal box area is narrow, with no room for flapping feet; my comfortable squidgy training shoes are too clumsy in here. I can see why driving boots are essential in this environment. Make mental note not try any boy-racer toe-heel change downs, and to avoid heading directly into ‘kitty-litter’ whilst standing on my own feet instead of the brake pedal. Ignition and master switch on; jab thumb into start button. Engine bursts obediently into life, and quick squeeze of throttle brings forth glorious roar from behind my head. Pump clutch pedal twice as instructed by my pit-lane buddy-tutor and engage first gear. It seems like it really clunks harshly into gear – oops - but everyone is smiling with thumbs up, so that must be normal. Squeeze the throttle harder; bring up the clutch pedal and away we go. I decide not to overdo the throttle until I have had a chance to get used to the power, and so drive out of the pits a little too tentatively. I can feel the direct drive to the rear ‘live’ axle’ lurching and pushing the car, so I squeeze in a bit more gas and get smooth power. Beginner’s nerves are quickly forgotten, replaced by a series of sensations which are all positive. This thing seriously keeps your attention. First pleasant surprise is that, though this car obviously has grunt, the power band is controllable even for a novice. Anyone standing outside the hairpin watching my first approach towards it would have a good snigger at that remark. It must have been obvious that the car arrived slightly ahead of my brain, requiring some hasty braking and changing down to make sure that I didn’t violate priority 1 (stated earlier). The steering is very positive and gets better the faster you go. The gear change, which I had feared would be difficult and unforgiving, is very smooth and precise with a very definite action. It becomes apparent quite soon that these cars like to be driven. Even for a first timer, the response from the car is much more rewarding if you shove it positively into gear and floor the throttle. If you are not regularly involved in competitive driving what quickly becomes apparent, once inside a serious machine like a VSP, is how hard your brain and reactions are scrambling to keep up with the progress the horizon is making towards you. Corners arrive several seconds ahead of schedule in the early laps. For a novice like me the difficulty is that you don’t really have even a vague idea of where the limits might be, and you are wary of pushing too hard in case you find out! The temptation is that these cars are seriously great fun to drive (even badly!) so you really want to push a little harder as the experience develops (you know, like a whole 3 laps under my belt, ahem). Coming out of the hairpin at Zwartkops you could just let rip up through the gears accelerating into the straight and then into the sweeping right-hander up the hill towards the clubhouse. Notice I said ‘let rip’. People watching from the pit-counter probably wondered when I was going to get out of second gear, or why I was left-foot braking going down the straight. Fact is, the sensation of speed compared to a normal road-car is just a different order of magnitude, and it is easy to believe that you are achieving heroic velocities. This notion is crushingly dispelled as two experienced racers ‘bounce’ you on the way into a corner you’re sure is at the outer limits of grip. It feels like speed levels are reached at an incredibly quick rate, making you grateful for seat belts that seemed too tight in the pits, but now are the only things keeping your teeth out of the steering wheel, under braking at the end of each straight. Even at this tentative taster level you begin to appreciate that this could get seriously addictive. In the handful of laps I completed (5 or 6 I think) I twice had that ‘sweet spot’ sensation, when I probably did something just right for about 2 seconds and it felt really exhilarating. Whilst it was serious, it was also extreme fun. If you get a chance, take a drive in one of these VSPs. If nothing else, it will show you that the guys who do this regularly have a very decent level of talent, and obviously have much more powerful armchairs than I do at home. I don’t care if I looked slow. I don’t care that the TVR Chimera taking people round for circuit rides was faster than me (they were just passengers). I don’t care that next years race-experienced trial-buyers scorched past me, just at the point where I thought I was going so seriously fast I could name my own multi-million dollar pay packet for next year. I want another go. Now. David Appleyard |