Five Things I Learned Driving a Formula F Racecar

You might be aware of the fact that I’m not biggest guy in the world. I wear a size 36 blazer and jeans with a 30-inch waist won’t stay up around my waist without a belt. Consequently, I’m accustomed to feeling like the vehicle I’m driving it a little big for my breeches.

Recently, I had the opportunity to turn a few laps on a racetrack in a Formula F racecar and I had no idea what to expect, but feeling cramped certainly wasn’t on the list.

Nevertheless, it became brutally obvious to me why race car drivers – like jockeys – tend to be on the smaller side. To be honest, the fellow who helped me into the monocoque chuckled a little and said I am probably about the perfect fit to drive a car like that. At the time, all I could think about was that this was the first time the seat in a vehicle hadn’t felt like one of my dad’s suits.

I wasn’t familiar with Formula F when I arrived at the track, so everything about the cars came as a surprise. Most of all, I was shocked by the tiny stick in charge of changing gears in the four-speed transmission. No kidding, the thing felt like it was as small as the joystick on a Pac Man arcade machine.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m spoiled with new cars and when I’m lucky enough to drive something with a manual transmission it’s usually pretty forgiving. At the very least, it’s easy to tell when you’re actually in gear.

That’s not so in this case. The H-pattern shifter doesn’t feel as precise and fool-proof as new cars with a standard transmission.

After a couple of corners and a few shifts, a feeling of confidence began to replace my initial hesitation. Not more than two turns later, the feeling of comfort gave way to hubris and that came back to bite me.

Entertaining as it may be to go rocketing into a corner, those choices have consequences. The track had braking zones defined by a series of cones and earlier that day during a tour of the track, we got a clear warning to start braking at the first of three markers.

I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I bent the rules and so I went whipping past the first cone… and the second. By the third, I stuffed a foot onto the brake before releasing it and turning in with less speed than I hoped.

Impatiently, I put my foot down on the gas and felt the rear end break loose. The truth is that I wasn’t going very fast, but in a vessel like that everything happens quickly and my goose was cooked in an instant.

Embarrassed, I steered the car straight and began driving with my tailbone between my legs.

Before long, the sheer joy that comes with driving something so simple shooed my shame away and driving was all I could think about again.

The engine sitting behind me at the time is a 1.5-liter four cylinder that does regular duty powering the Honda Fit. It powers the rear wheels through a four-speed manual gearbox linked to a toy-sized H-pattern shifter inside the cramped cockpit.

There isn’t a whole lot to these things and take it from me, they’re an absolute blast to drive, even if the engines aren’t particularly powerful.

In fact, they’re a particularly common place for young drivers to start before – potentially – moving on to higher profile races and cars.

None of that was going through my head as I pulled in to pit lane. At the time, the only thought in my brain was that I could do it better if they would just let me out for a couple of extra laps. “I was going pretty fast,” I told myself with absolutely no way of verifying whether or not that was true.

It wasn’t until the end of the day when the guy who actually races in the Formula F1600 showed up that I realized two things.

First: there was probably a reason for the guy was getting a laugh out of the way I fit easily into the car.

Second: you’re never as fast as you think you are.

You see, “the guy” is 16 years old, much faster than me and also able to nail the turn that I ended up spinning out on with what looked like razor-sharp precision.