Verwerfung is, roughly, German for time warp. The science fiction element of this story, of course, involves unexpected time travel.
The real life part involves a race called the 24 Hours Nürburgring, which takes place, unsurprisingly, at a race track called the Nürburgring in Germany. Now, I’m not an expert on motorsport by a long shot. And I can’t actually even drive. But if there was ever a good reason to learn, and to learn to be good at it, it would be the Nürburgring. I first heard of it from that ubiquitous car show, Top Gear. Usually it is a programme that provides moving wallpaper and background sounds while I’m doing something else, but quite often there is something compelling on it, and the Nürburgring gripped me when I saw it. And I was even more intrigued when Jeremy Clarkson explained that the track is actually open on most days of the years to anyone with a motorised vehicle of almost any roadworthy sort. You simply pay a very reasonable price, currently €22 to do a single lap of the 17 mile track. My reaction was ‘I want to go’.
I haven’t got there yet, but it seemed like the very place a petrolhead like Davie Campbell would aspire to. And then I discovered that there is a 24 hour endurance race run there every year in late May! A storyline coalesced!
Now,
anyone who does know about the race will realise that I took a few liberties
with the facts. For example, the public would not have access to the circuit
on the night before the 24 Hour. It would be used for practice sessions
for the competitors. So taking Brenda around as a passenger would not
be an option. Eight weeks before this story went online, when I researched
it, the competition, which in 2009 takes place on Bank Holiday weekend,
23rd/24th May, was still open to entrants and it was possible to get an
application form with all the rules online. I wish I’d downloaded
it at the time as the list of rules and regulations, categories and classes,
prohibitions and requirements was mind-boggling. We actually went through
it bit by bit just to make sure that Davie’s car qualified. There
was a worrying moment when we weren’t sure if a car with three seats
would be allowed. Left or right hand drive cars are accepted. But what
about middle drive? But yes, it would qualify.
In the real world, it is unlikely that anyone who owns a McLaren F1 would be insane enough to drive it. The car is so expensive, at least four times as much as most of the cars I named in the story that actually DO compete in this sort of race. The insurance premium to race a car that expensive would put off even a millionaire with nothing else to do with his money. And the chances of a prize car being smashed to pieces would have to be considered. It is thought there are only 66 left of the 100 F1’s ever made. Nobody would risk making if 65 on this gruelling course.
Incidentally, going through the rules we reckoned that Davie would need something like €300,000 up front to compete, including things like insurance and paying up front for the fuel used in the course of the race.
It would have been easy to write a story just about Davie and Spenser racing the car, but it needed a bit of science fiction to make it worthy of being a New Lords of Time story. Hence the cars disappearing, the Nazis and protoype time machines. But really, most of that was run of the mill stuff. This was a story in which the car was the star.
The little scrap with the Ferrari driver is my own little show of solidarity with British racing teams, after a couple of fractious years of Formula One in which Ferrari have proven to be the spoiled rich kids who don’t like it when they don’t win.
The comment by the Ferrari driver about the McLaren being a mongrel is true if you believe a car has to be solely made in one country. When McLaren decided to build the fastest road legal car in the world, the remit was to get the best. That proved to be a German Mercedes engine coupled with British engineering. Nothing wrong with that. And it still is the fastest naturally aspirated road legal car in the world. Those that have beaten it, including the French made Bugatti Veyron, have turbo injectors. So Davie has every right to be proud of his car. It is something special in the history of cars.
The bit at the end, in which Davie secures sponsorship from the people who dreamed of and then built his car is a little bit of fun. I dedicate it not only to Ron, Gordon and Stephen, but also to the owner of a model car shop near where I live. I went in there once for a look around and had a conversation something like this:-
“Is there anything you’re looking for especially?” asked the shop owner in a slightly patronising voice, because I'm female and females don't usually come into his shop and probably don't tend to know what they're looking for.
“Yes, I’m looking for a model of the road version of the McLaren F1. I see you have a rather nice GTR version there, but I was really after the road version.”
“Ah, sorry,” he replied. “I’m afraid they only licensed the models for a very short run. The designer… I forget his name now….”
“Gordon Murray, you mean,” says I.
The eyes of the owner of a shop selling model cars, planes and trains mostly to men boggled. He wasn’t expecting a woman to know that.
“Er.. yes, Gordon Murray… only let them make so many models.”
“Well, stands to reason,” says I. “Since they only made 100 of the actual car.”
Model shop owner melts into a puddle, having learnt something about women.
I still don’t have a model of the McLaren F1. I doubt I shall ever see one in real life. But I live in hope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hours_N%C3%BCrburgring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordschleife_fastest_lap_times
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring
http://www.rossbuckinghammotorsport.co.uk/nurburgring24hourrace_36545.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mEirkQN8o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron
