The Edge

by Nick St. Laurent

This is cathartic, so bear with me. After hitting the wall twice in ten days, three times in 2001, five times in the past two and a half years, it's time to ask myself the question… why?

The first time was sheer stupidity. Driving my Formula Mazda in early 1999 at Texas World Speedway, I got very wide accelerating onto the straight, driving across that triangle of dirt and grass on the right side before crossing over onto the oval. It was a practice day and there was a row of cones to discourage anyone from using the full oval, I guess. Anyway, I was on the wrong side of the cones and mowed one of them down, but then something short-circuited in my brain and I decided to avoid hitting the next cone in the row by dodging to the right, toward the wall. I didn't want to put a dent in my wing. It was a disgustingly long and slow slide, with quite a bit of hope and wonder mixed into the calculations. Kiss two corners goodbye.

Nobody notified the SCCA, so they let me continue racing that year. I took the Mazda to the Runoffs and was pretty much in the hunt early in practice week. Really feeling good, in fact. On a very, as they say, committed lap, I got a little too far on top of the outside rumble strips - where Winkler and Horgas had tangled in 1997 - leading to Thunder Valley, or whatever the heck they call it. Would have been very redeemable, except that about twenty or thirty yards up the road the outside wall curves right back to the track edge. The gardener just didn't want to mow anymore grass. Goodbye left front corner.

Forward to January of this year, for the Double National weekend at Phoenix International Raceway. Halfway through the first race on Sunday, I was leading with John Hill breathing down my neck. We had caught one of the Formula Continental tail-enders and he'd been shown the blue flag for a lap, but didn't catch the drift. Coming off the banking onto the flats (rather like TWS but slower and more tightening) the door opened between the FC car and the inside wall… he was wide and slowing a little early and I was bending the throttle stop to try and put him between myself and Hill before turn two. Pop Quiz. The driver of the FC car a) saw me and got out of the way; b) saw me and decided he weren't getting passed by no stinkin' 1600 today; c) saw John on the outside and decided to get out of his way; d) didn't see a damn thing but decided he wanted to be ten feet closer to the wall at 115 miles per hour. Answer "a" is wrong. The FC driver and I had a communication problem after the race, so I don't know the correct answer. Seeya right rear corner and miscellaneous gearbox components.

On the open test day before our very own GP 2001 race weekend, I was in John Hancock's DB3 Formula Continental car, for some extra seat time and to determine whether the old Swift cars could possibly be competitive with the newer Van Diemen and Carbir and Tatuus models. That mystery shall continue unsolved for now. On the third lap of my first practice session I was in the 42's and feeling very heroic. The name Jacques Villeneuve keeps popping into my head for some reason. The car was well balanced and I felt like it would do whatever I asked, no problem. There were quicker lap times to come because the car was very planted and stable, not close enough to the edge to feel it yet. Between lefty turn eight and right-hand through-the-wall turn nine I swung to the far left edge of the track… six inches too far, and I couldn't cajole those darned left side wheels back onto the asphalt. Across the grass and into the tires and the concrete wall, then the car up in the air balancing on the left front wheel, hesitating as if to decide whether to go ahead and tumble over the wall or not. At least I was spared that embarrassment. Scratch the two left corners. Amazingly (or should I say routinely) the Hancock's got the car ready, minus the wadded up undertray. If anyone invites you to drive an FC car without an undertray, think sprint cars on dirt… the DB3 was still (almost) controllable and fun to drive, but sideways is not the fast way through the corners.

This brings us to last weekend at Heartland Park, Topeka, Kansas. My first trip there. I'm getting fully cathartized now, so I'll be brief. Early in the national, just into second place, catching the leader, a near-the-top-of-second-gear, slightly uphill, left hand 180 degree corner, a DSR coming up on the inside on the entry to the turn, I give him a couple feet extra room to the inside but give up none of my entry speed, in a millisecond all hope is gone. The Jamun never slowed across the rain-soaked grass and the naked concrete wall approached way, way too fast. I knew it was going to hurt, and it did. Right side corners mangled, sore ribs, hip, groin, neck, that big bony thing behind the ear. But the next morning was no worse, so it couldn't be too bad.

Driving those 675 miles home with the pumpkin lying mangled in the trailer, I figured out why. We all just like playing near the edge. It's addictive. I think that when I start driving with a margin of safety so that I can't feel the edge, it'll be time to take up golf again. As to my losing streak against the wall, it just assures me that I'm right there on the limit, with no room for mistakes. I knew I would be okay mentally during the drive home, just north of Waco on I-35. The road is under construction, cement wall on the left, no shoulder on the right, Steve Henry's thirty feet in front of me (because I get better fuel mileage that way) with his F-350 and Goodyear trailer. We're going 65 mph, there's three eighteen-wheelers freight training down the right lane, we've got maybe a foot and a half to the wall on the left and a couple feet to the monsters on the right, and all the margins are constantly changing. I feel the tension and I know his senses are on full alert, like mine. But we're driving past those suckers and Steve's brake lights never come on. I'm smiling because I remember scaring Steve last year driving Mike Renna's motorhome in exactly the same situation. After we made it by the trucks, I called him on the cell phone and we laughed and I commended him for a job well done. It was exactly the same feeling as dancing near the edge on the race track.

Copyright Nick St. Laurent; all rights reserved.