Dave Colman musters his manhood and straps on an Indy Light Lola. Lensfolk Judy Bradshaw and Vic Oliver try not to get run over.
If you think the driver in an Indy Lights car is nothing more than a tub spacer between the firewall and front bulkhead, you've got it all wrong. So the next time you flick on cable TV for an Indy Lights race, give more than a passing thought to the brave guy in the cockpit: The stair-stepper at Gold's Gym is nothing compared to the workout he's getting.
Wanna get beat up real fast? Here's a sure recipe for self-abuse. Fold one crusty writer/driver into a fermented Indy Lights team like Dorricott Racing, stir the pot with questions like "Just what is your experience with this level of car, David," and bake for six hours in the broiling sun at California's Thunderhill Raceway Park.
What you end up with is a well-melted scribe who thought he knew what big-time formula racing was all about, right up until he slid into the cockpit of Jeff Ward's Lola-Buick racer and found that a little bit of Indy Lights is like a small dose of heroin; the addiction lasts longer than the euphoria.
To Brian Roe, the crew chief at Dorricott, my immodest test-drive sounded like a recipe for disaster; to me, it seemed like the only way to belt SCI's readers into a rocks-off single-seater cockpit. With a little help from team owner Bob Dorricott my view prevailed, so come along for the ride on the day I played astronaut.
Granted, the storyline looked much better in theory than it did when I actually arrived at Thunderhill. Now the talking part of the gambit was over and I'd have to live up to my own advance billing of competency. To the team, I was just another wanker with no track record-and probably incapable of coming to grips with a Lights car on a completely unfamiliar circuit.
Snuggled in the paddock next to Dorricott's majestic transporter was Jeff Ward's Lola. Surrounding it were six mechanics, engineer Stefan Dwornik, and crew chief Roe. I approached gingerly and peered into the cockpit as Bob's son, Bob Dorricott Jr., got cinched in by the mechanics. The scene made me shudder a bit; soon I would be the one sitting in that lethal-looking missile getting the last rites from the crew chief.
As soon as Brian Roe realized I was Go for Launch, he discarded his inherent suspicions and treated me like any other driver lucky enough to land a track test with Dorricott. Because time was short, his cram course took on epic dimensions as he assessed what I already knew (not much) and compensated for any shortfalls with tips of his own (plenty). Between Junior's on-track sessions, Roe and I drove lap after lap of Thunderhill's 1-mile short course in the team's Ford van, Roe pointing out where the car would get light and where the steering would feel heavy. "...And be sure to squeeze on the power gently here," he said as we exited the tight first-gear chicane the team had constructed at the far end of the circuit, "or you'll spin faster than you can believe." Saying his lines without inflection, he told me the track was dirty and slick that day, and that first gear would be needed twice a lap to slingshot out of the two hairpins built in to replicate turns at Long Beach and Vancouver. Dorricott's regular drivers, Jeff Ward and Shigeaki Hattori, had both tested on this makeshift course earlier, so gear ratios, spring rates, and suspension settings were already set.
"...You'll find the car wants to hunt all over the place because of the camber and toe dialed into it.... Don't be alarmed at how stiff the ride is.... Just keep a firm grip on the wheel; it'll wanna jump out of your hands.... Oh, and you'll have to run the car out of the pits on a 2x4 to keep the front splitter from grounding, and hold it on the clutch until you're over the board." The boards and the clutch were the last things I needed to hear about; now it was going to be a major challenge just getting the Lola out of the pits?
Junior scorched off a few 42-second laps and brought the car back in, at which point Roe motioned me over and pointed to the cockpit. It was my turn. No problem; I've seen this on TV hundreds of times.
Stepping gingerly over the fragile sidepods, I stood on the seat, slid my feet under the dash hoop, tucked my arms against my sides, and squirted into the monocoque like expanding foam. When my displaced bulk came to rest, Stefan Dwornik leaned over with an impish grin and said, "Everything still there, is it?"
Just to make sure, I wiggled a few extremities. "Hey! Don't move your feet!" said Roe's disembodied voice through my helmet. "They're still adjusting the pedals!" Oh yeah...I'm making a great impression here.
By this time I was starting to take a bath inside my 3-layer Simpson oven mitt. The crew proceeded to cinch me into place like a roped calf, however, and that was that-no turning back. Roe ran me through the gearbox pattern of the 5-speed Hewland, and worked his way across the dashboard switches for fuel pump, on-board starter, fire-suppression system, and brake balance. That's when I realized I was sitting too low in the seat to see where I was going.
The 425-horse Buick hadn't even fired yet, and already my Apprehension List had lengthened to infinity. Besides the lack of outward vision, toggle-switch clutch, and power-to-weight ratio of 3 pounds per horsepower, I now had rivulets of sweat irrigating my eyes and my crotch. My feet, cut off from all communication with my torso by about 7000 psi of racing restraints, were starting to go numb. That couldn't be good.
"Fire it up, Colman!" Okay...that would be...this? Ka-BLAM! The Pi data-acquisition system on the dash magically showed revs as the Buick exploded into life.
The time to snick the tiny lever into gear had finally arrived. The months of convincing and cajoling that had gotten me this far were distant memories as I brought the revs of the flat-crank V6 up, found first with a sharp whack against the detent, and eased the clutch home to engagement. Whabba, whabba, whabba, THUD! Damn. Stalled it. Whabba, THUD! And again. Wha..THUD! And again. Oh well, I'd at least rolled down pit lane a little. Roe ran alongside, frantically doing hand mimes to remind me of the teeny-tiny clutch travel, and in a desperate bid to get off before he caught up, I fired the engine again, engaged the clutch a micron at a time, and staggered out of range. The flow of air through my open visor was heaven. Collect yourself, willya? You haven't even started yet, and already you're a bundle of nerves. I flashed back to a crew chief's radio message I overheard once at Laguna: "Whatever else you do, be sure to panic."
After half a lap of our virtual street circuit I was feeling like the mechanical-bull rider at Gilley's. The Lights car bucked and twitched from one side of the road to the other, its heavy negative camber and toe-out making it hop over the ground like a Roger Clemons screwball. This was going to take some doing; when I throttled down hard, what had merely been a hop-skip-jump routine became a do-or-dicey gallop. Palming the Hewland through the gears on the straight, I was stunned by the closeness of the ratios, the unrelenting poke each time I nailed the throttle, and the velocity of the wind lifting the helmet off my head.
One lap down. Okay, that wasn't so bad. On my second pass by the pits, Brian Roe was unimpressed by the fact that I was already digging deep into the Buick's power reserve. His not-so-gentle hint to slow down manifested itself in body language that was difficult to ignore. Pointing animatedly to his head with one hand, he waved his other palm up and down: Think more, speed less. I nodded as I hesitantly shifted and set sail for the fast, sweeping lefthander at the beginning of Dorricott's short course.
With each lap I held the throttle open longer until finally I was only lifting at the turn-in cone. Shortly thereafter, I got into the bumpy lefthander too fast, lifted completely, and nearly swapped ends. The Lola immediately loses about 200 pounds of downforce when you lift all the way; my new advice is don't.
Driving a wing car with this much power took a good bit of getting used to, as did the relative height of the cones in relation to my altitude in the cockpit. On the ersatz chicane before the main straight, a sea of orange spikes loomed above me on either side, guarding the line like Scylla and Charybdis. Even so, this tight, autocross-like turn was the most familiar thing about my experience thus far; while I was slowly building confidence as I felt my way through faster and faster laps, the chicane's low speed lent the Lola the safe, familiar feeling of any other high-output racing car.
Or at least that's what I thought, until I jumped on the Buick too hard and started a lazy loop out of the chicane right in front of gloating photog Vic Oliver, who'd been specifically hired to memorialize my boobositude. After refiring the stalled engine, I sputtered down the front straight in shame.
I also realized about now how after only 15 or so laps, I was already getting damn tired from the workout. I pitted to gather my thoughts and have a little discussion with Brian and Stefan about my progress.
"You started off in the 52-second range and brought it down to 47s, but you still haven't got a rhythm going yet," Stefan said. I started whining that the lack of vision was a stumbling block, and as soon as Brian Roe heard that my helmet was getting sucked off my head he dispatched a crewman to fetch and install a windscreen over the cowling.
By now I was actually starting to feel pretty good about things. Here I was having a fairly rational discussion with the team's engineer and crew chief about my test session while sitting in the cockpit watching a team of mechanics check tire pressures, install a windscreen, and hand me bottled water. How many times had I seen this scene enacted on pit road? Hundreds. How many times had I seen myself in the cockpit as the center of focus? Hundreds. How many times had it actually happened? Not once-until today.
And of course attitude is everything when you're behind the wheel of a racecar. When I headed back out for the second group of laps I deceived the carbon clutch into thinking I was Jeff Ward and made a neat and speedy exit (no doubt to the amazement of the crew). Then I fell into a much more predictable gait, squeezing on the power in each gear rather than snapping the throttle open; clipping tidier apexes; and using more of the phenomenal braking of the Lola. Soon I was down to 46 seconds flat, and feeling confident about dropping into the low 45s in a couple more passes. That's when I shifted from first to second and found nobody home-Roe signaled me to stay out, but when the same thing happened at the far end of the track, I knew my drive was over. I trundled back to the pits in third and parked it.
The team immediately set to tearing down the Hewland, and what they found was indisputably ugly. Second gear had split itself in two, and part of the shrapnel had become wedged against the windage tray in the bottom of the box. The rebuild would take three mechanics the better part of two hours, and that left just enough time for Bob Jr. to take a final stint.
You can bet they spared no effort in asking me where to send the bill, and whether I wanted to keep the parts since I was paying for them anyway. Let's see now...that second-gear cluster retails for about $200, and then there's the galled mainshaft for maybe $750.... Don't forget the windage tray, and don't those cases run about two grand? (I have to confess it: I later remembered with secret satisfaction that gear-selection problems plagued this same car in its last race, Laguna Seca.)
I stayed around to watch Dorricott's final runs. After turning nearly a hundred laps that day Bob Jr. broke into the 41s, which looked real good to me until I heard that Shigeaki Hattori had run 38s on the same course earlier. If that didn't give me an idea of just how competitive Indy Lights racing has become, nothing will. Bear in mind, Hattori isn't even the fastest driver in Dorricott's stable-Ward is.
As I packed my helmet in its bag and headed out of Thunderhill, one of Dorricott's mechanics smiled and asked me, "So, is that the end of your Indy Lights career?" In my head I started reciting the defeated racer's litany: Well, my times were still falling fast when the gearbox let go, and I was starting to figure out those big wings, and you know of course that everything below my crotch was all tingly by the third lap, and the sun was in my eyes, and then my dog ate my track notes, and did I tell you my sick old aunt is in the hospital again, and....
About then reality stepped in. I told him that I guessed it was, unless I somehow managed to raise about $850,000 for a ride with the team next season.
So okay, maybe I'm not bumping Hattori or Ward next year. At least I got a try.
The time to snick the tiny lever into gear had finally arrived. The months of convincing and cajoling that had gotten me this far were distant memories as I brought the revs of the flat-crank V6 up, found first with a sharp whack against the detent, and eased the clutch home to engagement. Whabba, whabba, whabba, THUD! Damn. Stalled it. Whabba, THUD! And again. Wha..THUD! And again. Oh well, I'd at least rolled down pit lane a little. Roe ran alongside, frantically doing hand mimes to remind me of the teeny-tiny clutch travel, and in a desperate bid to get off before he caught up, I fired the engine again, engaged the clutch a micron at a time, and staggered out of range. The flow of air through my open visor was heaven. Collect yourself, willya? You haven't even started yet, and already you're a bundle of nerves. I flashed back to a crew chief's radio message I overheard once at Laguna: "Whatever else you do, be sure to panic." 