ON
TRACK WITH RICK PEARSON
By Rick Pearson
Welcome to the twelfth of my weekly articles about the National racing scene and my journey through it over the past few years. This week want to continue my tail of racing abroad or "Welcome to Spa, a circuit murderouse II". If you've not read (and voted for) last weeks "scene setting" edition, go back and read it now or you'll miss out!
The first experience of driving out on to the Spa GP track is a memorable experience in any driver's book. You head out into the countryside of the Ardennes and there is more of a feeling of being on an adventure than being on a racetrack. The course as I remember it from the drivers seat goes something like: Eau rouge, Radillon, long straight, chicane right, couple of bends, Pouhon, few more wiggily bits, flat out sweeps through the trees, deep breath, Blanchimont, chicane, hairpin.
The reason being that the corners at Spa which are memorable are extremely memorable! Every driver talks in awe of the fabulous Eau Rouge, a flat out downhill approach into jink left and right then long left with a dip at the first jink and a monumental climb to a left hander on the crest (Radillon). It is a matter of bravado as to whether you have taken Eau Rouge "flat", with a whole lot more drivers claiming to have achieved it than their telemetry shows.
Since we had only one test session on our first day, I was determined to have a crack at Eau Rouge with my foot flat to the boards before the end of the session, if only so as to avoid feeling inadequate for the next 24 hours before the next session if anyone else had managed to achieve it. So, down from the La Source hairpin, banging it confidently through the gears and right up against the pit wall on the right, (which grows taller and taller as the road descends into the corner). At the last minute, a flick left then full right rudder as the Caterham understeers across the face of the hill towards the gravel trap.
All you can see in front is sky as the road climbs steeper than anything you could easily walk up, a moment of grip and only just in time as the car crests out and the back left wheel clips the pile of tyres marking the end of the gravel trap. This straightens up the car and I scream with sheer exhilaration into my crash helmet all the way up the long straight!
I will spare the reader a blow by blow account of each and every corner on the track, but Blanchimont deserves a paragraph. As you rejoin the public road section of the circuit, coming down off the hill, the Caterham is absolutely flat out. It remains this way as you swing around an easy left hander in the trees and it is then that the view changes. In front of you through the trees, the track appears to stop, dead, with two meters of gravel in front and just sky beyond the barrier. You hurtle down towards this and flick the car left at the last moment. Again, this corner is taken flat and the car drifts to the exit curb which collects it and flings it on towards the Bus Stop chicane.
Later, I asked our Belgian Clerk of the Course (you may remember his way with words from last weeks column), why there didn't appear to be a rescue crew at the exit of Blanchimont, since when I was there, there was very little run-off. His response was that if you crashed the barriers would funnel the wreckage down the track to the bus stop where the marshals were equipped with a big net to collect the remains. I never worked out if he was joking or not...
Upon returning, somewhat wide-eyed, from our first experience of the track, we discovered whom our mystery Belgian sponsor was- before we could even climb out of the cars, a buxom Belgian lass in National costume arrived and handed me the largest beer I'd ever seen in over the top of the roll cage! To say this was rather welcome and needed would be an understatement, conveniently this would herald an unlimited supply of beer for the weekend which is not would you would expect at a race meeting (unless you're a mechanic)!
This was a bit of a theme for the weekend, the Belgians having a beer culture that is really a little odd to us Brits. The big party of the weekend was on the Saturday night before the race! I inquired whether, since I'd like to have a few beers, was I likely to be able to get a cab back to the hotel? A very confused Belgian asked why I couldn't drive back. I pointed out that I wasn't keen to drive whilst drunk. He just advised me not to crash. I laughed assuming he was joking and said, "Nice idea, but what would I tell the local police if they stopped me?" The deadpan response was "Tell them you are a racing driver!" I'm not sure the local police in the UK would accept that as an excuse somehow.
Race day was overcast and as miserable as the assembled hangovers! The highlight for me came three laps from the end when a pack of three Caterhams powered into Eau Rouge together. What is not obvious from the television coverage is that the main straight that follows Radillon is quite uphill. Certainly too uphill for a wheezy 1.4 litre Caterham K-series to accelerate up when it is already doing over 100mph. Hence, whatever speed you arrived on the straight at was pretty much the speed you were doing when you got to the other end unless you could get a tow in someone's slipstream.
On this particular lap we crested Radillon together and fanned out to see who had the legs for the run up the straight. As it was, we ended up driving up the straight, absolutely together, three abreast. And since there was very little else to do, some friendly hand signals were being exchanged as had become a bit of a tradition that weekend... Though as the third idiots, gesticulating furiously to each other hurtled (?) towards the end of the straight, we hit a wall of rain coming the other way! Since we were way beyond the braking point in the wet, we all overshot the corner and were forced into some spectacular sideways action across the grass.
Spa, a circuit fantastique, had had the last laugh!
Next week, by popular request the racing drivers day in full or "How to waste 3 days of your life for 20 laps in a racing car."