Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [48]
There I was, no less a revered spannerist than James May, owner of an allegedly 99-piece chrome-vanadium socket set and best 'specials' bicycle builder of the fifth form, and I was holding a rag. If you were at Donington Park for round 12 of the BTCC you would, I hope, have noticed how brightly the two silver A4 Quattros of Biela and Bintcliffe gleamed in the watery June sunshine.
It probably didn't help that I arrived for my first day as an Audi pit technician, Saturday, precisely half a day late. By then, practice for the first race was over and there was nothing for it but to have lunch in the motorhome – pork fillets with veg and gravy followed by cheesecake, which was excellent. After an hour or so of digestive repose watching Le Mans on the motorhome telly, I finally entered the dark portal of the pits, hoping to have a look at some telemetry or perhaps join the discussion on tyre choice. That was when I was handed the duster and the bottle of wax. After I'd polished the cars, I washed a pile of alloy wheels. I completely missed the second practice session as I was too busy cleaning the garage floor.
Still, the garage is a fascinating place, even when observed from all fours. There's the toolkit – drawer after drawer of beautiful stuff, with every last spanner, socket, ratchet and extension piece allocated a cut-out slot in a cosseting bed of foam. One corner is devoted to a huge, gleaming plinth on which, with the aid of computers, light beams and other black magic, minute adjustments to camber, toe-in and weight distribution can be made. Everything is absolutely spotless, thanks in some small part to me on this occasion.
You should see underneath the car. I crawled under Biela's hoping for a quick nap, but was stunned into wakefulness by the cleanliness of everything. Even the floorpan is polished, the better to prevent dirt sticking to it and making the job of gearbox and engine changing messy. It's not like your road-going A4. There's no underseal for a start, and the alternator and power-steering pumps are driven from the rear diff rather than the engine, to preserve a few vital horsepower; less than half the engine's output is directed to the back, so they only sap that bit of it. That steering pump is an area of concern. The BTCC A4 is geared at a mere 0.9 turns lock-to-lock, and if the pump fails – as it had done a few weeks previously when a stone fouled the drive belt – then the driver is not strong enough to overcome the leverage of the unassisted wheel and ends up in the gravel, as Biela did.
Dinner was roast turkey with all the ancillaries followed by jelly and ice cream, after which I retired to the hotel with the chaps. Now I thought Saturday nights in race season would pass in a stress-relieving riot of drinking, brawling, seducing and sword-fighting, but tonight it was just a few quiet pints in the bar and some talk of racing. That first practice session had been revealing; it was wet, and our boys, with the advantage of four-wheel drive and hence able to move off the dry racing line on to the slippery stuff for overtaking, had been running first and second until the track started to dry out. Then, encumbered by a 65kg weight penalty levied for being too fast last year, they dropped back to 9th and 12th. What we wanted was a wet race.
Next day the sky, scrutinised over several bacon and egg sandwiches, looks promising. At 09.30,15 minutes before morning warm-up, light rain begins to fall. Biela wants his 'wet' ratios, which means a gearbox change. Panic? No, the job takes only about 12 minutes. An engine change takes an hour and a bit. The 24,000-mile service should take about 45 seconds, then. I am allowed under the car for the final part of the job, bolting the gearbox cover plate on. The socket slips on the shallow nut and I punch myself in the face.
Our chaps are 2nd and 7th in warm-up, but we need more rain. Biela wants the other gearbox back and I'm invited to help,