Dubai: Exclusive Driver blog by MSW’s Andre Ramdhanny – ‘Wet behind the Gears’

 

Dubai, Oct 22nd: Coming off an amazing result in NRD1, both the team and my confidence was beaming, anxiously waiting for the next race weekend to arrive. It was further boosted knowing that we would have race engineer Richard Townsend helping us out over the weekend. The week before National Race Day 2 could have been better in many ways, including work-wise. Customer orders and ours being delayed, coupled with a damaged garage door was enough to have me pulling out my hair. Luckily I have a lot left, but hey, we had a weekend of racing to look forward to. What else could be better?

As usual a late night was on the menu in order to have the car fully prepared and ready for battle. I was particularly looking forward to the weekend as we would be racing on the National Circuit, which I enjoy driving due to its combination of fast and technical sections. Thursday morning as I leave my apartment I find that my door lock is not working and my key is stuck, that’s a good start! After stopping into work just to make sure everything is OK I make it up to the Dubai Autodrome with the intention of running for the last 45 minutes of the morning test session. After signing up, and paying, I jump into the car only to be plagued by electrical gremlins, hence missing the session.

With the help from our friends at NFS we found the problem and were able to run in the afternoon sessions. A lot of changes were made to the car during which transformed it from great, to horrible, to spectacular. Despite not having a single clean flying lap due to a red flag, I was very happy with the time I was able to achieve on old rubber. After parking the car, my hopes were high, if we could keep the same momentum; it looked good that we would achieve another good result on the weekend.

Friday morning practice rolls around and we decide to run the entire session due to the lack of track time we got the previous day. I get suited up, jump in the car and then nothing, more electrical problems. The MSW team quickly solved the issue, which just so happened to be a different problem than the previous day, and got me out into the session with about 15 minutes to go. The session goes great, my lap times are consistent and the car feels great, even on used rubber. The checkered flag comes out and I back off slightly in order to bring the car in for the team to check over.

I get through the first few corners as I have done for before and setup for the turn 5 and 6 combination, this time 7.6 km/h slower than the previous lap (data logger info) little did I know that I would not even make it to turn 6. I don’t have the experience or knowledge yet to exactly explain what happened, but my guess is that the equation of earlier than normal braking + light steering lock + touching the curb resulting in me and my beautiful MSW Seat Supercopa being spat out into the wall. Ouch!

After realizing that I had lost control of the car, I was sliding backwards looking over my shoulder at the tire-wall thinking I might just make it without hitting…well that didn’t happen. The front right smacked the wall which pivoted the car, stuffed the rear end and then ricochet me to the middle of the run-off area. I felt OK and immediately radioed in

“I’m in the wall; I’m in the wall….its a big one”

After jumping out of the car my immediate emotions were mixed into a broth of anger, disappointment, sadness and embarrassment. Watching the marshals load the car onto the flatbed was the hardest thing I have had to witness is a very long time.

Upon returning to the paddock I was overwhelmed with the response of all the competitors including my main rivals. Everyone wanted to make sure that first and foremost I was ok, after seeing that it turned into support and offers to help us get our car back onto the grid as quickly as possible. This is what makes racing special to me and why I love being part of any motorsport community. This immediately made me change my focus to getting the car ready for the race. Rookie race driver turned mechanic, there I was, hands in covered in grease and brow covered in sweat laboring away with the rest of the team. Thinking back to it, there were friends of mine that I invited up to the weekend that I completely ignored in an effort to get the car ready, I was like a race horse with blinkers on, only allowing me to focus on the finish line, or in this case, making it to the starting line!

I was running around the paddock scrounging for spares that we didn’t have in our kit. Thankfully the team at TAM were able to supply some of the much needed parts, with ARM lending some of its man power in our relentless effort to get the car out for the start. The more work we completed on the car and the closer we thought we were to our goal of getting out there, was overridden by the fact that we found bigger problems than we first anticipated. After getting everything back together and thinking we had the car in good enough condition to start the race, we were hit with the biggest blow of all, damage to the steering rack!

After less than a minute of thought, the decision was made to send the car out to start the race in order to salvage points for the championship. I geared up and jumped in the car as the noise of the Touring Car Grid filled the air on its green flag lap. All I was thinking was get me to pit exit so I can get out there. I fire up the car and the team pushes me back to line up to drive out of the garage.

Right hand down and the car responds accordingly, turning to the right.

Now I can actually see through the pit garage, onto the pit lane, into my salvation. I Select 1^st gear, left hand down…and the car turns right…Damn, I give the signal that it’s over. I shut down the car and retire to the pit realizing that the efforts that everyone had put in were in vain…

Again, disappointment, regret and anger come over me but only for a short time. While changing into my team clothes I think about the effort that was just put into getting me back onto the grid. Two hours of non stop hard work from the MSW team makes me realize that this is the only team that is capable of such a feat and no other team on the grid would have gotten us as close as we were to getting out there. The disappointment quickly vanishes and is overcome by pride and appreciation in my team and work that was done. There is absolutely no other team I would rather drive for.

Selfishly, watching the Touring Car race from the sidelines was a lot harder than I expected it to be. I could not help but to run through hundreds of if’s, buts’ and maybe’s. In the end as a good friend once told me “If, is an illusion”, I can only take the outcome as a lesson to be learnt and move forward. It will only make me stronger. It was however, a pleasure being there for Team Principle Jon Simmonds GT race in the ARM prepared Porsche 997 Cup car. Partnered with Tarek Elgammal, they were able to bring to car home 1^st in class. Good job guys, congrats!

Ahead of us lies a very difficult 2 week break where our time will be all but completely consumed with repairs and preparation for the Motorsport Festival. I know the guys at Fibra Foil won’t be happy with what I have done to their beautiful design, but I also know they are able to get us back out there looking as spotless as we did for the first weekend. Time to break out the tools, turn on the lights and make sure that the Lavazza coffee machine is well stocked. See you in 2 weeks.