Look, I was sure I was simply adding to a great existing body of ‘How to watch a…….’ knowledge via articles, books and these days even videos with my latest contribution to Talk Motorsport. Yet, when I went to ‘Google’ the subject, all I got was – literally – a lot of ‘gobblygook’ (or perhaps that should be ‘Googlygook’) about F1, bowls and golf.
So, perhaps I’m breaking all new ground here by offering what in effect is a guide for your average spectator who might want to get more out of the experience of…. ‘watching a motor race……’
And what, you might rightly ask, are my ‘qualifications’ for this task at hand?
Ha! All I can offer is the usual ‘lifetime’s experience’ which – as far as motor racing is concerned – started at age 8 or 9 at Teretonga Park and continues to this day some 51 years later at car, kart, drift, speedway, drag racing, off-roading, 4x 4 trialling and yes even offshore powerboat racing venues across the country in person and (across) the world via TV and (more and more) Livestream.
To be fair it actually started earlier than that because (and you’re going to have to take my word on this one) since I last wrote about my first ever experience of a ‘national level’ motor racing at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park I have remembered an even earlier ‘initiation’ to the sport; at a dusty ‘speedway oval’ in a paddock, up a sideroad on the western side of State Highway at the base of the Brydone Hill half way between Mataura and Edendale.
Bar travelling to and from Gore for the meeting with my best boyhood mate Jimmy Geddes in his Dad’s beautiful old Wolseley 4/110 (with its walnut dashboard, distinctive Smiths Instruments’ dials and elegant Bakelite overdrive ‘switch) I can’t remember much else about the meeting; apart from an old Ford (Model A?) painted up with multiple stripes and the words ‘Colour Me Gone’ which might or might not have been driven with youthful abandon by a certain local transport operator, Mac Tulloch’s teenage son Ian (or Inky as, apparently, he was known even then).
Point 1
Which, might well be the first piece of advice I offer in my ‘How to watch a motor race’ post……Look out for the local angle, or even better, someone you know, or know of, who is competing. I’ve been treated like a long-lost friend when I’ve sought out fellow Kiwis competing in Australia, and the US and UK when (admittedly a few years ago now) I’ve bowled up to a car or motorcycle race meeting while travelling. I also know, when I was working with PJ, Ron (Dixon) and Ken Smith, early in Scott’s career, Ken would regale the rest of us with tall tales and true of literally taking hours to walk up and down a pit lane at IndyCar Series meetings in the States, as homesick Kiwi mechanics, race engineers, aerodynamicists, catering staff etc would stop what they were doing either on seeing Ken and Scott, or hearing a Kiwi accent, thrust out a hand to shake and launch into one of those ‘you must know so-in-so’ conversations us Kiwis are so good at. The world is a much smaller place these days but I’m sure that that hasn’t changed a bit.
Point 2
My second piece of advice is ‘don’t limit yourself to race day (usually the Sunday of any race weekend) particularly if you are planning one of those ‘trips of a lifetime’ and want to take in (let’s see) an F1, IndyCar, WRC or even BTCC, NASCAR round etc. I’ve spoken to several close motor racing buddies over the years and to a man (because that’s what they are, men!) they’ve admitted only realising this after a first ‘race-day’ mistake. Second time around they make sure that – particularly for a major multi-day meeting like – say – the British F1 GP or a round of the main NASCAR (Monster Energy) series – they arrive ‘in town’ as early as Tuesday, spend the next two days sussing out the best places to check out the action live, the two after that immersing themselves in the absolutely fascinating minutiae of final car trimming, qualifying and support races, then ‘race day’ at ‘home’ at their hotel watching the same stunning feed of blow-by-blow action and analysis that you would miss if you spent the day sitting in one spot, watching a single corner at the track.
Point 3
My third point (or hint) is allied to this one and really only requires you to do what I will call some ‘recce’ reading once you have arrived it town. This can be of the race programme or the local newspaper (if one still exists where you wash up). In this case I base my advice on something I missed thanks to a pair of wanker ‘secret squirrel’ Aussies whose company I had the misfortune to share at the Harley-Davidson 100 Year centenary bash back in 2003, and something I did get to see and experience at the Nissan Mobil 500 10 years before (in 1993) which I will start with.
This was the year that Paul Radisich returned triumphant after winning the first of his two World Touring Car Cup events in a Ford Mondeo. Owen Evans and Bruno Eichmann would go on to win the actual race in their Lighting Direct Porsche 911 Carrera RS after a crash claimed the Radisich/Glenn Seton Mondeo. For me, though, the absolute highlight of the meeting was the final qualifying session (late on Saturday afternoon) when in literally the dying stages Paul was finally happy with the car and threw out a single qualifying lap which finally shut the only other driver there with a broadly similar car, Brit Robb Gravett who was sharing a Peugeot 405 M1 16 with Justin (son of Derek) Bell, up! Gravett had been alternatively talking himself up/his car down since he arrived in Wellington and some local journos who should have known better took the bait hook, line and sinker, proclaiming the Englishmen as genuine competition for the Radisich/Seton Ford.
Knowing Paul, I figured he was well aware of the banter going around about how he had ‘met his match’ but even I underestimated his response. Or at least I did for – say – the first 100m or so of his three-lap qualifying set. To say that something special went down late that November afternoon in Wellington is an understatement as Paul literally flung the Yellow Pages (remember them?) backed Mondeo from corner to corner, all the while using what sounded like a good 2000 revs more than he had up until that point, the sonorous bark of the special cost-is-no-object V6 engine bouncing off all the hard concrete and glass surfaces of the urban canyons that lined the city side of the downtown waterfront circuit and making what some might have thought was a Godawful racket but what I heard – indeed felt – as a symphony of mechanical marvelousness the like of which I don’t think I’ve experienced in as pure, as visceral since. FYI it was as fast as it was spectacular Paul’s final qualifying time close to two seconds quicker than Gravett’s best.
My message, do your research, work out when the key qualifying ‘window’ is and wait around until the start to feel the tension build.
Ten years later I lived to regret not doing the sort of due diligence. My excuse was that I was a guest of Harley-Davidson who had worked out a comprehensive itinerary of ‘things for foreign journos like me’ to do while in Milwaukee complete with bikes to ride to and from and knowledgeable local guides should we think we needed them. What I didn’t realise at the time was that our hosts would not be offended if we decided to ‘strike out on our own’ which is exactly what our two Aussies did.
Fair play to them they found out about a local half mile flat track venue which by sheer coincidence was running a final ‘before the developers take over our site’ meeting at their suburban facility north-west of ‘town’ the night after we arrived and was advertising the fact that legendary US racer Jay Springsteen (who, like us, was in Milwaukee on Harley-Davidson’s dime) was going to make a final appearance at the meeting as part of his own end-of-career ‘farewell tour.’
They could have put the word around the small group of Aussies, not to mention the sole Kiwi (me), and we could have all saddled up and enjoyed what apparently, was a truly magical night of ‘rac’n and remins’n’ but no, our true, blue Ockers purposefully kept their ‘intel’ on the meeting to themselves until breakfast the next morning. I wasn’t the only other member of the contingent – journo and H-D minder alike – pissed off with their play either. But by that stage what could we do – bar taking great pleasure in doubling down on my own research and getting to take a three-lap ride in a NASCAR when I visited the Milwaukee oval by myself the Saturday after. The lesson I learned (well) thanks to my two convict spawn cousins from across the ditch? Don’t rely on others to set your agenda. Do the mahi (as my kids now say) and reap the reward……. Yourself!
Point 4
Gee I’m only at four and I’ve used up all my word count. So, I better make this point my last. It might seem like I am stating the obvious but it’s a point worth making all the same. Not all the best racing – you know, the wheel-to-wheel/places-swapping-two-three-four-sometimes-even-more-times-per-lap – happens in the premier class, or indeed at the front of the field.
One of the best kart races I think I have ever witnessed, for instance would have been for places 7 or 8 to 14 or 15 in (I think) a Junior Yamaha heat at the annual Sprint Nationals meeting held – this particular year probably around 2013 or 2014 – at Invercargill. I was there to report ‘who won’ the NZ#1 titles but was drawn into a no-holds-barred battle for the minor money by just how many drivers were involved and giving their absolute all for the simple pleasure of competing. There are no trophies or prizes that far back in the field, but when one of the drivers, Henry Thomas-Kircher from Christchurch, punched the air as he crossed the finish line, I don’t mind admitting there was a fairly sizable lump in my throat. Which is probably as good a place as any to put a line under this all too brief a look at the subject of ‘How to watch a motor race?
I can’t be the only person to ponder this simple/complex subject though. If you’ve got good ideas of your own about how to improve your viewing experience add a Comment in the section below.
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