Pierre Martins

More info on the Bailey Edwards replicas can be found here ---> http://www.baileyedwardscars.co.za/

belgiumbarry

great reading Pierre ! keep the storys coming !!

Pierre Martins

You get thinking drivers and you get zombies. The latter being those brain-dead fellas who’d circulate a track and learn nothing. You know, the ones who would do a hundred laps nonstop and still come in none the wiser.

I can tell you upfront, if you have any thoughts of ever getting behind the wheel of a sports prototype such as a Shelby Can-Am car, you’d better not be a zombie ‘cause this thing will bite your head off if you’re not paying attention. You’d have to be wide awake and sharp, a thinking driver with a fair amount of skill to be consistently quick in one of these things.

I’ve witnessed the top runners of the Shelby Can-Am series in action from trackside and from behind the wheel of my comparatively slow-poke Porsche 928 when they let these low-slung noisy-assed things run in the feature races of Porsche Challenge Unlimited, and I can vouch that there are quite a few Shelby Can-Am drivers with a good understanding of slip-angles and drift-style driving fractionally beyond the limits of traction.

Now, to get into that zone where car control becomes second nature at a pace that is slightly over the limit of traction, a few key elements must be in place. - You need experience to be able to dance with the car. That comes with track time. You also need a good understanding of the car you’re in, the tyres you’re on and the track you’re driving, so when I was asked to test a Shelby Can-Am for this article, I was naturally excited by the prospect of driving one of the fastest race cars in the country, but I was also a tad apprehensive knowing that I was short of some attributes needed to drive one of these things properly.

I take these track tests very seriously. They’re not joy rides, no sir. Every test is an opportunity to learn something new and gain experience, but every car also comes with a fair amount of responsibility. First and foremost, the car belongs to someone else, so I obviously don’t want to risk breaking or binning it. The objective is not to try and set impressive lap times, but at the same time I need get the thing up to a reasonable pace to get a feel for it so I can put the experience into words for the benefit of you, the reader…

Right, time to do a bit of homework! The Shelby Can-Am website provided technical specs and I got some valuable pointers from Stuart Mack, spanner guy for Revolution Racing and a pretty quick driver in his own right too. Basically what you have here is an 850kg space-frame car with 330hp and 410nm torque on tap, coupled to a 4-speed crash-box and a locked diff, double wishbones with adjustable anti-roll bars front and rear with locally made SAX shocks, coilovers and four-pod Willwood clamps on double vented discs, running on 13-inch-wide rear and 10-inch-wide front Good-Year full slicks. Pretty nifty package eh? Put two and two together, the thing should perform like an oversized kart…

Armed with that bit of wisdom I made my way to Zwartkops for the Wednesday afternoon test and got there an hour early to find the car already there, prepped and waiting. This particular car belongs to Craig Shorter from Execuline Underwriters, who are also the main sponsors of Shelby can-Am Racing in South Africa. It’s the same car that won the September Phakisa round in the capable hands of A1GP driver Wesleigh Orr and the weekend prior to our test it was raced at the October round at Zwartkops with Donavan Roscoe driving. One thing is certain – this is a very well-prepared and beautifully turned-out car, thanks to Peter Jacquet of DAW Racing. A neat and clean race car is something right up my alley. I was delighted.

Time to see if I fit into the thing. The seating position is typical single seater-ish with the driver strapped down low in the car with eye-level about the same height as the top of the front fenders. Pedals are close together. A stubby short gear stick on the right, small clip-off steering and a AIM onboard system complete the cockpit which is fractionally wider than other single seaters I’ve driven.

Right, so there I was, strapped in and ready for action. With a quick prayer skywards - ‘Oh Lord, please don’t let me screw this up’ - I fired the thing up and rolled out of pit-lane and onto the track…

First impression – The exhaust note from the slightly tweaked Nissan 350Z V6 motor is irritatingly loud, I should have worn earplugs. And don’t get me wrong, I like a loud engine note, but this is not a nice sound. It’s more like a high-pitch scream that hurts the inside of your ears. Other than that the car felt good and I spent the first two laps getting used to the controls. Gearshifts are clutch-less, up and down through the 4-speed whining crash-box, but you have to be firm with the stick. Man, I love straight-cut gears! Brakes felt good and didn’t take long to warm up at all. I opted to left-foot brake. Just instinct, I guess. There is no need to heel and toe, even though the brake pedal is easily reachable with your right foot. All you do is forget about the clutch, brake with your left foot and blip the throttle on the down-change.

Time to step up the pace a notch or two and short-shift to 3rd for Turn one. The top runners really hoof it flat out through there, but I wasn’t gonna let the size of my cohunes get the better of my ability in a strange car, so I feathered the throttle a tad and got back on the power at the apex. In Turn two you need to drive it like a kart. Jump on the brakes, but get back on the throttle the instant you come off the brakes to break traction on the inside rear wheel, or the thing will understeer on turn-in due to the solid rear axle dynamics. Exiting the hairpin, the car pulled hard and sweet, easy to drift to the outside curb.

For Zwartkops they run these cars with a longer pinion gear, so 1st gear is good for over 100km/h. The engine pulls nicely, but there is no point in revving it over 6500rpm in 1st and 2nd, and 6200rpm in 3rd. Be that as it may, the ratios felt too tall for Zwartkops. You can hook 4th down the back straight and use the torque to push you along, or you can just keep it in 3rd and let it rev through. I stayed on the gas in 3rd, till just after the 50m mark, dabbed the brakes and pitched it in, but it took me a few laps to build up enough confidence to get on the gas earlier and get the rear end loose through Turn 4. The car labours a bit during the climb up to the Table Top. I didn’t like that. Turn 5 and 6 is where you need to drive it with kart mentality again – Off the brakes early and hard back on the throttle to bring the *** around. The tall 1st gear works nicely here. You keep it in 1st all the way from Turn 5 to the exit of Turn 6, where you ****** 2nd as you change direction for the run down to the final corner. For Turn 8 it’s back to 1st on entry, hook 2nd as you come onto the pit straight and a short shift to 3rd as you start a new lap. I must say I enjoyed driving this car even though it’s not a piece of cake, and you have to be fit if you wanna last race distance in one of these things.

Donavan Roscoe did 1’04”s in the second heat at Zwartkops the weekend before. I managed low 1’07”s and dipped into the 1’06”s first time out, but that is not just of my own doing. The car is a good package and Peter Jacquet did a sterling job with the setup. It’s very neutral, predictable and easy to steer on the throttle. On the downside there are only two things I can fault – The unpleasant loud noise and the ratios for Zwartkops, but the rules control the gearing to keep costs in check and there’s nothing that can be done about that. I’m sure it’s much better at longer tracks. I’ve only done a few laps in the Execuline car, so I’m obviously no expert on Shelby Can-Am racing, but if I had to give advice to anyone thinking about getting into this series, I’d say this – I’ve raced 250 Superkarts, so it wasn’t a mountain to climb when it came to figuring the car’s handling out. A karting background will help you as a driver, but these cars are a challenge to drive properly and will take some getting used to, but the rewards will be humongous once you’ve cracked it.

Special thanks to Craig Shorter and Alan Eustice from Execuline for making your Shelby Can-Am available for this test and to Peter Jacquet for bringing the car to the track and answering all my dumb questions.

Cheers,
Pierre.

Pierre Martins

Thanks man. Glad you're enjoying the stories.

Pierre Martins

I have a bit of a reputation for building neat and quick Superkarts. Here's the 250 kart I built and raced in the 2007 season. It took me to third in the local championship with a couple of wins and numerous podiums. To me, 250 Superkarts still provide the biggest challenge from a driving perspective. 100hp two stroke engine, slightly bigger in size than a loaf of bread and it only weighs 215kg, kart and driver with enough fuel for a 10 lap sprint race on fullsize tracks. Zero to 100km/h in under three seconds, zero to 200km/h under six seconds and top speeds around 275km/h.

Pierre Martins

Pierre Martins

I've got plenty more pics and stories, but I'll post them later. Gotta jet.

Cheers for now.

DanR

keep the stories coming, the forum has been quiet lately and this thread makes for interesting reading!

Pierre Martins

This is not just a story about a guy and his car.

It’s a story about a dream come true and friendships forged in motorsport. It all started back in 2006 when my buddy Mario from M&R Motors told me about this doctor from Nelspruit who was building a 911 RSR replica in his garage at home. My initial thought was ‘yeah right, here comes another dodgy RSR copy with fiberglass fenders', but I must admit I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the car at Mario’s shop in the south of Jo'burg. This car certainly did not resemble a backyard jobby. No sir, I could see right away this car was lovingly put together with the attention to detail that only a true Porsche anorak was capable of.

The doctor had turned out a decent replica of the Porsche RSR used during ’74, the inaugural year of the “International Race of Champions”, better known as the IROC series in the USA. That year IROC featured great names such as Roger Penske, Richard Petty and Mark Donohue behind the wheel of identical Porsche 911 RSRs…

Anyway, I was at Mario’s for a meeting about the doctor’s RSR. We had the car up on the lift and Mario took me through the suspension setup as we always do before we take a car to the track for the first shakedown. I’ve test driven a few 911 RSRs for Mario in the past and although the doctor’s car was run of the mill for him, this car boasted pretty well under the skin. At first glance the obvious things like custom built Billstein shocks with H&R coil-overs courtesy of old hand Ted Garstein were evident, but there is more to a proper RSR suspension than fancy shocks and springs. The entire geometry of a RSR suspension differs from a generic 911 setup and since the donor car in this case was a stock ’80 911sc, the pick up points for the entire suspension were changed to RSR spec. For the front suspension Mario raised the rear mounting points of the lower A-frames to lift the stub-axles by 13mm to counteract forces from the rear under braking. That meant he had to fabricate special tie-rod ends to keep the steering rack in line. In the rear he moved the centre line of the torque tube up by 10mm and mounted 49mm shorter trailing arms on specially fabricated front mounting points to achieve the 3-degree inclination required for RSR spec.

But that’s enough technical mumbo-jumbo for now.

The time came to test this puppy, so it was off to midvaal raceway. I’ve tested plenty cars with Mario over the years and Midvaal’s always been our track of choice. You get lots of track time for your money at Midvaal and when you get a car’s handling to work there it will almost certainly work at all other tracks in the country, sans minor tweaking for each individual track, of course. I had driven another RSR replica for Mario at Midvaal a few months before, a car belonging to movie producer Keith Rose from Cape Town. That car was pretty quick and I managed 1’14”s with room to spare. You see, unless the owner of the car specifically asks me to, I never take a car to the absolute limit during testing. There is no point in trying to break lap records when your job on the day is to give feedback on a car’s handling. Besides, one must always show respect for another man’s machine when you’re given the opportunity behind the controls, especially with rare exotics such as these. Anyway, the doctor’s car had similar setup to Keith Rose’s RSR, so I kinda knew what to expect. At the track Mario introduced me to the doctor, Dave, and his friend Gerhardt from Nelspruit. Dave struck me as a very down to earth guy, almost laid back, but I could sense he was one of those guys with quiet determination. As for Gerhardt, well, he was a card from the word go. One of those naturally funny dudes…

Time to get behind the wheel of Dave’s tasty new RSR. The modus operandi for the day was I would go out solo for the first session and get heat into the tyres so Mario could get initial pyrometer readings. No fancy onboard telemetry gadgets, we were doing this old-school style. Getting strapped into this left-hooker I realized the controls were just out of comfortable reach. Dave’s a big fellah and the seat was bolted down too far back for my puny frame. I battled to reach the gear stick with my right hand but I went out nevertheless, figured I’d just get a feel for the car…

The car felt good, but I wasn’t comfy in my driving position. On lap three I wannit to come in but Mario signalled I should stay out a few laps more, so I decided to stick in a few quickies. Something I learned with a 911 box, you need a loose, but definitive ‘throw’ of the wrist when you change gears. Don’t follow the distinctive jerky H-pattern like you would in a BMW, in a 911 you need to loosen up a tad, but stay exact with your gear-changes. Exiting the horse-shoe I caught a little tail slide as I peaked in 2nd and threw the stick up to 3rd whilst getting ready to pick a line into the final corner. The rears suddenly locked up on me. ****! I knew I stuck it back into 1st instead of 3rd, hit the clutch instinctively, but a fraction too late and spun it, dammit! Did a little 360 and came to stop facing backwards and cursing my first spin ever in testing.

The engine stalled during the spin and my embarrassment quickly turned to horror when I turned the key and it didn’t crank over. Click, turned the key again, click! My blood went cold. I just sat there wondering how much money I had just pissed down the drain. Engine, clutch, gearbox, and whatever else I just screwed up, let alone people’s trust in me as a test driver…

Dave and Mario arrived and I told them what happened. The doctor was surprisingly calm about the incident. He told me the starter solenoid was faulty, that’s why it wouldn’t re-start, so I stuck it in second, got a little push from them and whaddya know? The damn thing fired right up! No damage done, phew! Back in pitlane Mario and Gerhardt moved the seat forward whilst I licked my wounded ego. I didn’t feel like getting back in the car, but I did and managed to post some respectable times in the next session and Mario got the readings he needed. After that I took Dave out for a few laps. We switched over and I rode shotgun to observe his driving. The man showed raw talent. Dave had some rally experience, but had never done any circuit racing. No fear and excellent car control, but he was a tad rough. A rough diamond, so to speak.

And that was that. We all went home after that day, tired and exhausted.

They say the best things in the world ar un-planned. A few weeks after our intitial test Mario, Dave, Gerhardt and I found ourselves reunited around Dave’s RSR for the David Piper Invitational at Zwartkops Raceway. I can’t recall how it actually happened, it just did. Everything fell into place. Mario prepped the car, Dave was the eager driver, Gerhardt took care of all the pesky legwork in the pits and I took on the role of coaching Dave. An impromptu team that kinda worked, Dave took third in class that day against great international drivers in fantastic cars such as the Porsche 917, Lola T70, Ferrari P4 and then some. Not a bad start for a guy who built a classic race car in his garage from scratch, eh?

Dave's dream started with the acquisition of a mundane tired-looking code three '80 911 SC…

He knew nothing about the technical aspects of building a race car, but starting from scratch seemed like the obvious thing to do, so he stripped the SC down to bare metal. And I mean bare metal. In true Lowfeld BBQ fashion he built a rotisserie contraption in his garage so he could spin the car around whilst stripping and gutting it. You make plan when you wanna de-bone a Porsche eh?, he-he-he, Anyway, not a square centimetre of paint was left on the body or chassis. Can you say plenty hours of elbow grease?

With everything stripped down and the heavy interior trim, carpeting and bitumen sound-proofing **** removed, the bare shell was shipped to a reputable body shop to have the rear fender flares welded in. Steel ones, not cheapskate fiberglass laminated over the original bodywork. The front wide-body fenders, also steel. Doors and bonnet were carbon fibre sourced from Café 9 Racing, but Dave opted to keep the stock OEM glass to keep the car semi respectable as a streetable car for the time being. Rear lid, whale-tail and RSR style bumpers were high-quality lightweight fiberglass items.

As for the big ticket item – The power-plant for this RSR was imported from Marcel Grouwmans in Holland, a 3.8L Porsche 964 engine, but please don’t ask me for dyno graphs. You see, in the local Porsche Challenge Unlimited series cars are classed according to bracket lap times, so real HP figures are a private matter of sorts. It’s a can of worms throughout all classes in Porsche Challenge, so all I’m prepared to say about this doctor’s engine is that it made 350hp+ with PMO carburetors last time I saw dyno figures. Case closed.

And so the local porsce challenge kicked off in all anger. Dave quickly earned the nickname “Flying Doctor” with a couple of solid performances, taking home 1st place trophies in class E at the opening round at Wesbank and Kyalami soon after, despite struggling with a pesky intermittent splutter midway through the rev range of the RSR. Something that’s always impressed me with rally drivers is their ability to drive ‘around’ problems. Something could be very wrong with a car, but they’d make it work, regardless. I saw that in Dave’s driving. His rally driving experience certainly helped to produce good results with an under-developed car in the early days of the ’07 season.

But there are other things that count against rally drivers when they first take to circuit racing. Most rally drivers struggle with throttle control when they first try circuit racing. Rally drivers are throttle jockeys by nature because that’s how you drive on dirt. On a tar circuit you need smooth throttle input or you will unsettle the car in corners. I’m talking about feeding the power on gently to balance the car. (The same goes for steering input.) Some rally drivers can make that transition, others can’t. It aint easy breaking a habit that’s been cultivated over years and I was worried if Dave would be able to fix that when the time came…

Be that as it may, our little team was starting to take shape by the time Mario and I flew down for Dave’s East London round. Everything was falling into place. I was walking on clouds at the time, having just come off my first win in 250 Superkarts at Aldo Scribante the weekend before and I expected Dave to do well also. I guess success breeds success and Dave didn’t disappoint, pulling off another podium that weekend. And good ole Gerhardt put a funny stamp on that weekend by ordering a porridge bowl of ice-cream for dinner at a posh restaurant when the rest of us ordered prawn and lobster. The poor little waitress couldn’t keep a straight face and ran off to gather herself. Gerhardt is a nutcase, no doubt. He-he-he…

The latter half of the season got hectic. I found myself pulling regular podiums in 250 Superkarts whilst The Flying Doctor did the same in Porsche Challenge. Things were hotting up. Dave was leading the overall championship, even after they bumped him up a class at the Phakisa round. This was unheard of, a rookie car and driver leading the high-profile Porsche Challenge series. Man that felt good.

Funny how that worked out in the end - a car that brought people together…

I’ve helped a fair number of drivers in my time, but this was the first time I played coach for a full season. Dave is a cool guy to work with. He knows when to put his ego in his back pocket, listen and learn. We worked well together and I enjoyed seeing him on track making use of my advice. Late in the season I spent a few laps in the passenger seat observing his driving again. He improved by leaps and bounds since that first day we tested at Midvaal, but that rally style throttle jockey thing was hampering his driving. He’d come into a corner, pitch the car beautifully and get back on the power, but just when everything was all set to go, he backed off the throttle and unsettled the car. A fraction of a second later he’d be back on the throttle again, fighting the car through the corner. I made him aware of the problem and he fixed it right there and became a smooth driver overnight. I was impressed.

That’s how you become a good driver, methinks. Forget your ego and learn.

In the end the Flying Doctor surprised all by finishing on the podium each and every race of the season and pulling off the overall championship, as well as first in class D/E of the Porsche Challenge. First time in history a rookie driver has done this. No mean feat eh? The best part is how the doctor’s RSR glued together new friendships.

Cheers,
Pierre.

Blondurant

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know. It was a motorcycle engine - I do know that much. As far as power, whatever it was, it was a lot! I basically got in and drove. It was last year and I was just getting into all this. Didn't stay in Solo for long. Once I got on the track, Solo left me seriously wanting. Now I have this deep interest to know everything about my car (996 GT3) - bumper to bumper, every major part & how it works, every nut, screw, etc. Not sure how I go about gaining that knowledge. The fella that owned the other car has won the SCCA Solo National Championship with it several times. He's got it set up perfect for the sport.

LOVE your pix & stories! Great reading.

mark kibort

ok I give up.
Is that Avitar a 928?

Circuit Motorsports

yes, post 14

mark kibort

Those are some interesting mods on the early body. (but its kind of hard to see) Are more pictures of that available?

mk

Pierre Martins

I thought you knew about the car. Been posting about it in the 928 forum. This is the first year racing this car. We built the thing and put it on track as is. No development yet, but it's given me two class wins, a couple of thirds and seconds and currently 11th in the overall championship (+/- 40 regular entries) with one round to go. But it's too slow for me. It needs a supercharger and it understeers coming out of tight corners. I'm steering on the throttle to overcome that, but I'm going through tyres like there's no tomorrow.

Pierre Martins