ON
TRACK WITH RICK PEARSON
By Rick Pearson
Hello and welcome to the tenth in my series of weekly columns about the UK National racing scene and my journey through it. Keep those ratings coming, three articles in the top ten is good, but I'm a bit concerned that I only appear to have four readers! This week I'd like to look at the hot topic in Motorsport at the moment, is Bernie allowing Ferrari to cheat in F1? But since I have no more insight into the subject than the next guy, I will instead look at the cheating I have come across during my racing days or "Why does that Renault 5 Turbo sound like a Spitfire?"
Until my arrival this year into the Elf Renaultsport UK Clio Cup (a mouthful I know but it never hurts to keep the sponsors happy), I had assumed that all types of Motorsport had an element of cheating within them. However, this past year, due to some diligent policing by Renault, I actually managed to run in a series where if anyone was cheating, they were doing it very badly!
This has not always been the case and when the Renault 5 Turbos were one of the mainline UK one-make championships, the temptation was (allegedly) too great for many of the teams. Ask any of the "old hands" in the paddock and they will admit that there were some pretty dodgy goings on in those dark days of the late 80's.
Stories abound of ice cubes or low-melting point washers being dropped in behind the wastegate to hold it shut for the early laps, providing a significant amount more boost until the heat of the car vaporized it, thus leaving no evidence for the scrutineer. I had one driver concede to me that he had been pretty upset when the powers-that-be discovered his nitrous bottle, concealed in the dashboard, and threw him and his similarly cheating teammate out of the series. He explained that as a small team, they couldn't afford the more expensive, but subtler cheats of the larger guys! And these stories were just power related.
Once the 5 Turbo moved out of the mainstream- and away from the diligent Renault scrutineers- into the realm of the less specialized guys, the less scrupulous amongst the teams went to town. The use of Av Gas (aircraft fuel to you and me) was rife, especially since the Turbos now had boost boxes to measure the maximum puff provided at any stage and thus the old style cheating had been erased. But, a small club championship was still pretty unlikely to undertake expensive fuel chromatograms to test what competitors were putting in their tanks.
As the checks became more lax, so the cheats got more audacious. There are stories of a guy whose father became increasingly upset with the whisperings in the paddock that his son was cheating and so he challenged the scrutineer to take the car away and dismantle it. This was done and (allegedly) the car was found to be so illegal the guy left the Championship and started legal action against the team! Apparently as soon as the car was put on a ramp, it became obvious that a whole new sub-frame had been built to lower the engine in the chassis improving traction and cornering etc. You can imagine how legal the rest of the car was.
Which brings me back to my old friend (and foe) the Greek. Regular readers will remember him from my earlier columns and will similarly recall the season where I destroyed a couple of Renault 5's much to the consternation of my then girlfriend. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go away now and read my previous columns or the rest of this week's missive is going to be wasted on you!
I had noticed during my first ever race in a 5 Turbo that a certain blue and white (Greek) coloured car was a bit swift down the straight bits. The concept of conserving as much speed as possible through a corner seemed totally lost on its driver who was missing apexes and running wide onto the grass on a regular basis. I had been a bit miffed when on the third lap of the race, this car had run wide at Sears going onto the Revett Straight at Snetterton and I had driven by him as he shot off sideways into the nearest cabbage field, only to be passed by the same car before the braking point at the other end of the straight!
I expressed an opinion in my own subtle manner in Parc Ferme afterwards and it was explained that he was effectively the series' clown and no-one took him too seriously as his car used to blow up more often than not and so he was never likely to affect the overall championship much! I was astonished that the series regulars had accepted this and I began to become more and more outspoken on the matter. Later that same year at Silverstone, I had dived inside our Greek friend at Luffield as he ran wide with the usual cloud of smoke pouring from his front tyres as he struggled to put down the buckets of bhp that the Ouzo Special was pumping out. As I headed off up the start/finish straight, suddenly I heard a roar, not dissimilar to that of a Merlin-engined Spitfire in full flight, and the blue and white of Greece came by me as if I was stationary.
To say that my gestures to the Clerk of the Course on the pitwall were expressive would be an understatement. It all finally came to a head when halfway through the following season, I was forced to seek out a car for rent; despite the best efforts of the Mark Fish crew, my car could not be resuscitated after its Pembrey shunt in time for the Snetterton round of the Super Coupe cup. My only option was to rent the Greek T-Car. Having very little faith in the car's ability to go round corners, I qualified halfway down the field, but coming on to the Revett Straight on the first lap, I pulled out of the draft and roasted past a pair of cars before hitting the anchors at the other end.
I could quite simply drive by anyone I chose on the straight bits but I was quite disconcerted by an enormous vibration that was occurring as we reached Warp speed about 400 meters before the end of the straight every lap. It felt like the whole car was going to disintegrate and with the temperature gauge off the top of the dial and liquid beginning to vent out from the bonnet onto the windscreen, I began to hear the immortal words of Mr Scott each time I hit fifth gear (She canna take no more Cap'n, she's gonna blow).
I managed to nurse the car home, although not before its Greek owner had taken offence at his hire car running in front of him and punted me off at the chicane! The upshot of this was that several of my fellow racers took offence at me blowing by them on the straight, (although it may have been the cheeky waving as I did it that upset them, I guess I'll never know) and our Greek friend's car was protested and dismantled.
When the results came back, he was docked two maximum scores as (allegedly) the turbo, camshaft, you name it, were all illegal. Just to prove that there are some cultural divides we will never understand, our friend then showed up at the next round with the same (still illegal) car and was really very surprised when his entry money was returned to him and he was sent home!
See you all next week!