ON
TRACK WITH RICK PEARSON
By Rick Pearson
Welcome to the seventh of my weekly articles about the National racing scene and my journey through it over the past few years. Fresh from the weekend's activities at Silverstone, I want to delve into the experience that is night racing. Or "Things that go bump in the night!"
Night racing was new to me at the start of this season, but since my professed ambition is to race at Le Mans 24 hours, I was looking forward to it. Not only as another line on the racing CV, but also as a whole new, somewhat exciting, experience.
Arriving at Snetterton mid-summer of this year, I got to see the ActiveShop Clio with the headlights installed for the first time. It makes a significant visual change to the usual black covers we use which have ELF running across them. (I worked out early on that headlamps added a whole new, fun element to the racing. Having put the car on Pole position, I was then able to drive around for the rest of the daylight qualifying session with them on main beam, trying to intimidate as many people as possible!)
My first proper experience
of driving on a racetrack in the dark had however, come the night before
during the 15-minute night acclimatization session. Snetterton had lit
around half of the circuit, whilst the remainder of the track was dark.
Very dark.
Having passed through the floodlit area of the start-finish straight,
we plunged into darkness and had to find the braking point and apex for
the next couple of corners somewhere out in the Norfolk night...
The other added interest of racing at night is that the dew can come down, dampening the track after darkness and causing a significant loss of grip. Lining up on Pole having had only one green flag lap to assess the track and then, at the green light, to lead 28 Clios into the pitch darkness and off down to the first corner was always going to be a bit entertaining!
In fact, my teammate and fellow front row man, Jim Edwards Jnr was to be caught out at the first corner and half spun. I led for the first five laps, (helped in no small manner by the fact that the pace car was out for four of them!), was bundled down to fourth at the restart and then fought back to second by the flag; all in all a pretty pleasing result.
The television coverage
of the race was spectacular; the brake discs glowing red hot and the camera
looking back down the Revett straight showing one set of headlights suddenly
becoming three as the slip-streaming chain of cars split under braking,
each car seeking to out-brake the one in front. This is the secret to
after dark racing.
It is a very difficult to judge braking distances in the dark and the
Clio race saw an enormous number of lead changes as drivers struggled
to pick out reference points and were easily passed by the guy behind
under braking.
Another big problem with night racing is contact. The temptation to nudge the guy in front when it could be pretty difficult for the Observers to see exactly what is going on can be very high. Fortunately, the guys who normally cause all the trouble in the Clio racing (they know who they are) were for the most part missing at the Snetterton race, whilst the Silverstone one (which will be over by the time you read this) is carefully covered with cameras to provide video evidence of any indiscretion.
Nonetheless, the powers that be must be very confident of the quality of the system with several championships yet to be decided within the TOCA package. The darkness can cover all manner of evils!
Postscript: It is now the Tuesday after the Silverstone race and the above words turned out to be rather prophetic. Contact between the ActiveShop Clio and that of Henry Taylor saw protest after protest flying about after the race had ended. Taylor had lost second place in the Clio championship by a single point to Dan Buxton and had protested three drivers who had made contact with his car at some stage of the race. It was to be after midnight before all the protests had been rejected, the biggest problem being that the video tape for the Abbey hairpin where we had made contact was blank... Make sure you watch 'The Chequered Flag' on CH4 at 2AM this Friday morning (22 September and repeated Monday, 25 September at 5AM) and make your own decision.
If only I had remembered during the hearing that I had the on-board camera in my car... perhaps that would've helped?
Next week: Rick looks at the new Touring Car regulations for the UK in 'Rumours, Runners and Riders'...