What is “The Passion”?

It is widely quoted that Motorsport is a passion. It’s something that those people who follow motorsport or are involved in end up being bitten by it and it becomes an all encompassing passion. One that needs constant feeding.

There is no other sport like it. You can spend days preparing the car for the next event, checking tyres, brakes and the like, load it all up on the trailer, get it to the track only to have a 5 cent cir-clip let go in the first practice session that puts you out for the day. But because it’s your passion you do it all again next time.

The next time will be far better (you hope!). If all goes to plan, now you endeavor to put together the perfect lap. You arrive at say, turn one Eastern Creek, at close to 230 Kph, touch the brake, turn it in to hit the apex, hold the throttle to the floor and hang on! By mid corner on a good lap you get an almost floating sensation, where the car becomes light as you go through the corner. It’s like you’re dancing with the car at around 160 Kph, and boy what a dance it can be.

Then you grid up for the race with 35 like-minded passion nuts around you. The lights go green & you pray that the bloke in front doesn’t stall, otherwise you will be wearing him as a hood ornament! You drop the clutch and you’re off, fighting within centimetres of other cars while trying to take advantage of someone else’s poor start. It takes a couple of laps for your brakes & tyres to heat up, so you have to try & push on, knowing full well that she won’t stop or turn as well as she can until then.

It is important to settle in to the race, check out the competitors around you, and decide whether to put in a few hard laps to build a gap or, save the car for later in the race. A 20 minute race can only feel like seconds when you’re in the car so you must remain mindful of how many laps there are to run.

Before you know it, the last lap board is put out so it’s all or nothing to get the bloke in front. By now the tyres and brakes have had enough, but you’re expecting the most out of them. You concentrate like never before as slowly but surely the gap to the guy in front comes down to the point where you can latch on to his rear bumper. The most thrilling moment comes at the second last corner as you close right in on him. The car moves around as you dart up the inside on the final turn while trying to get the power down smoothly. You push him a little wide on the exit as you’re door handle to door handle going down the main straight. Changing gears like lightning you pull half a car length in front as you celebrate finishing 6^th out of the 35 finishers.

While you didn’t win, you felt “The Passion” that will bring you back next week!