A funny thing happened on the way to my Shrink
By Dave Hamby
(This article is unpublished and available for publication)
I’ll admit that I’ve gone way around the bend with my love of performance automobiles and the thrill I get when I’m able to use all of that performance at a race track. I get a little comfort in knowing I’m nowhere close to being as committed or needing to be committed as some of the folks I know from racing.
I’m not the kind of person who refers to the corner at the end of their street as “turn one” or calls their driveway “the paddock.” Still, if you were to visit me at my office you’d find more pictures of me at the wheel of a race car or standing next to a race car with my helmet in hand and a big, goofy grin on my face than you’d find certificates of merit or competency. It’s not that I don’t have any of those certificates; I just prefer to spend my wall space on my racing pictures.
I could easily have been a more normal guy. I suppose I even could have found golf interesting, given enough exposure to it. I can’t put my finger on a single thing that resulted in my being such a car nut, but there are a couple of events in my life that had a really tremendous impact.
I started racing when I was still in High School way back in 1969. I had an old Austin Healey Sprite that I would terrorize my neighbors with on the weekdays and autocross on the weekends. By the mid seventies that Sprite had lost its bumpers, all of the interior, the muffler, and any thing else that was not completely essential to it going as fast as possible. It gained a roll bar, a 5 point safety harness, a purple K fire extinguisher, some performance mods and a “28 H/P” on each side.
The birth of my oldest daughter precipitated a “for sale” sign for the old Sprite and ushered in an era of responsibility for me as an adult. Normalcy was almost in my grasp.
Twenty years later I found myself on the telephone with my old college room-mate, Randy, talking to him about a new 3 series BMW convertible. I needed some help with a buying decision and Randy was someone I could trust completely, not only because we used to share the same half of a duplex, but also because he had an old MG back in the good ol’ days and was capable of understanding this overwhelming mid-life crises I was in the middle of. The fact that he was a manager at a BMW dealership didn’t hurt anything either.
After an hour of Randy’s analyzing my needs I was the owner of a brand new, screaming yellow BMW M3 coupe, purchased sight unseen. In fact, it took six months before it was delivered. It wasn’t a convertible, but it did have a sun roof.
That next Christmas my wife, who is ordinarily not predisposed to doing dumb things, made a big mistake by giving me as a Christmas gift admission to a high performance driving school. This event was hosted by the BMW owner’s club at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix and was scheduled for that February. It’s possible, not probable, but possible that had my wife not given this much-appreciated gift I might today be writing about my love for my five iron and the adrenalin rush I get while putting about our local country club.
The prospect of driving my brand new, bright yellow M3 all the way from Texas to Arizona and back wasn’t very appealing and I really didn’t want to tear up those very expensive Michelin Pilots that it came with. I had to come up with an alternative.
A little research revealed that I could rent a Saleen Mustang from a major automobile rental company and could even pick it from the airport. (I would mention them by name and give them a plug, but I’m afraid they’ll send someone to my home to beat me up.) I called to reserve one of these super high performance rent-a-cars and when I did so a wary rental clerk asked, “You’re not going to race it, are you?”. Everything my wife gave me in the way of documentation stated clearly that this was not a race, but was a driving school instead. “No,” I replied almost truthfully. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re going to use this car for?” the clerk asked. “It’s for a school I’m going to be attending there,” I responded, again not quite telling the truth but also not out-right lying. “It’s for my own edification.” “Good,” the clerk said with a clear note of relief. “People rent these things for a weekend and really tear the hell out of ‘em at the race track.” Obviously mine was not a unique idea.
I found my white, hot rod Saleen Mustang convertible out in the parking garage at the Phoenix airport. After inspecting it I asked the garage attendant if he could note on my rental contract that all four of the 18” wheels were scraped up from it having been “curbed” repeatedly and even though it had only a few thousand miles on the odometer, the tires were showing a great deal of wear. “So noted,” the teenage attendant said. “Are you taking it to Phoenix International or Firebird?” he asked nonchalantly. “Firebird,” I responded without even a thought. I knew I‘d screwed up when I saw a big grin spread across his face. A twenty dollar tip got him to put his finger to his lips in a “shushing” motion. “Do you know how to get there?” he asked, now a part of my conspiracy. He was most helpful, even offering me some driving tips and pumping the tires up to an acceptable pressure for spirited driving.
Early the next morning found me at Firebird Raceway, home of Bob Bondurant’s School of High Performance Driving. The weather was perfect, the temperature in the sixties and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Of course with Phoenix being located smack in the middle of a desert, this shouldn’t have come as any big surprise. Firebird is one of those classic raceways where you have a road course attached to a drag strip. It reminded me a lot of my youth when I was racing at Green Valley Raceway outside of Dallas.
Things started off with mandatory participation in a classroom where the instructors got their opportunity to impress all of us “rookies” with harrowing tales of their driving acumen. The chief instructor had a British accent and hereminded me a lot of Robin Leach. He established his “bona fides” by informing us that he taught Tom Cruise how to drive for the film “Days of Thunder.” Having seen the film and thinking throughout the entire ordeal that Tom Cruise’s driving more closely resembled a cab driver’s in Rome than that a real racer’s, I wasn’t very impressed.
After only a couple of tedious hours of lecture I found myself strapped in the Saleen with a fellow named Dan who turned out to be the best instructor I could possibly get. We spent the rest of that morning lapping slowly and learning lines with Dan doing a careful evaluation of my abilities and attitude.
Lunch arrived all too soon and with that came another lecture from the chief instructor. After sharing his observations about our driving he opened the forum to us for any questions that we might have. There were some really inane questions from the participants and I realized then that all of the instructor’s caution and lecturing were well justified. Finally, the chief instructor closed by asking us if we had any comments we’d like to share or if we had any suggestions on how this school could be improved, ostensibly for us to have a more enjoyable experience. No one put their hands up, so I decided to interject a little humor by saying, “You know, if you could get my instructor to quit screaming so much maybe I wouldn’t go off the track nearly so often.” Nobody laughed. Everyone was staring at me with slack-jawed awe and the chief instructor had lost all of his color. With a sheepish grin I added, “Just kidding.” I don’t think anyone believed I was kidding.
In order for us to get to play we also had to work My first work session found me at turn three with a fellow a couple of years older than me named Tom. We were well equipped with a full compliment of flags, a walkie-talkie, and instructions on what to do with them. Since turn three wasn’t very scary and the folks out on the track seemed to know what they were doing, it didn’t take long for us to get bored and engage in some conversation. We discovered that we shared a great many interests. What a coincidence. Imagine two middle age men who both owned M3’s being at a BMW driving school at the same time. At some point in our animated discussion one of us turned down the volume knob on the walkie-talkie. (I honestly don’t remember which one of us did that.) I seem to remember this was so we wouldn’t be bothered with all of that incessant chatter coming from the other rookies manning the corners. Anyone who’s ever worked an event like this has experienced the phenomenon that occurs when someone is given a walkie-talkie and an audience for the first time. I’m thinking we figured that if something were to happen in or around turn three we’d turn the knob up at that time.
After a half hour or so my legs grew numb from all of the standing around. That’s when we decided to climb up on the concrete barrier and have a seat so that we could chat while we watched the cars go by. It was only a few minutes after we did this when the racing, oops, I mean the education, on the track stopped. “What do you think happened?” my corner mate asked. “Some moron’s done something stupid,” I replied wisely. As I was finishing this observation a Mercedes coupe came screaming up to turn three with our own chief instructor at the wheel. “Hey, what’s going on?” I yelled. “It seems we have a couple of idiot corner workers sitting on the course barrier with their walkie talkie turned off and we’ve had to red flag the event,” he replied with more than a note of irritation. Again my mind said to me, “Man he sounds like Robin Leach,” when the awareness of who he was referring to finally dawned. Red faced and apologetic we climbed off the barrier and turned the volume knob on the walkie-talkie back up. Later that weekend Tom and I were working at another corner with some more experienced workers. “Can you believe that anyone can be so stupid as to sit on the concrete barrier?” they sneered, unaware of the fact that they were talking about us.. We both replied at the same time, “Naw! What dummies.”
Mid afternoon in Phoenix found the temperatures sneaking up into the nineties and me eagerly awaiting my second session on the track. I’d been told that each session would find us with another instructor so that we would benefit from as wide a range of experience as possible. There I was, strapped in the Saleen anxiously awaiting my new instructor when Dan climbed in and began to fasten his seatbelt. “Are you taking me for a second shift because you like my driving so much?” I asked hopefully. “No,” he replied. “I’m taking you for a second shift because none of the other instructors wants to have anything to do with you.” It seems like my humorous comment was taken a lot more seriously than I’d ever intended. We spent the rest of the day with me learning how to take the corners as fast as possible but being limited to only 70 mph on the straights. “Any idiot can go fast on the straight-aways,” he explained. “Today you’re going to learn how to go fast around the corners.”
That night at the party some of the other drivers, guys with Vipers, Ferraris and such, made it a point to visit with me and offer some condolences on my being so slow. “I guess it’s hard to go fast in a Mustang with an automatic,” they offered sympathetically. “Yeah, that’s it.” I replied. My humiliation was almost absolute.
That next morning the desert sunrise found me in my car and ready to go. A new instructor climbed in, belted up and gave me a long, hard look. Then he unbuckled, climbed out and said, “Don’t take this personally, I just place a very high value on my life.” It’s pretty hard not to take a remark like that personally. “Oh oh,” I thought, “I may not get to play today.” Just then Dan showed up with a guy in tow. “Hey Dave,” he said cheerily, “This is Brooks. He’s willing to be your instructor today. I told him all about you.” OK, now my humiliation was absolute.
Brooks started off by making me feel a little better right away. “A lot of these instructors are afraid of convertibles,” he explained, “even if they have a roll bar like this one.” He went on, “Dan tells me you’re really a good student and have all the lines down. Today we’ll see just how fast you can make this pony gallop.”
Off we went with Brooks offering driving advice like, “faster, faster,” or “don’t brake yet, go deeper.” Soon I went from being the slowest guy in the whole darn group to being one of the fastest. Because of Dan’s careful tutoring the day before, I was able to hit the straights a good five to seven miles per hour faster than anyone else. This sent my little rent-a-car sailing around much more powerful cars like they were towing a trailer. Needless to say, I was having fun and feeling a whole lot better about myself.
When the afternoon session began, the event organizers decided to bump me up into the next higher group since my lap times were so much better than all of the other first-timers. I was only out for a couple of laps when a red M3 went sailing around me like I had earlier done to the folks in the other group. I tucked in right behind him and followed him through turn one with the tires on the Saleen howling like an un-tipped waiter. Into turn two we went and the BMW started leaving me in spite of my best efforts. We were at turn three before the Saleen’s tires gave up any pretense of traction and my tail lights passed the grill. Off the track we spun and onto the runoff area. There was a big cloud of dust and dirt announcing to everyone there that I had found my limits. “You know,” Brooks explained to me patiently after we’d stopped, “When the tires start making a howling noise like that, it means you’re just about at their limits of adhesion and you should think about slowing down a little.”
With a new realization and appreciation of the fact that I was no longer the fastest guy on the track, I re-entered the fray. I did spin out a second time in turn seven, but the stewards chose not to exercise the “two spins and you’re out” rule.
When the day was done I tried to offer my condolences to those same guys who had offered me theirs the night before, but they didn’t seem to be very interested in talking to me. I returned that Saleen with a real appreciation of how fine a car Saleen’s are and a burning desire to do this again. The car was only a little worse for the wear and tear of my weekend and the tires definitely needed replacing. I found the teenage attendant who had helped me on Friday and tipped him another twenty bucks.
Even though I really enjoyed this experience and got along well with the BMW guys, when I got back home I put a “For Sale” sign on my M3. I needed to get me something with a roll cage.
That’s when the slope got really steep on my slide into being a bona-fide car nut, but I don’t need to tell you about that. If you weren’t like me you wouldn’t be reading this magazine.