I’ve been lucky and I am the first to admit it. Not lucky in the I-win-at-the-casino sense of the word but lucky in that I get paid to practice my hobby.
Courtesy of my job I have done some amazing things over the years. I have driven some truly great machines, and some less than sterling but equally memorable cars. I have visited far off, exotic lands to drive new modelsand watch motoring events. And among the highlights has beenthe chanceto meet and interact with motorsport heroes, especially racing drivers.
Like many young boys I wanted to be a racing driver, then a fighter pilot -c’monTop Gun was great and the lead character hada superbike and the hot girl with the cool car -and for a brief stint I wanted to be a fireman. But whatever fad happened to be influencing my thought processes that week, I havealways beena car nut first and foremost. As life would have it a competitive driving career never saw the light of day and I was destined to be involved in motoring at some other level.
The written word becamemy medium (and to a lesser degree moving pictures as you can see from Sudhir’s video tests elsewhere on this site – Ed) and as a result I get to do things that many other petrolheads would give several vital organs to do.
So, back to meeting racing drivers. I was initially quite shy to speak to and interact with these demons of speed. As time progressed I realised that these are just regular people with a particular talent for driving cars at speeds that few others can match- well most of them anyway (easy Matai – Ed).
No matter whom I spoke to, I always got around to asking the same question, “What do you drive?” I was hoping that answers wouldincludea mix of sports cars, or at the very least a turbo hatch but instead they varied from SUVs to family saloons to diesel bakkies; hardly the stuff of breakneck, gung-ho heroes.
As it turns, out by and large race drivers don’t tend to drive fast cars, orknow about cars either. This latter fact was underlined by Formula Onedouble world champion Mika Hakkinen. The Finn was a one time McLaren driver and in the video above can be heard commenting on the turbo whistle of the McLaren F1 supercar. Oh really Mika? aturbocharged F1, WOW!
After several years of hearing the same boring answers I realised that it’s not really about cars for these overall clad chaps but rather about competition. They are fiercely competitive and placed in any arena their competitive nature will come out. In this case they just happened to be skilled in the art of wheel twirlery.
I wasdisappointed… no saddenedto learn that the men that are revered by so many petrolheads are not petrolheads themselves. I have made peace with this fact over timeand whenever I encounter drivers on a professional level I realise that in all likelihood they know less about the cars we present themthan the majority of hardcore car nuts that buy CAR magazine, surf motoring websites and frequent car forums. So I suppose I was never destined to be a racing driver. I wonder if it’s too late to sign-up for flight training school…