Out On Track In A Caterham Seven Academy Car

Riggers pops his Academy cherry at Oulton Park

"The thing you need to remember about the tyres," says Caterham's motorsport manager, Simon Lambert, just before we fire up the Caterham Seven Academy car, "is that I think they were last used as standard on a 1.4-litre Renault Clio". Right. Possibly not the best tyre for a cold, damp November track day at Oulton Park, then.

Peering at the writing on the sidewalls of the Avon Envoys I can make out the word 'economy'. These are not going to be the most grippy of tyres. "They'll last you a season," says Simon, "and everybody else on the Academy grid is stuck with them too".

I'm at Oulton for my first go in Caterham's entry-level racer before lining up on the grid as part of the 2010 PistonHeads.com Caterham Academy, and my fellow trackgoers are not Academy road cars. They're rather a mixed bag, actually. There's a pair of wings-and-slicks Ginetta G50 racers, a gaggle of hot hatches, a few Evobarus and a host of Caterhams, ranging from Roadsports to R500s. And all of them have stickier rubber than me. Gulp.

Erm, the apex is actually over there...

The sky is clear as we head out on to the circuit, but the track surface is damp, cold and greasy. As the briefing chap from BookaTrack (who are running the rack day) warned us (repeatedly), Druids, the double-apex right-hander towards the back end of the circuit is particularly slippery. Even so, the way the Caterham starts dancing on the tarmac as we teeter through, having to tip-toe even on a sighting lap, is alarming. It must have been even scarier for the chap driving the Evo in front of us, who manages to actually spin on the sighting lap.

The wobbly start to the day has made me a little cautious and I'm nervous at first of going beyond the car's modest limits of adhesion. As a result the Seven, with its rollerskate tyres and relatively lowly 125bhp 1.6-litre powerplant, is swallowed up by almost everything else out on the track.

Trying to be brave through Cascades

But as the track starts to dry out and I begin to believe that I can lean on the car a bit without fear of chucking it at the scenery (this is someone else's baby, remember), I begin to get a small inkling of just how much fun racing one of these for a season is going to be.

It is an almost inexcusable cliché to describe a Caterham as handling like a go-kart, but I dabbled in the karting arts as a teenager and, once you begin to trust it, the Caterham Academy car does feel a little like a racing kart. The direct steering and back end that often actually rewards a tail slide, in particular, lend it a certain air of kartiness.

Having satisfied himself that I'm not going to turn the car into a lump of scrap metal, Simon points us back into the pits, where he hops out and, after a few words of advice along the rough lines of 'be brave and try to brake later and harder, you wuss' sends me out again, this time on my own.

'Don't spin, don't spin, don't spin'

The next chunk of my life passes in a bit of a blur. I don't even know how long the stint lasts - 10 laps, 20 laps, 30 minutes, an hour - just that I only come in when the red flag is waved as a result of somebody landing their Honda Civic deep in a gravel trap.

I come back in to the pits unable to wipe the grin from my face. The track has been slowly drying out as I've been careering around Oulton, with even a dry line emerging on some corners. The result has been a treacherous but thoroughly enjoyable session, with the circuit changing on every lap.

At the end of it, I've been through everything from the satisfaction of a bang-on line, to the terror of alternating understeer and oversteer through the still oh-so-slippy Druids, to almost reaching the lock stops after choosing an over-ambitious entry speed for the sweeping downhill left-hander of Cascades (see pic below right). And when I come in, the tyres are still cool to the touch - you certainly can't fault their longevity.

Not the best line...

Just before lunch a heavy shower soaks the track, so we can kiss goodbye to the hope of any dry running. Even so I head out after lunch with a full tank of fuel to test out properly wet conditions. Weirdly, the car actually feels faster, a sensation that must be largely due to the fact that, unlike in drying conditions, the grip on a properly wet track is uniform. At least I know now that a full-on wet race will hold fewer fears than I had expected, although the spray when following other cars too closely really does reduce visibility to almost zero.

By the time the sun begins to dip over the Cheshire horizon a dry line is once again appearing, so I ask Simon if he wouldn't mind passengering me for a few laps. He agrees to get in, which is a good start at least. I'm still braking too early, and still following the 'trackday line' - wandering into corners rather than making a positive turn - but apparently I'm 'getting the idea'.

Wipers work. Not well, but they work

But just how much further I've got to go is revealed when Simon hops into the driving seat for a few laps. He takes the Caterham by the scruff of the neck and fairly hurls it around the Cheshire countryside, attacking kerbs I wouldn't go near and deliberately provoking the back end to get the best line through some corners.

For the last few laps of the day I get back behind the wheel and try out some of Simon's more aggressive lines. It immediately feels quicker, but before I can get used to this new tactic the chequered flag waves and the session is over.

The Friday night traffic on the M6 as I head back south is stifling - I want to be out on track again flinging the little Caterham around. But I shall have to wait until January before my own Academy car is ready, and even longer before I can get it on track. Believe me, that day really can't come soon enough.

^{Pictures: BookaTrack.com}

Riggers attempts to get out...	...Needless to say...
...gymnastics was never his strongest subject...	..this will take as much practice as driving the thing

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chris_w

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