I was invited to take part in one of those ‘ball-based driving events, you know the one’s; timed stages from point A-B over a few days in old cars wearing fancy dress with a series of challenges along the way.
We came close to winning it twice before so this time we were determined. The first year we had a Datsun 240Z, the second year was a BMW 635. Both manual gearbox, rear wheel drive, powerful cars, but clearly not powerful enough, as we hadn’t won!
So, this year I put my skills to work. I bought a lumpy cam, tubular manifold system, some genuine Schnitzer alloys and went to work. The head was skimmed and ported before reassembly using the new cam, exhaust manifold and new performance chip. Whilst it was on the ramp, I added some new shocks and springs and managed to acquire an AP Racing big brake kit (They were based close to us and had an E39 M5 development vehicle which I used to maintain for them). It also benefitted from fresh gearbox and diff oils and new tyres.
We had covered England and Wales in year one and Scotland in year two so it would be a foreign excursion this time, surely? Day One found us heading off to Folkestone in a Star Wars themed costume, game on!
We got this, we tell ourselves, two performance drivers in a performance car, across Europe. At the time I was a freelance instructor at a few circuits and my co driver was a weekend racer. This couldn’t play to our strengths any better if we tried! We were up against a 3.0 Capri Sport, Porsche 944 Lux, Reliant Scimiter and a BMW E21 323i. That was the main headache for us, and we knew it. Why?
He also failed to win on previous attempts, so he too threw horsepower at the problem. Being a very good friend of mine he enlisted my help to build a winning car. We converted his 323 to a long stroke 2.7 with a lumpy cam, tubular manifold, uprated suspension, brakes and a new performance chip. All the fluids were drained and refilled and new rubber fitted to the corners . . . sound familiar?
The 635 was everything we wanted it to be, comfortable, fast and reliable. At one stage as we stormed through Germany we overtook the course car at over 140. As we did so, our phone rang . . .
Is Onkar driving?
Yes
Tell him to slow down, we have to set up the next stage.
Yeah, he won’t do that. Can you speed up?
We agreed that I would stop for a break as opposed to slow down!
Another stage saw us drive through Paris and again, I was driving. We caught the Porsche quickly as we approached the Peripherique and they struggled to keep up with us as we weaved our way through the traffic. That night over dinner I was given a new nickname, Weaver bird.
When we headed to the finish line, we were bullish, no-one had passed us, we’d completed all the activities and collected as many points as possible.
The winners?
If I tell you the E21 failed to finish due to a seized wheel bearing on the final night, can you guess?
Soon after the event I had a customer who wanted to tune his 635 so I even managed to sell all the parts I’d bought. When we sold the car and cost the event we were ahead, which was a formula I repeated for Le-Mans.
But that’s a different story, as is the gay bar we ended up in by mistake!
