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OKANAGAN RACE SCHOOL PUTS YOU ON TRACK By
Bruce Pearce with Laurie Carter
“Earlier in life I did a little flying too. Flying is beautiful and take-offs and landings are mini-rushes – but this is adrenalin rushing through you the whole time you’re out on the track – wondering whether the old ticker’s going to take it. But luckily it did.” Not only did Bruce survive, he says he’d go back “this afternoon – and I’d probably do it again tomorrow.” The moment he heard about Sproule’s new venture, he signed up for the Checkered Flag program – a full day that starts with classroom instruction and includes one 10-lap and two 20-lap drives. The mid-August heat was building fast when Bruce and seven other speed-seekers reported for instruction. The group included drivers from Vancouver and Calgary, who travelled to the Okanagan specifically to take the course, several other locals plus a mom and son duo from Westbank. Mom, fed up with the19-year-old’s growing collection of speeding tickets, decided to provide an outlet for his lead foot and thought it would be fun to join in. “From 8–10 in the morning we had a classroom session at the Days Inn in Penticton, before going up to the track,” Bruce explains. “Mike went through all the safety stuff (which is very important when you’re doing something like that) then, on the chalkboard, he showed us the sightlines going into the four corners and taught us about left-foot braking. “It’s weird because it runs contrary to everything you’ve learned but you find very quickly that you have to do it – there simply isn’t time to move your foot from the accelerator to the brake because it’s only a quarter-mile track. So, as you reach the apex of a corner, you’re back on the gas hard and you stay that way until you figure you have to start braking for the next corner. Then you brake really hard – you’re almost standing on that left foot.” At the Speedway, Sproule and his crew gave the class a thorough orientation. “They took us on a track tour in a jeep and showed us where we should begin braking and roughly how high and how low we should be going into corners and coming out. They also showed us where the flagman was going to be and the traffic lights on the course in case we missed the flag: orange – you slow right down; red – you stop where you are.” Actually getting into the car proved a bit challenging for a self-confessed fifty-something of generous proportions stuffed into a fire-safe driving suit. “They put a radio in your ear – duct-taped on – and put the helmet on.” Bruce mimes the In the ready area, the pit chief ran through the final safety check, gave Bruce’s harness a solid tug – to be sure – then signalled thumbs up. “I went out on the track and did 10 laps on my own – just getting comfortable with the whole left-foot braking and trying to follow the sightlines and markers on the course. It’s warm in there and you’re on edge the whole time you’re in the car. So that causes you to sweat a bit, too.” In a later session two cars were on track at the same time. “That’s a weird feeling because they want you to keep some separation (obviously it’s not a real race). They don’t want you banging into the other car, but keeping the separation is tough when you’re out for the first time with two cars.” However, Bruce says the situation was constantly controlled. “They communicate to you by radio. They’d say ‘go into corner three a little lower . . . come out of corner four a little higher . . . getting a little close to that car in front of you – ease off a bit.’” “Each time I got more comfortable. The first time they talked loads but each time out they talked less and by the end, I knew my sightlines, I was comfortable, I knew how low to take the corners – they weren’t talking to me at all . . . and I got faster. My best time the first set of laps was 20.0 seconds, my next one was 18.1 and my last round it was 17.34. I wasn’t the fastest – there were a couple of guys that got 16-something – I was third. “This isn’t NASCAR where they’re doing 200 miles an hour on the straightaway (those are longer tracks), but we were still doing over 90 miles an hour on the straights and then diving into a corner and trying to bring it down – then back on the gas – hard. “Eventually you learn. At first I was afraid coming out of the corners, to get the pedal-to-the-metal, but then I got comfortable in knowing where the apex was, where to be off the brake and back on the gas. I realized I could go pedal-to-the-metal and that’s literally what you do – you just floor it – and come screaming down the straightaway. Then all of a sudden it’s time to brake.
And Bruce admits there was a single moment when he really earned those wobblers. “One time I locked up the brakes,” he recalls, grim faced. “The rubber that comes off the tires (they call the little round pieces marbles) tends to go up high on the banked track and if you get up there it’s like driving on ice. I got a little too high and got up into the marbles and I locked up the brakes. I didn’t hit the wall and I didn’t get going sideways. That was the only – what you’d call – fear moment. It was the only time I didn’t have control of the car.” Bruce shakes his head, sighs. “You lose control of the car for a second and you’re just a mess.” There’s a long pause as he disappears into the memory. But a skid in the marbles doesn’t turn him off. Bruce couldn’t be more eager to give it another go and he says the Racing Experience is something everybody could do. “You don’t need to be a speed freak,” he adds. “You could get out there afraid of going fast and just drive at your own speed and you could feel the power of the car and the noise. I think most people would be happy doing it once, but if you have any interest in speed or racing you’d probably be like me and want to come back.” And what was the highlight? “My last session – I knew it was going to be my last chance and that competitive spirit took over. I wanted to make my times better. I got a little more than a second faster each lap. It was a real experience.” Okanagan racing experience The Cars: Three fully prepared NASCAR-style stock cars set up for oval-track racing. The Instructor: Mike Sproule has logged more than 1,000 starts in a racing career that began age 14 and has taken him to tracks all over North America. Sproule now races full time in the B.C. Katana Sportsman Series. The programs: Go Green: Checkered Flag: Winners Circle: www.okracingexperience.com Photos by Laurie Carter Explore the questions and controversy surrounding a proposal to create the Okanagan Similkameen National Park Reserve in the October issue of Okanagan Life - on newstands now! |
“You’re excited, you’re nervous; you’re a bit of everything,” he says, adding, “when I was young I used to race motorcycles off-road through the bush and it was exciting but not the kind of adrenalin-rush that this race car was. 
operation. “It’s a little different getting in and out for a slightly porky guy like me. There’s no door. You’re climbing through the window and you’re in a race suit, so it’s hot, and the seat is really low to the ground and really tight. Your head’s held in – there’re bolsters on either side so you don’t get whiplash. (The G-force is pretty incredible. You’re going hard around those corners.) There’s just the one seat and the roll cage with the fire extinguisher down there beside you. You’ve got a five-point harness with straps coming over your legs and straps over your shoulders (another demonstration) and they all snap into one buckle about belly-button level. If you have to release – you just pull one clip and it all lets go.”
The experience gave Bruce a new respect for the pros that race at twice the speed – roaring around the track for two hours with 30 other cars. “I’d go out for 20 laps and come in exhausted,” he says. “You’re shaky when you get out of the car from the noise and the adrenalin pumping through you. There’s definitely a lot of adrenalin. Just climbing out of the race car you get Jell-o legs.”