Driving a Lola F 5000
The Lola cars were built by Eric Broadley in the
UK, and it is rumoured that he coined the name after the musical
score, Whatever Lola Wants - Lola Gets! Having been involved in the
production of racing cars myself, I know what Broadley would have
felt. As you design and then build a race car, it becomes top
priority. The family starves before the car is deprived of parts!
Many people wonder just what the fire-breathing F
5000 cars were like to drive, and let me assure you, that is exactly
what they were. Fire breathers! 5 litre Chev V8’s delivering 550-600
BHP stuffed in the back of an F1 style chassis weighing just over 600
kgs all up with fuel and oil. I have had that opportunity to drive
one, so read on and see what it is like to do 300 kays per hour in a
single seater.
Firstly a little about “my” Lola. This was a
Lola T 430, one of only three ever built as a special order for Count
Van Der Straaten for the VDS Team. These were not related to the T
330/T 332/T 400 series cars, but were three specials using, it is
presumed, a smaller F 2 tub. Brackets had to be added to the central
tub to get the suspension pick-up points far enough outboard, and at
one stage these cars were even known as the “Flying Brackets.”
As all modern race cars it was rear engined, with
the 5 litre Chev mated to a Hewland DG 300 transaxle (gearbox and
differential combined). Very wide slicks, huge wing and large discs on
all four wheels naturally. These were purpose built 5 litre race cars
that would do 0-160 kays in 4.6 seconds and a standing quarter of a
mile in under 10 seconds. Of the three cars, one was destroyed in a
race crash, one is in America and this particular car I last saw
advertised for crazy money in a NZ magazine.
As I got in to drive the car for the first time,
the owner said, “Imagine you are sitting in a coffin, surrounded by
petrol, with 500 pounds of engine and gearbox on your back and using
your feet as the front bumper!” With those cautionary words ringing
in my ears I fired up 600 horsepower of Chevrolet.
These cars were before the auto transmission,
steering wheel flippers of today’s F1 car. There was a strong clutch
pedal to depress, a right hand gear shift, and a tachometer to tell
you when you reached 7,000 RPM and it was time to change gear again.
And change gear you do, as there is so much power
to weight that as soon as you have found 3rd gear, you are looking for
4th and then 5th. This is not a high revving “peaky” engine, but
an engine with Grunt. And that is a capital G! At Calder Raceway in
Victoria, Australia, Lola and I did 300 kph down the short
straightaway. It would have done more if the straight had been longer.
Driving an F 5000 has been described as, “Like
throwing a four pound sledge hammer handle first.” The weight is all
in the tail, and indiscriminate jumping on the go pedal half way round
a corner will see the rear bite and the front of the car lift and jump
across the race surface. These are cars that demand concentration and
demand to be driven into and around corners by people who are not
afraid of four pound sledge hammer throwing!
It is actually very difficult to drive these things
slowly. Get too low in the revs and the car “lumps” its way around
the track as you have got off the power curve. The car will also not
steer nicely in the corners and you find that you are taking the bends
in a series of “swoops” rather than a smooth line. These vehicles
need to be driven hard to make the job easier, even though that sounds
a bit of an oxymoron.
The technique to going quick in one of these
jiggers is to leave the braking as late as possible, and enter the
corner under brakes, so that the front tyres are biting. Now you
gently feed in the power and as you get past the apex of the corner
you can start using as much welly as you dare. You will find you come
out of the corner so fast that you are immediately looking for the
next gear up, and before you know it, there is another corner in front
of you. Brakes - gears - turn in - smooth power - to full power and
you’re away again.
The T 430 was known as a ‘nervous’ car, and
“mine” certainly was that day. Too much accelerator too soon would
see the Lola scrabbling for traction - none of your sissy ‘traction
control’ in one of these. With undulations in the track surface, the
Lola becomes “squirrelly” and you rely on the huge back tyres to
push the car straight again. The F 5000 is not a car to relax in, it
is a vehicle that demands intense concentration. You do not have to be
Charles Atlas to drive one, but you need your full faculties of
concentration. 50 laps in one of these is more of a mental exercise
than a physical exercise.
The cornering speeds are so high, that you don’t
look and drive to a visual apex. You ‘sense’ where the car is,
relative to the track, and work out what correction you have to do
with your brain. Quite different from road driving which is a visual
sensory input. Driving something as quick as the F 5000 needs you to
have your vestibular system working overtime (that’s the part of
your inner ear that tells you where you are in space and whether you
are upside down). You are not driving by the seat of your pants - you
are driving with what’s between your ears!
To reinforce that, when you are driving an open
wheeler at speed you do not “see” the front wheels. You know they
are there, but they “disappear” as you concentrate on getting the
car around the corner at the fastest speed possible. You do not have
the time to look at the wheels, you are looking several hundred metres
down the track and just letting your peripheral vision pick up the
track edges.
However, even though it is not the most physical
pursuit you can do, driving an F 5000 does have a physical side.
Physical pain. You may have read of drivers having a “seat
fitting” before going to test a race car, and this is most
important. You have to be comfortable in them. The G forces in the
corners and under brakes are so high that unless the seat is a very
snug fit, you move around in the vehicle (even though you are wearing
a 6 point harness) and bang bits of your body on all sorts of tubes
and projections.
These were real “men’s” cars (although a couple of ladies did
compete in the category). Big, noisy and ballsy (which is why none of
the ladies who tried them were too successful in them). I am happy to
have left my fingerprints in one! And 300 kays ain’t hanging about
either!
