A fast drive in the country – April 30th to May 3rd, 2009
(With apologies to the late James Coburn, who did such a great video about Le Mans in the 1970s with this name.)


Wow(!) is my reaction, having spent a weekend racing at Road Atlanta.

This was my first time there, much to the surprise of everyone at Predator Performance, the team headed up by David Hinton and Larry Ligas in Largo, Florida. These days, they are so popular that they never seem to have less than eight, and as many as fifteen(!) cars running with them. And very good they are too...

But back to Road Atlanta. What a circuit. George Tuma and I were entered to drive the Jagermeister RSR and I drove the five hundred plus miles up to Braselton on Thursday, starting out at 5.40 a.m. Got nicked for speeding on the Atlanta ring road (laser job so no chance of slowing down in time) and arrived at the circuit in time to get changed, get in the car and do the first test session of the afternoon.

From the pits, it’s join the circuit at the exit of turn one, a right-hander at the end of pit straight, that is slightly banked on the exit and can thus be taken faster than you initially think, in fourth gear. Now comes the first tricky part; you are climbing a steep (1 in 4) hill and you have to get across to the right in order to take the left turn two immediately you breast the hill, so you’ve got a blind approach and need to position the car well, in order to get through two and line up immediately for the right handed three. Scotty Pheil gave me a good tip for this corner: “It’s got a low kerb, so just straight line the kerb, get two, or even four wheels across it as it’ll line the car up for the left-hander that is turn four." That turn four then leads you into the road dropping away turn five. So it’s fourth gear up the hill, downshift into third as you attack turn three and then grab fourth on the exit. Stay in that gear and straightline the next three turns, until you arrive (rather fast!) into turn seven, a left-hander, which leads you onto a straight.

Here, David Hinton helped by telling me to “use all the kerbing on the outside of this corner. It will help you keep your speed up onto the uphill early part on the straight.” Of course, like Scotty, he is right and now it’s full throttle and up through third and fourth gear, until you have to brake and shift down for the upcoming right-hander and then brake hard and shift immediately to second gear to take the next corner, a tight right that leads you onto the back straight.

Getting this right is critical, as the exit of this corner governs your speed down the back straight and it is FAST! About two thirds of the way down the straight, the track gently turns to the left and your line is not critical here, you just have to persuade yourself to keep your foot in it. Then it’s over a blind brow and you drop down to a left-right chicane, taken in second gear. As you’re pulling plenty of speed here and going downhill, it’s easy to leave your braking too late, spin the car and hit sundry parts of the countryside, not a good idea! Danny, who has been racing at Road Atlanta for many years, and David, both told me that, “in the old days, before the chicane, the road went down into the dip and then sharply uphill towards the bridge. The compression was really severe, forcing tires into contact with bodywork.” Danny added, “Every time I went through there, I used to thank the Lord that I’d made it through and would think, only one more lap until I have to do that all over again!”

So we’ve exited the right hand part of the chicane and now it’s steeply uphill again, heading towards another blind brow, with a bridge across it. Aim at the center right of the bridge, third gear, over the brow, clear the blind apex on the right and now the track drops away again steeply. Grab fourth, let the car run out to the left and then turn in at the end of the kerbs on the left in order to take the right hand sweeper that leads onto the pit straight.

Years ago, some readers of this site may remember that I owned a 1984 March 84G that now resides in Europe and does Group C racing there. Along with that March, I received sundry bits and pieces from a March 85G that, I was told “had hit the bridge at Road Atlanta” with Calvin Fish driving it. Having now driven at Road Atlanta (I hesitate to claim “raced” after just one weekend), I can only say that I’m surprised the remaining pieces of the March were not smaller and gob smacked that Mr. Fish survived! (The car, incidentally, got rebuilt and is also in Europe today.)

HSR were the sanctioning body of this Walter Mitty weekend and a very good turnout they received, despite the recession/depression, whichever you choose to call it. There were about thirty cars in our class, Group Five and, after practice, George took the car out on Saturday morning and qualified it well. There was an eight lap sprint race at 4 p.m. and I was told that I could do that race. Gulp!

About an hour before the race, it rained. Oh God, I thought, shades of Watkins Glen, another race to do on slicks that’s half dry, half wet, almost the worst conditions imaginable. I went out to take a look at the track a few moments before we were called to the false grid; it appeared to be almost dry. When I returned to get in the car, Byron de Foor asked me what it was like. “Soaking wet,” I replied. “You wouldn’t want to go out there in that!” “I’m suiting up!” was his reply.

It was the most chaotic race. Because of the damp conditions, the pace car did three laps with the lights on. On the second lap, someone waved the green flag as we came onto pit straight and a few people further back accelerated hard, supposing this was the start. I hunkered down in my seat, fearing that I was going to get hit at any second but thankfully, there was no harm done and everyone took their places.

When the pace car pulled into pit lane and the starter waved his flag for real, we were all off and I got a decent start, and went into turn one on the outside. I was vaguely aware that there was a small white car on the inside but out dragged him over the hill. After turn two, I turned into turn three and ‘clonk!’ – someone hit me in the right rear wheel arch and spun me around.

So there I was, broadside across the road with sundry monstrous Corvettes and Mustangs coming over the hill, seemingly aimed squarely at me. Luckily, the engine had kept running and so I grabbed first and motored smartly off the track onto the grass and then got turned around and charged back. Boy, was I mad!

I made just one more lap, overtaking a few cars until I’d just got through turn seven and then... the Heavens opened. This was not ordinary rain, it was a monsoon, of the type we normally get in Florida on summer afternoons.

I immediately pulled over onto the left hand side of the track and gave up racing. The conditions were impossible. Nevertheless, a Mustang and Corvette both passed me at speed a few moments later and, needless to say, went straight off the track at the next corner. Do these guys have no sense of self-preservation?

So there I was, slick tires and no windshield wiper and, to make matters even worse, the windshield fogged up on the inside! This I managed to clear with the back of my glove. Through the rain, I could see the track workers were showing black flags, so the race, thankfully, was stopped. I motored back to the pits as fast as I dared, at about 25 mph in the highest gear it would go in (fourth) and counted myself very lucky to make it back without sliding off the track. David Ritter was behind me in his Mustang and said that, if he hadn’t followed me, he’d never have made it back to the pits at all.

When I climbed out of the RSR, the driver of the white car that had hit me came up and graciously apologized. He’d thought that I’d seen him right behind me but, as I explained, as I crested that hill, I wasn’t looking in my mirrors, just straight where I needed to go! We parted on good terms, I’m happy to say. What makes this all the more odd is that morning I’d been waiting to turn right at some traffic lights outside the hotel when a young guy drove into the back of my old Mercedes street car! Luckily, as in this race, there was no harm done. Aren’t things supposed to go in threes?

HSR threw a party each night at which food and drink were provided and a very good job they made of it; certainly helped with the food bills.

So to Sunday. George and I were entered into the one-hour Rolex Classic GT Enduro, which George started. Just before the halfway mark, when he was due to pit, I felt a few spots of rain but, luckily, it held off.

In came George, out he climbed as fuel was added and then I climbed in, Matt belted me in and off I went. With my lack of experience of Road Atlanta, I’d made the conscious decision to treat this enduro as “a fast drive in the country” and to try and really learn some of the quirks of the place. This approach certainly worked as I found myself overtaking several cars that I would have thought would have been faster than us. After four laps, I cut the revs back to 6,700 but still found the car going faster, actually getting into fifth gear on the pit straight. In the RSR, I found that you could go past the one hundred yard sign before turn one before applying the brakes and, coming down the chicane, I left braking until past the two hundred yard board but then the car got into a bit of a “tank slapper,” and Danny had warned me not to go off there, so I backed off next time to two hundred and fifty yards!

About three laps before the end, David Ritter’s Mustang caught up to me and passed me, which really upset me as George had beaten him during his stint. I fought back but to no avail. It was only later that I found out that David had handed over to his co-driver, Tim Holland. Earlier, he had told me that he “had many years of experience at Road Atlanta,” so I didn’t feel too bad after that.

So the checkered flag waved and the weekend, for me, was over. I packed up and sadly took my leave of everyone and motored home, arriving here late afternoon.

On the way home, I fell to musing about the race circuits of the World that I’ve raced on. For me now, the best circuits (conveniently!) are in America, not Europe. That continent’s once-great circuits have been ruined by the obsession on the part of the authorities to slow the cars down and most have horrible little slow chicanes in them. But go to places like Road America, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta and you will find out what real road racing still can be like. Granted some of these circuits have chicanes but they are cleverly designed and built and keep on with the “flow” of the circuit.

The wild flowers alongside the I-75 in Georgia and Florida are beautiful at this time of the year, by the way.