Do Kiwis have a definitive driving style
When, way back now in 2007, I was asked by Publisher Random House if I wanted to ‘write a book on motorsport in New Zealand,’ I was happy to oblige.
As both a fan, and what I suppose you could call a ‘student’ of the sport, I had often wondered why such a tome had not already been written. Actually that’s not quite right. Over the years several had been published but most were either single subject focused (Desmond Mahoney’s Trio at the Top, or David Thomson and Martin Holmes’ The New Zealand Rally – Celebrating 25 years), or club history-style lash-ups which – with all respect to their earnest authors – reflected neither the diversity nor the professionalism exhibited by most of those they were writing about.
“My’ book, I resolved, would be different.
And so it was. Distributed by Whitcoulls and called simply Racing – A history of motorsport in New Zealand – it took a broad-brush approach, starting with the country’s first ever race (at a Pioneer Bicycle and Athletic Club meeting in Christchurch in November 1901) and signing off with a look at the latest iteration of the sport, Drifting.
In between I tried to cover all the many and varied versions of ‘motorsport’ as it evolved – from beach racing to speedway, rallying to drag racing, and truck racing to Targa and karting. Because I had just three weeks of evenings and weekends to write it, I soon realised I was going to have to leave a lot of really cool stuff out. To be fair though, the deadline forced me to focus on the top end – the NZ championship level if you like – rather than wander off on any one of 100 interesting tangents I immediately discovered…..
It also helped, in no small way, to have access to the Bruce McLaren Trust (thanks Jan) photo archive, and to have such support from photographers like Terry Marshall, Brian Young of Linear Photographics, and Philip Adamson of GroundSky Photography. The period photos I managed to dig up from the Auckland Memorial War Museum collection also – I thought anyway – added a gravitas to the publication previous ones lacked.
I raise the subject of my book, not because I want to sell any more copies (it being well out of print and now available only at second handbook shops or occasionally on TradeMe), rather than to raise for discussion a subject which has long fascinated me; that of grip and/or the lack of it, and whether we, as Kiwis, have a definitive driving style (or flair) based on it?
In theory, anyway, I think the answer is yes. Kiwis, it seems, excel when the surface under them is slippery. This was the case when the likes of Bob Wilson and George Smith started sliding into and out of the turning markers on Muriwai Beach in the 1920s and it remained the case as the likes of Smith and Ron Roycroft moved to Speedway on closed oval courses and gravel roads for club and nation level hill climbs.
Brothers Steve and Rod Millen brought it back into focus as they forged separate but closely related pro careers first here, then in the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s while some will say it is currently enjoying its zenith in the form of new Virgin Australia Supercars Championship points leader, Shane Van Gisbergen.
Grip or slip, it doesn’t seem to matter for SVG, who as a kid raced Quads and Quarter Midgets before a brief foray into Karts then Formula cars (Vee, Ford and TRS) and for the past 10-years, Supercars (and in his spare time) Drift cars, Radio Control Cars and Simulators….
In theory, of course, Karts and Karting are all about grip. Wade Cunningham’s breakthrough World Championship title win in Italy in 2003 would tend to suggest, too, that we are pretty good at holding a line as opposed to using it merely as a guide……
However, because our annual karting ‘season’ straddles winter rather than summer, from the ages of six up, our karters get just as much (more probably) practise slipping and sliding around on wet tracks on treaded ‘rain’ tyres as they do ‘dialling grip out’ of a slick tyre set up on a hot, tinder-dry track.
I know, when I was running the Fuelstar RX7 in the Pyrotect South Island RX7 Series I was glad of all the Saturday afternoon ‘jam sessions’ Ron Dixon suggested Regan Morgan and I do on slicks on a damp track to improve our driving (not to mention our reflexes). With limited steering lock, a direct drive rear end (think locked diff) and absolutely no idea which end was going to ‘go’ first, the laps I did round the Mt Wellington kart track ended up being pretty close to perfect preparation for driving on the RX7’s category’s control tyre, the stiff sidewalled, grooved and dimpled slick ‘tread’ pattern Yokohama A008.
The A008 was absolutely awesome on a hot, dry track, and OK even when the surface was streaming and the pace suitably slower. If, as so often happened at Levels, for instance, the track was cold and damp in parts, they were, er, less good; a big problem for some of the other guys I was racing against…….but a big advantage for little old me!
One of the other absolutely key things karting teaches you nowadays, too, is how to qualify. And for hands down the best example of a driver who learned that lesson better than virtually any other is Supercars ace (and KartSport NZ’s current patron) Scott McLaughlin.
When I got into karting back in the day there was no such thing (as qualifying). You had practice (to learn the track) and tuning runs (still no idea what I was suposed to do in them), but because the grids for your four or five heats were generated randomly (originally by a person then a computer) it didn’t matter how quick you were over a single lap. What mattered was your ability to pass as many karts as possible when you inevitably got at least two starting spots towards the rear of the grid.
That all changed when KartSport NZ moved to what is called the CIK format (after the world governing body of the sport). Under the CIK format qualifying takes on an all-new importance because where you qualify is where you start the first and second heats. Where you finish those, in turn, determines where you start the Pre-Final, and where you finish the Pre-Final determines where you start the ‘winner-takes-all’ Final.
The key to doing a quick qualifying lap is to set your vehicle up for a banzai single lap – usually the second or third after you go out – then literally drive it like ‘ya stole it. To say it is a very different way to drive a car – particularly a Supercar – in a race is to state the obvious. Yet Scott is equally good at both.
The danger is any discussion like this, of course, is that you tend to be limited by the criteria you set.
Hayden Paddon raced a kart for a bit at Christchurch’s Carr’s Rd track before selling it to fund his first rally car. And we all know how that went, don’t we? In much the same way New Zealand’s ultimate all-rounder, Daynom ‘Slim’ Templeman was an accomplished off-road racer before he got into Formula Ford, BNT V8 Touring Cars and eventually the D1NZ drifting championship.
Mention the word Drifting and you can’t help talk about Mad Mike Whiddett and a guy like Nico Reid.
Mad Mike was a talented Junior motocrosser before moving to exhibition-style Freestyle MX then – when four wheels beckoned – to Burnout comps!!! Meanwhile Nico Reid, one of the most naturally talented drivers I have ever had the pleasure to watch, had only ever driven cars on the road before entering his first drift comp.
So the talent is definitely out there and perhaps it doesn’t matter where – or on what surface – you start, as long as you start.
This, as I keep stressing, is just my opinion. What do you think?
Do we, as Kiwis, have a distinctive driving style, obvious to those overseas, but perhaps not to us (because we are too close to it). And if we do, to what, do you think, it can be attributed to?
In his book about the rise of Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon, ‘’Trio at the Top,’ Des Mahoney, who at the time was the Motoring Editor of the Auckland Star newspaper, theorised that a lot of the flair the trio showed was down to all the driving they did on gravel growing up. Chris Amon also once paid tribute to the humble Volkswagen Beetle he used to drive (the wheels off, no doubt) before he bought his first proper race car. And both Millen brothers have paid tribute to the loose metal roads they ‘honed their skills’ on before they even started to compete in club events in and around Auckland.
That was – literally – a lifetime ago, of course. And I haven’t even mentioned the role – which it must have had – Motorsport NZ’s Junior Licence (which has allowed a generation of under 15s to legally compete from the age of 12) must have played in the overall scheme of things.
But – as per usual – I have run over my word length, so its now your turn, what do you think?
And why?
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