Flying Lawnmowers at Snetterton
by Jem Shaw
Formula One drivers? Ner, they're nothing special - and that comes from someone who lapped Snetterton a full second faster than Martin Brundle. It's possible that this claim needs a little explanation...
During my period as Derek Freathy's barely competent assistant at Dunlop Competitions, I was occasionally called upon to supervise operations at various race circuits. These were selected according to two criteria:
- Circuits sufficiently bleak and inaccessible for no one else to want to go
- A low risk of my being able to cause significant damage
So it was that I found myself down for a day's testing at Snetterton. On a cold, wet afternoon with icy wind blowing unimpeded from the Steppes, Snett definitely ticks the first box. As it turned out, and by some cosmic oversight, the sun came out to smile on us as we unloaded and set up for the arrival of Samuri Racing.
Samuri were a friendly bunch, so I was looking forward to a pleasant afternoon watching Martin Brundle hurling a Toyota Celica - the lovely one that looks over-inflated - round a circuit that would come to bear his name on one of its corners. This was before his F1 days, but Marty was already a front-runner, frequently winning the two litre class in British Touring Cars and occasionally beating the boss Capris to an overall win. But I took a second a lap off him.
In the paddock. On a lawnmower.
Engineers love to engineer. Especially when they have access to a fully equipped racing garage and a boss with a sense of humour. The Samuri crew had designed and built possibly the most dangerous WMD this side of a Trident II. It had started life as a Briggs & Stratton rotary mower. The blades had been removed (for lightness I presume - there certainly wasn't much health and safety going on) and the engine had been coupled to a rigid rear axle shod with Dunlop kart tyres. The front wheels were rendered theoretically steerable via a Momo steering wheel and some Meccano. The victim driver sat on a Corbeau seat slightly behind the rear wheels, straddling the 350cc engine to prod the throttle. There was a pedal for the left foot, but I can't remember if it was for clutch, brake or dialling 999.
During the morning, we'd watched a few would-be rally drivers having fun on a skidpan that had been set up at one end of the paddock. When they left, they kindly left an expanse of oily water and many traffic cones. Marty and the management team went off for a meeting, leaving the rest of us idle.
Boredom can be dangerous. With an evil grin, Dave, Samuri's chief engineer, rolled out the equally evil implement of devastation. Cones were set up to mark Snetterton's less official circuit, and timed laps began.
At this point it's worth considering the physics of the machine. It was approximately 1.5 metres long by almost the same across. The driver sat far back, and the engine produced enough torque to register on a seismograph. The gentlest stab on the loud pedal stood it on its tail. This, of course, rendered the front wheels redundant - not that this mattered greatly as the rigid rear axle and grippy tyres meant that the steering wheel made little difference even if the front wheels were on the ground. It was a handful in much the same way that Belgium found the blitzkreig a mite challenging. I was to discover this on my first acquaintance with the thing. The slow-in-fast-out cornering technique delivered no turning moment whatsoever. The only way to tame the vile thing was to enter at maximum speed and slam on the brakes while turning the wheel. This produced a good 0.01g of lateral force, which quickly developed into a neck-wrenching slide that could - sometimes - be caught with opposite lock. On those occasions when all this went according to plan, it'd then be foot down hard and hope that you were pointing in the general direction of the next corner.
Surprisingly, I proved to be quite good at it and managed the fastest lap, until Martin and the suits returned from their meeting. The Samuri team manager, whose name I forget, wasn't noted for his sense of humour. Unfortunately, the hearty bollocking he delivered was somewhat compromised by Marty shouting, "Yay, give us a go!" and jumping aboard. He came in a second slower than me on his first try. Clearly, I was possessed of untapped talent.
If only the story could end there.
Lap two saw Brundle firmly on pole. This was unacceptable. I resumed my seat and made my best attempt at a steely stare along the endless 20 yards of the start/finish straight. Resolved to reclaim the crown I flung that muscle-bound Flymo through physics-defying manoeuvres. As I entered the skid pan, the taste of victory was already teasing my palate. The spin started at a reasonably leisurely 33 1⁄3, building through 45 and 78rpm to a laboratory-grade centrifuge. Then the mower hit the bank and turned into a hat-out-of-hell frisbee. To an onlooker, the total flight time was probably a second. From behind the steering wheel it was long enough to watch the in-flight movie and wish that the brat in front would stop staring at you between the seats.
While I hadn't managed to set a new record, I'd at least travelled faster than the items that arrived a fraction later. A few clods of soil missed me by inches, then the skidpan hit me by gallons. Steam rose skyward as, with an infuriated hiss, the Briggs and Stratton released its death rattle.
I heard that the Mower from Hell was destroyed a week later when one of the crew managed to land it upside down. I trust he made a full recovery and can bask in the satisfaction of the service he did to mankind.