Where should I start?
Well, there I was, driving this Daewoo Lanos race car..... Eh? Daewoo Lanos did you say?
Anyway, some of you may be aware that there is a one-make race series called the Dve Challenge, using modified examples of the very humble Daewoo Lanos. Take a Lanos, strip out the interior, stitch in a hefty roll cage, screw in a grab-bag of Sparco race seat, tiller, and gearknob, fit an extremely loud, muffler-less side-exit exhaust, 300 pound springs all round, a riceboy carbon fibre cold air intake, gumball 15 inch Kumho sports tyres, and finally a particularly OTT "Silhouette 600R" bodykit.
And once you do all that, you have a Dve Lanos Challenge car. Well, that and 39kW at the wheels (about 55kW at the flywheel). You may have seen them grind around Wakefield on Speedweek, as SBS is televising most rounds of the series.
So what was I doing sitting in one on the grid at Wakefield Park, all belted up, waiting for the flag to fall? Yes, well, it is a long story, I'll get back into that....
Anyway, I was gatecrashing a friend's track day at Wakefield, as you do when you have just run-in your Integra Type R, and want to know how fast it goes. This friend is Louis Chan, who is one of the principals of the BEL Performance concern, but Louis is also "Action Man Louis Chan" who is one of the frontrunners of the Dve Challenge. It seems that the next season of the Dve Challenge is almost upon us, so the series promoter, ex-Supertourer driver Paul Pickett, was there with a small fleet of his Dve race cars for people to try. And there was also rumour that Paul would be letting the punters have a mock race, to entice new blood into the series, once they got a taste of the action.
So there I am, standing in the crowd in the pits, as Paul gives us all his little spiel about the series and how much fun it is for the paltry entry price, brilliant formula for first time racers, easy to drive, but challenging to get the most out of, televised series, yada, yada, yada....
So, he says. Who wants to have a go?
Silence.
More dead silence. Then a single hand rises out of the crowd.
"I'll drive that oil tanker."
Well, I didn't quite say that, but I had this whole Mad Max 2 thing happening in my mind at that point....yes, I psyche myself up in funny ways.
And the next thing I knew, I was being belted up, and heading out onto the track for the warm-up lap. The funny thing is that the Lanos has got the whole racecar-thing going; the bare interior booms terribly from the loud, farty exhaust, the race bucket is bolted to the floor so that you can hardly see over the dash, so much so, that it comes as a real surprise to find that the clutch is feather light and engages with a butter softness, just like a well-worn hire car. And rather too much like a well-worn hire car, it began to emerge that this Lanos race car had some issues with power. Or rather, the lack of enough of it. Wanging through the gears made a lot of sound and fury, but not much blurring of the scenery, I'm afraid.
It was deep in the middle of this musing that I started to realise that I was one of the last to leave the pits and so would miss out on a good grid position. Then it clicked. Hang on, this is Wakefield goddammit, I own this place! I don't see anyone else's name on pole-position!
So in a rather shameful display of bare-faced greed, I hoofed it and did an awful lot of passing on the warm-up lap, maxed it down the straight, and confidently parked the dunger on P1.... and then waited for what seemed to be an awfully long time before the rest of the bewildered field caught up.
The starter waits for everyone to line up, then raises the flag for the start.
Now, rather oddly, a Daewoo Lanos race car does not have a tacho, so optimum start line revs are determined by ear ("vroom, vroom....whaaaaaaaaaaaa"), the flag drops, the clutch goes up, the right clog goes hard down, and the Lanos leaps off the line in a flurry of wheelspin (dammit...a little too much "whaaaaa"). A bad start. Some other guy noses ahead, and the rear view mirror fills with jostling Lanos.
It now becomes a game of acoustically determining the peak revs, then slamming the long willowy gearlever home. Whaaaaaa....clunk! Second...whaaaaa...then clunk! Into third. I've picked the shift points better than the next guy, and we are neck and neck going into Turn One.
At this point I think we're doing about, oh at least 60km/h or so, but that's beside the point. Both of us are leaving our braking very late, and I hit the anchors only four car-lengths before my turn-in marker, and the other bloke falls back as the throttle gets mashed coming out of the corner for the long drag up the hill. I glance at the speedo: 95km/h. Actually, a very good exit speed for Turn One.
But what is rather a bit more disappointing is that the Lanos is more or less still doing 95 km/h as it reaches the next crest of the long hill....the cornering power of this little jigger isn't too bad at all, but there's no power to speak of at all, and so like a downhill billy-cart race, all forward momentum has to be preserved like a cherished and precious resource. Like points on your driver's license, once lost, you don't get it back for what seems like ages....
Brake too early or too hard, and you'd bleed off too much speed, floor the throttle mid corner, and wait seemingly an age for the car to pick up speed again. Meanwhile the pack gets closer in the mirrors...
Brake too late, and carry too much entry speed, and the Lanos will break into a scudding understeer, scrubbing off the precious speed. Trailbraking was the answer, but do it wrongly, and the tail would flick out, and the resulting juddering tailslide would absolutely kill cornerspeed again. Hitting a curb to shorten the line and kick the tail out didn't work either, as the underdamped Lanos skittered and bounced off the racing line when it landed.
Bugger, this is quite hard!
Brakes were good though, allowing you to leave the braking to an eye-wideningly late point. Mind you, it's mainly because you're not going all that fast...120 clicks down the straight is all I could coax out of the old dear, and the last time I could only manage 120 down the chute was in a bog standard, 1979 VB Commodore with a 300,000km 202 red six....and 120 km/h at the end of the straight meant only having to scrub off 25 km/h of speed for the proper entry speed into Turn One....not quite the same as braking from 190 km/h in a GT-R. (Or 165 km/h in an Integra Type R, for that matter.)
Anyway, after the first lap, I was still in the lead, but the pack had sorted itself out, and Paul Pickett in one of the spare cars took up station behind me. Arghh, this is too much pressure for me to take...what if he wants to out-brake me or something? Oh, the pain...this is too much thought for me....aw, geez, why doesn't he just go away and let me win? Hmm....what would Schumacher do? Okay, but nooo....punting Paul off the track is probably not such a good idea...wait for a pit stop? Hang on, there aren't any pit stops....
At this point, it was becoming obvious that I wasn't thinking clearly, and what little coherent thought passing through my mind at that juncture was really starting to harm my concentration. My thinking process was starting to compromise my lines and braking, so I figured the easy way out was to stop thinking, put my head down and try to leave him behind. Okay, that's settled. Phew.
Now how do we do that.....press the accelerator more? Nope. Done that already, the firewall is already starting to bend. Brake later? Okay, we'll give that a whirl....why not chuck in some left-foot braking too? Hey, how about holding it flat all the way down the hill? Ahh, what the hell, anything's game. Be clean, be quick, be surgical, surgical, surgical.
And it started to work! The little white Lanos started to get smaller and smaller in the mirrors until five laps later, I saw the chequered flag come out. I was quite excited at this point, but managed to compose myself for a "yep, no worries, I do this all the time" Schumacher nod as the Lanos buzzed across the line, and I'd won by the length of the straight from Paul in second place.
The lap record is 1'24, and apparently I'd been circulating in 1'25s and 1'26s. Hey, this is good fun! Dunno if I think it's worth the $20,000 entry price to the series, but it is televised and next season's cars will come with an upgraded computer and a hot cam for more neddies. Hmm.... series champion gets $40,000, winner-take all...hmm...very interesting...
Nahhh....too much thought involved for me; I'd get too upset if anyone overtook me! But on the other hand...anyone want to sponsor me? :)
If you're interested, call Paul Pickett on 02 9684 1999 or fax 02 9684 1099. The new series takes in circuits in Queensland and Victoria.
|