An old-age pensioner gave me the biggest adrenaline rush of my life the other day. No, not some myopic relative with a Metro stuck in ‘R’ and their foot stuck to the floor. I’m talking about multiple Le Mans-winner Derek Bell – yes, he really is 67 – and the new Porsche GT2. Bell came to Rockingham for CAR to drive the most iconic hardcore Porsches of all time. You’ll see the results in our June 2008 issue.
Now, while I love driving on track, I’m a rubbish passenger. And after a day of jumping from one car to another with Bell at the controls (thanks again Nigel Mitchell, Vic Cohen, Robin Simpson and Des Sturdee for trusting us with your pride and joy), I was starting to feel slightly queasy.
And then the day climaxed with the GT2: the lairy, apocalyptically quick GT2. If I were to get behind the wheel of a 523bhp, rear-engined, rear-wheel drive supercar, I’d build up to its limits gradually. Not Bell. ‘F**k me!’ he shouted when he opened the taps for the first time. This made me worried. Here was a well-spoken chap accustomed to driving ferocious sports prototypes to victory at Le Mans and the GT2’s performance was shocking him.
It was like hearing an air hostess scream. But Bell kept his foot in, driving through the twin-turbo explosion at 2400rpm and shifting gear violently as the performance crescendoed north of 6000rpm (my vision was too blurred to tell you the precise tacho reading). The turbo wastegate exhaled violently and BANG, the whole process started again, my head slamming back into the seat.
Come the first corner Bell stood on the ceramic brakes, thwacking my torso into the seatbelt. I felt my feet go light and blood rush to the top of my skull. The car lurched sideways, then the stability systems kicked in to save our skin. Phew! ‘Turn that off, will you?’ shouted Bell over the din. Reluctantly I did. And Bell began to flow, gripping the wheel tight, riding the kerbs and making stabby inputs at the wheel to calm the tail’s wayward excesses. It was fast, it was sideways and – much as I trusted my pilot – just a little scary.
‘It’s like the old 935 Le Mans racers but more advanced,’ he said. ‘In fact, you could have won Le Mans with this ten years ago.’ I forced a smile as the colour drained from my cheeks.
The GT3 is a car for the masses. The GT2 is a more compromised machine. Its ride is too harsh for the road, its power delivery less intuitively organic, the very physics of the thing making it difficult for mere mortals to extract maximum performance. The GT2 demands talent. And Bell’s still got it. Watching the machine rise to the talents of the man – and vice versa – was an experience I’ll never forget. And something my stomach doesn’t want to repeat.
Then came the twist. We’d been videoing the whole thing, but the camera had inexplicably shut down before we left the pits. ‘Can you go back and do that again?’ asked the crew. How my stomach coped I’ll never know. Click here to see the video.