Between abandoned football and the passion for cars, a debut on the tracks reveals the pleasure, fear and braking technique of Senna's S
Of life’s uncensored pleasures, playing football has always been one of them, since I was a child. Eduzinho, until he was 10 years old, only wore Palmeiras uniforms and wore Kichute. Always. I prospered in this section. I even passed a sieve at SPFC and played in the 1985 Paulista Futsal Championship. I was federated. But I didn’t prosper that much either: SPFC dismissed me after 3 months of training and the futsal club didn’t “renew my contract” the following year.
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I kept the flame of a fan, fanatic of the Palestra, only.
And I dove into the cars. When I remember my adventures as a “pilot”, I think I put together a more consistent resume. Don’t expect too much either… The fact is that I drove better than I played football.
It was a big step to have joined the Quatro Rodas test team, newly graduated, at just 21 years old, and to complete the same times from 0 to 100 km/h (the only test that depended, in fact, on the driver’s skill, due to the quick gear changes) with Douglas, the guy who best drove in that team. We beat the tenths, like acceleration of Gol GTi: he did 9s41 and me, 9s47.
Some time later, the magazine gained the precious reinforcement of Bob Sharp. The bar went up. Bob had been a professional pilot. He became a champion of Tourism in the 1970s. And I also matched the measurement results he made.
One day (and this article became famous), we took the trio of national sports cars of the time and measured the lap times at Interlagos: Gol GTi, Kadett GSi and Escort XR3. And I also managed, this time driving on a racetrack, to get times identical to those of the two journalist-drivers.
Until I got the chance to do my first race, in January 1994.
I raced with Douglas and Ricardo Dilser the Thousand Miles of Interlagos, with a Voyage that competed in the Brazilian Championship of Brands. We took the AP 1800 and the radial tires used in the championship and installed an AP 2000 with slick. I clearly remember the owner of the car, the driver Alvino Pereira Jr., hitting the car in practice, stopping in the pit and “handing me the key”. My only experience aboard a racing car was at Roberto Manzini’s driving school, which still exists today (and is excellent). It was this course that enabled me to get the São Paulo Automobile Federation card.
I entered the track. I did the training. And I was 8 tenths off Alvino’s time. In the first training. In his hands, that Voyage was among the top 10, sharing paint with the motorsport stars of the time: Fabinho Sottomayor, Ingo Hoffmann, Paulo Gomes and Chico Serra.
Look at the extent of this in the head of a 24-year-old kid who had never driven a race car! I got out of the car and Dilser went to the track. I went to watch the practice at the very end of the straight, just to see how he took the first leg of Senna’s S – I’d say it’s the only more selective point on this track. The rest is all easy.
When he passed by the first time, I was tremendously frightened. The left rear wheel, the one on the inside of the curve, passed a foot off the ground. As you were braking until you pinched the zebra inside, it was blocked. And in the air. “Caral…, Rica (Dilser) is driving a lot!!” He was also debuting with a race car. I thought to myself: I’ll have to sweat to turn his time.
He goes back to the box and I’m going to greet him. “Rich, man, how amazing! You do the first leg of the S with the wheel in the air!” And he replies: “and you think you do how?” Alvino smiles with the exchange of information from the young debutants and confirms: “you are very equal. Rica has turned exactly his time!”
Alvino was the fastest rider I had the pleasure of sharing in my lifelong friendship. I was “there”, close to his time. I classified the car in 28th place on the grid, 2 or 3 tenths of what Alvino had seen in the same car.
In the race, it soon started to rain. I remember that I was standing locked in the straight. Right at the entrance to the box, a river of water came down from the top of the stand, crossing right in the middle of the track. The Voyage at 195 km/h and with the steering wheel slightly steered to the left. When I crossed the river on the first lap, the rear came all at once. Without relieving my foot, I counter-steered to the point of slamming one arm into the other. The heart came in the mouth. But I did it about 50 more times, because it rained almost the entire race. And OK, okay, it’s become a common thing.
I realized that I was, at least, good. Nothing more than that. Just good. Especially because in the last turn of the race, and I was the one driving, we had a brake problem. And I had to pump the pedal on the two straights to be able to brake at the entrance of the S and at the arrival at Curva do Lago. And that’s okay too. We’re done. We came in ninth.
When there was this brake problem, we became one of the slowest cars in the race. We were no longer among the 25 fastest… lol. But we get even slower. I drove my two 2-hour shifts with an eye on the rearview mirror, always observing which was the fastest car that was coming to overtake me. But behold, I find another Voyage at the Junction brake. On the way up, he signals where I should go. Our car was much faster with an engine. And I answered no, moving my index finger in a characteristic sign. My “plan” was to make an overtake – at least one, a little one – under the braking of the S.
I was cooking the Voyage on the entire straight, I couldn’t even see its flashlight, it was so stuck in the vacuum. And pumping the brake pedal. And I concentrated. Passing the finish line, I took it to the left. But I took a p… fright. A figure passes by my left, about 40 km/h faster, squeezed between my car and the pit wall. It was a white BMW (just a Nelson Piquet at the wheel), when I’m starting to overtake. Faced with the fright, I took a slight shot to the right. And I almost threw the other Voyage there in the stands… rs
Despite this blunder, very juvenile, I even noticed that he was, yes, a good driver. Perhaps nothing much more than a simple good driver. Far from having the intention of becoming a professional in this, I really wish I had “enjoyed” more often the feeling of driving a race car. I’m now 56 years old and the chances are getting scarcer and smaller, because, let’s face it, the little body here no longer has the same vitality.
I did three more races in my life. I’ll talk about them another day, because today my commitment was to describe the driving pleasure I had when trying some specific cars throughout my life. To placate the frustration of not having been a “touring driver”, I compensated by driving, evaluating, launching some very special cars. You can’t complain, it’s true.
I now leave the list. I promise I’ll talk about them next week: Dauer 962 LeMans (I drove this car at 305 km/h), Chevrolet Zafira, Chevrolet Omega CD, Ford Ka 1.6, Kawasaki Z900RS, Honda Civic VTi, the Porsche Macan Turbo (the electric one). Oh, of course, and the biggest of all: the 911. Detail: the 992.2, in the GTS version, the T-Hybrid. I walked inside a racetrack. Man, what a day.
