2003 Australian Formula 3 Championship Round 7 Winton Motor Raceway Victoria

Fri/Sat/Sun September 19/20/21

19-09-03 T-2 Report

Ever wondered what it could be like to strap yourself into a genuine 210 bhp 'wings-and-sticks' single-seater racing car and accelerate at full speed out of the pit lane and onto one of Australia's best race tracks?

I must admit, in idle moments I have - and, with a little bit of smoke and a couple of strategically placed mirrors - I have been able to do just that, albeit in a tandem two, rather than single seat, racing car.

That car, a specially-modified Dallara F301, is one of only two tandem two-seat Formula 3 racing cars in the world. Built two years ago for use by the organisers of the German Formula 3 championship, it was acquired at the end of last year by Australian motor racing entrepreneur Ross Palmer and since the beginning of this year it has been in use at corporate days and rounds of the 2003 Auatralian Formula 3 championship.

Powered by a bonafide 210 bhp Spiess-tuned 2-litre Opel engine and weighing (dry) just 500kg, the two-seater can accelerate from 0-100 km/h in just 3.8 seconds and lap Australia's tracks less than two seconds slower than similar single-seat Dallara F301s.

My ride came courtesy of Procar Australia, the organisation which runs the Procar championship. I was one of four special guests at the Winton round of the 2003 Australian Formula 3 Championship to get a ride in the car and to say I was looking forward to it would be an understatement.

Palmer set up a special stand-alone company to run the two-seater (T-2) programme, and nothing is too much trouble for the Procar team.

Knowing I was going to get a ride I brought my own helmet, boots, gloves and three-layer fire proof race suit but if the closest you have ever got to a racing car is watching it on TV, T-2 will kit you out with everything you need.

Because the car is just 700mm longer than a single-seater Formula 3 you crouch rather than lie in it - think the tuck a downhill ski racer adopts, rotate it back 90 degrees so you are sitting virtually upright with your knees crunched into your chest and you'll get the picture.

Climbing in isn't hard but it takes a minute or two for a member of the T-2 crew to clip in and tighten the six-point harness around you.

With a couple of clips to slip your toes under (much like the clips on an old-style racing bicycle pedals) and a pair of handles mounted to the rear of the driver's roll bar bracing yourself in anticipation of the high accelerating, braking and cornering forces isn't exactly a problem though at first you wonder how you are going to see anything through the roll hoop in front on you. (The answer to that one is that because the Winton circuit has so many corners you find yourself looking out the side more than you are looking straight ahead.)

Racing cars are coltish, flighty thoroughbreds at the best of times and when driver Darren Palmer gets the go-ahead from the marshals all hell - literally - breaks loose. The engine rasps menacingly as Darren blips the throttle while the mechanical linkages jerk and clunk as he selects first gear.

Initially the fat Kumho racing slicks scrabble for grip on the smooth pit lane tarmac but when they finally get some purchase your torso is squashed back into the form-fitting seat and you find yourself gasping for your next breath as you catapult forward at what feels like Space Shuttle-like pace.

And that is just in first gear. Palmer picked up second then third before we left the pit apron then swerved violently from one side of the track to the other as he endeavoured to get as much heat in the tyres as possible down the old start/finish straight.

And that was almost as much as I can recall. In fact, from where I was sitting the first lap passed in a blur of violent flicks, twists, turns and jolts, the scenery flying past so fast my brain tripped and stumbled as it tried desperately to keep up.

The second lap was better, the main - in fact, the lasting, impression - just how mind-bogglingly fast Palmer entered Winton's awesome decreasing radius Ford Credit sweeper. Where you or I would be easing a foot delicately off the accelerator and gently transferring it to the brake, Palmer appeared not only to have missed his braking point but also to have kept his foot hard down on the accelerator and - oh my God, I am going to die! - hooked another gear...

Then, just as I had resolved to quickly compose a last will and testament, he hit the brakes hard and grabbed a handful or steering wheel, the car lurching left at what appeared to be the last of the possible minutes.

Then, just as my heart was returning to double figures he was back on the loud pedal and accelerating hard through a left/right flip/flop - which is follwed by what looks like an impossibly tight right hand hairpin.

Incredibly, we got through both and without even the hint of a pause for breath, we were off towards the horizon again - only to be brought dragging and screaming back to earth by another violent stab on the brakes, another rifle bolt gear change and anther hard, bone crunching lurch left...

And so it went on until Darren slowed and idled back to the pits, my brief glimpse of life 'on the other side' over almost as quickly as it had started.

First impressions last and mine are of how incredibly quickly the T-2 car accelerates, how stupefyingly quickly it stops and how obsolutely instantaneously it responds to a touch of the steering wheel.

Most of us have, at some time, thought that racing drivers must lead a charmed life. That all it takes is a good car and better than average hand/eye co-ordination.

My answer to that.

Don't knock it until you have tried it.

Even as a passenger the experience is awe-inspiring. What looks like a smooth, fast line from the fence is a kicking, bucking battle of wits between the driver and car for control. Win it and you get to do another lap. Lose it and the consequences don't bear thinking about. And that is if you are the only driver on the track.

Imagine what it must be like with 10 to 11 other equally talented and determined drivers?

My thanks to Procar, T-2, Darren Palmer and Bronte Rundle Motorsport for making my 'ride on the wild side' possible.

Article courtesy of Ross MacKay - Fast Company.

NZ Herald # Thursday, April 6, 2006
Auckland couple spin passenger's wheels in rare twin-seat Formula 3 race car, one of only two in the world.

TAKES 2 TEAM: from left, Shane Martin, Vicky Templeman, Dave Templeman, Daynom Templeman and Warren Salter.

Ever wondered what it's like to hurtle round a race track in an open-wheeled race car at more than 220km/h? Wonder no ,longer because an Auckland-based company has just taken delivery of one of only two two-seater Formula 3 racing cars in the world.
The car was built in 2001 by Italian company Dallara, and shipped to Australia in 2003 by Queensland motor racing entrepreneur Ross Palmer. Palmer was going to offer rides in it across the Tasman but his plans changed and the car sat unused until Auckland couple Dave and Vicky Templeman tracked it down and set up a company - Takes2 - to run it here.
With more and more companies using sponsorship-based marketing campaigns to build brand awareness and staff and client goodwill - being offered a ride in a racing car is not the novelty it once was.
But the Takes2 car is no ordinary racing car.
Based around a contemporary Italian-made Dallara Formula 3 chassis it is powered by a 156kw (210bhp) Opel engine capable of catapulting it from zero to 100km/h in 3.8 seconds.
Though it has had an extra 700mm built into the carbon fibre chassis to accommodate a passenger, the car is in every other respect idential to the cars currently competing in the various Formula 3 Championships around the world and is only a step away from Formula One. It is almost as quick too, tests in Europe and Australia showing that it can lap a circuit less than two-seconds slower than a genuine single-seater Formula 3 race car.
The passenger is belted in behind the driver and secured with the same six-point harness seat belt system. Takes2 supplies the safety equipment, including fire-proof driving suit and full-face helmet. Templeman says he is amazed how quickly word about the car has spread.
"The phone has hardly stopped ringing since we landed it here," he says. "I've even had two offers from companies who want me to take it up to the Middle East and offer people rides in it." Templeman descibes the experience as "like being strapped into a Skyhawk or an F18 fighter plane but never - quite - leaving the runway.
"There's probably no car quicker in terms of initial acceleration and you don't have to be going fast for the downfoce from the wings to come into play".
"It's fast - you're doing over 230km/h down the back and front straight at Pukekohe. But I think the things that most people have trouble getting their head around are the brakes and the way the air being split by the wings pushes it down the track."
Templeman and his team will do most of their ride days at Pukekohe and the new Taupo circuit.

Driver Magazine...written by Dan Barlow

There are only two European Formula 3 tandem-seaters in the world, and one of them is based here in New Zealand. It was bought from Aussie Ross Palmer by Auckland man Dave Templeman earlier this year and is available for hire at corporate days and the like driven by his son, Daynom, a highly-experienced single seater driver currently contesting the Toyota Series.
It was built in 2001 on a Dallara F301 chassis by Bertram Schaefer Racing in Germany, is powered by 165kw modified Opel engine, and is one of only two tandem Formula 3 cars in the world. The chassis was lengthened by 700mm to accommodate the extra seat, and the whole thing weighs just 500kg empty.
For obvious reasons, the car is set up in 'safe' mode, with maximum downforce and the suspension adjusted for ride compliance rather than 'on the limit' handling response. It's also driven at about eight and a half tenths with a passenger aboard as the aim is to thrill rather than petrify the customer.
Dave Templeamn says it's possible to set the car up in such a way that it would be as quick around the circuit, even with two aboard, as a single-seat Formula Toyota.
The car is available for corporate events, or just for thrillseekers (as long as they combine into a large enough group to make it viable).
We were invited to slip into the back seat for a couple of fast laps of Pukekohe.

Dan Barlow, at 1.9 metres (6'3"), the tallest person yet to fit into the back seat, tells the story.

"I had to fold myself up like a Swiss army knife, with my kness up against my chin and my toes hooked into the cutout in the back of the driver's seat. Dave Templeman then proceeded to tighten my six-point harness so tightly that my eyes almost popped out of my head. I couldn't move my body one millimetre in any direction, but I could extend my hands just enough to hold onto the grab handles on the back of the roll bar.
Dave explained where the panic button it (in case the whole experience got too scary), as I handed him the signed indemnity form. The 165kw Opel Spiess engine fired up, Daynom dumped the clutch and we exited pit lane relatively gently as he rode the brake pedal while he weaved around the aweeper to get some heat into the brakes and tyres.
Once onto the back straight he floored the throttle, and going through 160km/h (there's a little digital speedometer/revcounter readout between your hands) the air getting under my helmet gave me the first experience of someone, or something, trying to tear my head from my shoulders.
With the brakes still not up to temperature Daynom braked quite early for the hairpin, he then punched it hard all the way round the left-right, coming into the pit straight at 190km/h and entering the sweeper at 212km/h. Having only ever driven around here in a raod car at about 140 (after lifting off), I was amazed that Daynom left his foot right in it, the open-wheeler only scrubbing off about 10km/h, moving the car well to the left for the correct entray to the baack straight.
He accelerated hard well before the apex, pinning my head back against the rollbar as he rammed it through the gears. Acceleration to 180km/h was shatteringly quick (by now I'd worked out that I needed to keep my head down to avoid having the wind remove it), but tailed off after that due to the very high downforce settings. It still reached 226km/h before Daynom braked for the hairpin at an incrediable 90 metre, negotiating the tight corner at an equally amazing 76km/h.
It was on this lap that the G-forces through the following left-right combination really made me realise how hard these guys work for their fame and glory. Although my body was so tightly strapped in that it couldn't move, my loosely-suspended head with its weight-adding helmet felt like abowling ball on the end of a bungee cord. The chinstrap was working overtime and my neck muscles were doing so much work that they were still stiff and sore two days later. And that was after just three laps of 3G-plus treatment.
After unfolding myself out of my confining capsule, I couldn't stop myself bursting into laughter. This was a fantastic experience. As a petrolhead who'd done a bit of track work in a modified road car, I had no idea of the effect on the body of the downforce, the G-forces and the stupendous braking power.

I want to do it again, but after finding out how much it costs, I want him to drive it like he's trying to kill me."

The car's other name is Tango. Guess why?