The big GT cars return to the Bira Circuit this weekend
for the 4th round of their championship. Qualifying on Saturday and racing
on Sunday from around noon. My favourites are still the RX7 rotaries,
which give magnificent flameouts and backfires from the exhaust when the
drivers lift their foot off the accelerator.
Along with these highly modified vehicles come the AIM
Concept cars as well. These one-make series are always very close, and
with the drivers drawing lots to see who gets which car means that the
series is kept on as level a playing field as possible.
This meeting will be well attended, with promotions
being held by the Mittweida Beer group in their Beer Garden which will be
erected on the outside of the track. Sizzler are also getting involved
with Mittweida, and diners at Sizzler’s Pattaya (in the Royal Garden
Plaza) who drink the Mittweida brew could get a few nice give-aways.
There will also be parades of 30 Porsches from the
Porsche Club as well as the odd Maserati and a bunch of Harley Davidsons.
All in all, it will be a great day for Motor Sport enthusiasts.
The Bira Circuit is on Highway 36, heading from the ISR
end and going towards Rayong at about Km marker 14. The circuit is on the
right hand side and is about 2 km before the 331 intersection.
Last
week I asked which vehicle was released in 1991 and featured a V12 engine
delivering around 550 bhp and had 60 valves and four turbochargers! It was
launched on the 110th anniversary of the founder’s birth. The claimed
top speed was 341 kph and I asked what was it?
It was the Bugatti EB 110, the EB coming from Ettore
Bugatti’s name itself. It was the brainchild of one Romano Artioli, who
went mad spending huge sums of money to revive the Bugatti name. He
claimed 154 were built before the new company went to the wall. All very
sad, really.
So to this week, and this is a very interesting one.
Which Japanese sports car started off life as a Nissan, but then was built
by Yamaha and called a Toyota and was styled by an American famous for his
BMW’s?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first
correct answer to fax 427 596 or email [email protected]
.
It’s not often that you get the opportunity to drive
a legend - and even less frequently that you get the chance to drive two
of them in one afternoon! Received a phone call from an enthusiast who
asked if I would like to take a Jaguar XJ8 around the Bira circuit and
also a Morgan Plus 4. I carefully deliberated for 1.3 milliseconds and
said, “Yes!”
The afternoon’s sport was arranged for a couple of
weeks ago - and yes, you guessed it - it was fairly peeing down all day.
However, cars are meant for driving, no-matter what the weather, so we
sloshed off to Bira.
The
differences between the two cars are immediately obvious, even to those
not in the slightest interested in motor cars, and interestingly,
completely divided those who looked at them. Women, in particular, were
very attracted to the stark styling of the Moggie, while men seemed to
appreciate the more voluptuous lines of the Jaguar.
I took the Jag out first, and the immediate impression
was one of effortless power from its V8 engine. Warm, safe and cocooned
inside the cabin, the car just showed what amazing motor vehicles we can
produce these days. In the teeming rain, the ABS worked so well, you
hardly even knew it was doing it all for you. The car just pulled down to
80 kph for the hairpin from the 160 clicks we were doing on the straight,
cleanly and straight, even with two off-side wheels slicing through
standing water on the circuit.
You had to throw the Jaguar at the corner to drive it
quickly in the wet, as otherwise it would get some “plough” understeer
if you fed the power in too quickly, but even then, the tail would only
step slightly out of line, before some hidden electronic whizzbangery
would bring it back. The Jaguar actually has some very sophisticated
systems on board, such as computer active front suspension and multiplexed
electronics.
At the end of some very quick laps in the shocking
conditions, the Jaguar just oozed confidence. You would have to do
something very silly - no, very, very silly to fall off the road in the
Jaguar XJ8. It was THAT good!
As our track time was limited, immediately after
getting out of the Jag it was into the Morgan, that anachronistic
throw-back to the days of cloth caps and wind in the face motoring. With
the hood up, the cabin area is small and almost claustrophobic, and reeks
of “vintage” motoring, even though this Plus 4 was only 5 years old -
Morgans being built to a tried and true formula, which has stood the test
of time. These cars are so popular that there is a waiting list of some
years if you want to get one new! But they are certainly “vintage”.
For example, the sliding pillar front suspension was designed in 1911 or
thereabouts. About the most modern part of the electronics on the Morgan
is the ignition key to connect the battery to the starter motor!
Gripping the thin, wood-rimmed steering wheel we
splashed our way out onto the circuit, the long fluted bonnet bobbing and
weaving as the very stiff front suspension bounced over the undulations on
the track. Down to the first hairpin and the off-side wheels locked up
under brakes, while the nearside gripped the tarmac. Within 100 metres we
were already travelling sideways! Down a cog, turn in and feed in the
power and it was another armful of opposite lock to negotiate the exit
from the hairpin. Sort of straight, it was into the right hander, more
opposite lock, more opposite lock and then a twitch and off down the hill.
If you think I am exaggerating, ask the owner who was sitting very quietly
beside me as his pride and joy attacked the corners at Bira from every
angle!
The differences between the two classic British marques
were vast. Eons of time and huge chasms of sophistication. Where the
Jaguar was easy to drive hard under the poor conditions, the Morgan was a
complete and utter handful. In comparison with the Jaguar, it would have
been very easy - no, very, very easy, to fall off the road in the Morgan.
However, to be fair, with a car such as that, why would
you be belting it around a circuit in that sort of weather? Morgan should
have been sitting in an air-conditioned garage under woollen wraps,
waiting for the sunny days to go quickly down leafy lanes and soak up the
joys of motoring from a simpler age. But we live in the year 2000, and we
can experience life from our computer controlled comfortable super-fast
sporty vehicles - but it’s nice to step back in time and experience just
how it used to be! Thank you John Morgan for the chance to drive the
automotive legends!
