Andrew Frankel: ‘Lapping Talladega at 150mpg quickly feels frighteningly normal’

I drove the new Ford Mustang in North Carolina on roads close to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. NASCAR is 75 years old this year and is headquartered in the city, so I sought out the Hall of Fame and spent a couple of hours gawping at the extraordinary array of machines that have adorned the ovals over the last lifetime.

I know shamefully little about stock car racing and have only driven one – an ‘ASCAR’ if you recall the series that ran in the UK for a few years in the early part of this century – and it was absolutely dreadful. Testing commitments mean I’ve driven on banked tracks from MIRA in Warwickshire to NARDO in the heel of Italy, but before this month, just one in the US.

This was Talladega, a place probably made most famous by Will Ferrell’s ‘Ricky Bobby’ character, but which was scorched into my mind from the day of Mark Donohue’s 221mph lap there in 1975. Twenty one years later, I played a microscopically small part in Saab capturing a whole host of records up to and including the highest speed maintained over a distance of 25,000km, which is quite a long way. Myself and my many and various team-mates maintained an average inclusive of all stops and in all weathers of over 141mph, which in a bog-standard Saab 900 Turbo plucked at random from the line by the FIA, was not as easy as it sounds.

“The team was more nervous of me driving its tractor than its 917”

A single-lap average was about 153mph and while two of Talladega’s three turns could be negotiated flat out with reasonable care, the third required a proper line, a deep breath and all the concentration I could muster. Thanks to the standard fuel tank I think each stint only lasted an hour, which was quite enough for me. But the biggest danger by far was as we came into the pits. Spend an hour at those sorts of speeds and even at Talladega it starts to feel frighteningly normal. Frightening, that is, when a driver comes into the pits at 70mph because in his head it feels like he’s almost stopped. The team manager was none other than Erik Carlsson and I can remember him putting his arm around my shoulder just before I saddled up for the first time and saying, “Now, Andrew, when you come in, do not trust yourself, only your speedometer. Do you understand me?” Thankfully I did; the record was gained and, I am glad to say, stands to this day.

Forgive my second book review in as many months, particularly when this one can’t even claim to be remotely objective, as I’ve known its subject, former F1 driver Mike Wilds, all my working life. But that does enable me to tell you something about his autobiography Life On The Wilds Side you might not find in other reviews. Even though the cover says that it was written “with Geoff Thomas” – usually a euphemism for “written entirely by…”, I don’t think I’ve ever read another book whose character is so like that of its author. The tales come thick and fast as you’d expect from a man who’s been racing for over half a century, but it is written in such a genial manner, it’s like you’re in the pub with him and couple of pints. It’s not Hemingway and at 50 quid it’s not cheap, but if you want to know Mike, after an hour or two in its company you’ll feel you’ve known him all your life. Or at least you’ll wish you had.

I’d been asked by Porsche if I wouldn’t mind being one of the drivers at the Festival of Speed, which meant slumming my way up the hill in cars as diverse as the Paris-Dakar-winning Porsche 953, the Le Mans-winning 936/81 and the prototype 917/30 Can-Am car with all 1100 of its horsepower. Strangely enough, I didn’t mind at all.

But when the wind blew on the Saturday and the Festival had to shut its doors for the first time in 30 years, Porsche brought all its toys to West Dean College where we were staying with several dozen journalists flown in from around the world, some of whom wanted pictures of various cars in various locations around the grounds. Which meant they needed moving. Which is how I got to drive a Porsche I thought I might never get to sit in. Or, more precisely, on.

It was a 1960 Porsche-Diesel Junior, a tractor powered by a single-cylinder 822cc engine producing, wait for it, 14bhp. It says something about the mechanics and engineers who look after the museum cars that they looked far more nervous about me jumping on their beloved little tractor than while strapping me into the 917, which is essentially a bomb on wheels. Unbeknownst to them, it was a task for which I was well prepared thanks to spending chunks of each summer for the last 15 years trawling around the fields atop my own similarly sized Kubota.

I love these things. Big modern tractors do so much of the work for you, but in something this old and simple the relationship between man and machine is as direct as if you were on a go-kart, just at far more manageable speeds. Add in the additional jeopardy of having a priceless Porsche prototype on the other end of the rope and suddenly you’re concentrating as hard as you would not missing the braking point for Molecomb. Their relief when I handed back their baby unscathed was undisguised. By contrast, when I climbed out of the 917/30 after a run up the Goodwood hill the following day, they barely blinked.

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A former editor of Motor Sport, Andrew splits his time between testing the latest road cars and racing (mostly) historic machinery
Follow Andrew on Twitter @Andrew_Frankel