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Saturday 30 August 2008

Excited but drained

Alan Judd goes Motoring

The first lap of Le Mans last weekend passed in a daze. The thought of performing on that hallowed 14km (8–9 mile) circuit in front of thousands was bad enough, even for one who would have been content with the record for the slowest lap, but the thought was as nothing compared with the fact.

I’ve no idea what people imagined as they watched the only tweeded figure on the circuit pressed into the cockpit. But no time to worry because without a by-your-leave we found ourselves out of the paddock and on to the track in unfamiliar left-hand-drive cars, there to be enveloped in a fog of noise, heat, speed, corners, brakes, throttle, change up, up, up on the Mulsanne Straight, then — oh, Jesus — down, down, down for the chicanes, now hammer it towards Indianapolis corner with the sun in your eyes, what the hell’s the car in front doing, daren’t brake with someone up my exhaust pipe, what speed are we, no time to look, gun it past the stands and scores of flashing cameras (gratifying, that), then — Jesus — yellow flag at the Dunlop Curve, three cars off, just miss the recovery truck, under the bridge without touching the sides, and round again. Twenty-four hours later an almost empty tweed jacket is unpeeled from the seat and hoisted victoriously on to the podium...

Dream on, petal. Actually, only the last bit isn’t true; it would anyway be the stuff of nightmare. A couple of laps in a standard Aston Martin V8 Vantage at somewhat less than the 120mph-plus average achieved by the DBR9 GT racers over 340 laps is unsettling (and exciting) enough. But when you see from pit-level what those cars do you realise that — however good a boy racer you might secretly fancy yourself — you wouldn’t last ten seconds out there. David Beckham has two legs and plays football; so did I when I was young, and we road-going mortals have a similar relation with the gods of the track. They’re a different order of being.

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