nMarch 2010

Nestled in the Andaman Sea on Thailand's Indian Ocean coastline lies a tropical paradise called Phuket.

The island has absolutely nothing to do with this story.

However, if you deliberately mispronounce the name in English, it perfectly describes what went through my mind five laps into first practice at Zwartkops Raceway. I was climbing the hill towards Table Top when I heard a clunk from somewhere deep inside the engine.

Not a little clunk.

Not a maybe-I-imagined-that clunk. A proper mechanical death rattle. The sort of noise that immediately translates itself into fluent profanity. I knocked the car into neutral, hit the kill switch and coasted back to the pits.

Phuket.

Race weekend over. Or so I thought. 

A quick inspection revealed the culprit. The crankshaft had broken. Before I could slip fully into my finest Phuketian accent, the Shelby Can-Am guys had the rear bodywork off and were already discussing replacement options. Somebody disappeared into a trailer and returned with another engine.

An entire replacement engine. The race was back on.

But perhaps I should explain how I ended up behind the wheel of a Shelby Can-Am in the first place.
The best things in motorsport tend to happen with very little planning. About a week before the race meeting Rod Cole phoned and asked if I was interested in an arrive-and-drive opportunity for the Pro Tour round at Zwartkops.

Now, anyone who's spent enough time around race circuits knows that's not really a question. The correct answer is always yes. The details can be sorted out afterwards. One thing led to another and I found myself entered as a guest driver in Rudi Patour's Shelby Can-Am, with GT1 Workshop handling race preparation duties.

I was delighted. I'd always admired the class.

For those unfamiliar with the formula, Shelby Can-Am racing is one of South African motorsport's hidden gems. The cars are purpose-built spaceframe sports prototypes weighing around 850 kilograms and powered by near-stock Nissan 350Z V6 engines producing approximately 330 horsepower and 410 Nm of torque.

Power is delivered through a four-speed crash box with a locked differential.

Suspension consists of double wishbones all round, adjustable anti-roll bars, SAX dampers, coil-overs and substantial Willwood brakes clamping onto double-ventilated discs.

The cars run on massive Goodyear slicks - thirteen inches wide at the rear and ten inches at the front.
The result is a lightweight, highly responsive sports prototype capable of embarrassing far more exotic machinery.

Unfortunately my introduction to the class involved a broken crankshaft. Apparently the problem wasn't entirely unheard of. The Shelby association had investigated previous failures with Nissan South Africa.

The prevailing theory was that the solid engine mounts used in the race cars introduced harmonic vibrations absent in road-going 350Zs, occasionally resulting in crankshaft failures. I was simply lucky enough to experience one firsthand.

The engine swap became a frantic race against time. Gerald and the GT1 Workshop crew worked like men possessed. Spanners flew. Bodywork came off. Fluids drained. Parts changed hands. And somehow, by Friday afternoon, the car was ready for qualifying.

Which was unfortunate. Because now I actually had to drive the thing properly.

Qualifying was one of those situations where experience has to compensate for preparation.
I had effectively missed most of Friday's track time and was still learning both the car and its peculiarities.

Zwartkops is a fascinating circuit in that it's really two racetracks stitched together.

The section from Turn Two through Turn Five rewards commitment and momentum. Long sweepers and decent straights make it a drag-race sector where carrying speed is everything. The remainder of the lap is far more technical. Tight corners, short straights and constant direction changes make it feel almost like a kart circuit.

The Shelby and I immediately established a working relationship.

It wanted to go sideways. Everywhere. Under power through the fast sweepers. Under power out of slow corners. Under power whenever it felt like it.

The rear end felt looser than a Bangkok prostitute.

Okay, I don't actually know what a Bangkok prostitute feels like, but it seemed an appropriate comparison at the time.

Truth be told, I quite enjoyed it. The car, that is - I've never been to Bangkok.

The car was fitted with tyres that had already lived a reasonably full life and grip levels weren't exactly spectacular. The result was a wonderfully entertaining balance that required constant attention and rewarded commitment. 

I eventually managed a high 1:05-something lap, which wasn't earth-shattering but wasn't entirely embarrassing either considering the circumstances.

Back in the pits we chased setup. More rear wing. Softer rear anti-roll bar. Reduced rear ride height. Anything that might improve traction and calm the rear axle. The changes helped, but there's only so much setup wizardry available when a tyre has already made peace with retirement.

Trying to dial out worn tyres with setup changes is like spelling racecar backwards.

You still end up with racecar.

The reality is that Shelby Can-Am racing is fiercely competitive. The cars are remarkably equal and small differences become magnified. A slight setup issue. A little less grip. A fraction of hesitation. Suddenly you're nowhere.

At that point I abandoned any thoughts of heroic results and adopted a far more sensible objective.

Enjoy the drive. After all, opportunities like this don't come along every day. And what a drive it was. The Shelby Can-Am is one of those rare race cars that immediately inspires confidence. Quick enough to command respect, communicative enough to encourage aggression and forgiving enough to allow a little experimentation.

The harder I pushed, the more I enjoyed it. The more sideways it became, the more I laughed. By the end of the weekend I finished eighth overall. Not exactly the result that gets engraved onto trophies. But sometimes racing weekends aren't measured by finishing positions. Sometimes they're measured by experiences.

A week earlier I wasn't planning to race. Five laps into practice I thought the weekend was finished. A few hours later I was back on track in a replacement-engined Shelby Can-Am, throwing a sports prototype sideways around Zwartkops and having an absolute blast.

I've had worse weekends.

My thanks go to Jannet for sorting the entry, Rocket Rod for the nomination, Rudi Patour for trusting me with the car, Rui Campos for the opportunity, Alan Eve for the replacement engine, Gerald and the GT1 Workshop crew for their heroic efforts, and all the Shelby drivers for their advice and hospitality.

Good bunch of racers.

Geesh.

That sounds suspiciously like an Oscar acceptance speech. Perhaps I'd better stop there.

- Pierre Martins 

CLICK HERE to view the Shelby Can-Am Test
​
​CKICK HERE for more Cars That Shaped My World

​You get thinking drivers and you get track zombies...

Track Zombies are the brain-dead ones - the guys who circulate a track endlessly and learn absolutely nothing.

The kind who’ll do a hundred laps without once asking why the car did what it did.

They climb out exactly as stupid as they climbed in, just more tired.

If you’ve got even a passing fantasy about climbing into something like a Shelby Can-Am, you’d better not be one of those zombies.

This thing doesn’t forgive ignorance. It doesn’t warn you gently. It just waits for the moment your brain switches off, then it tries to remove your head from your shoulders.

To be consistently quick in one of these things you need to be awake - properly awake - and you need to think at speed. Skill matters, but awareness matters more. Hesitation will cost you time. Overconfidence will cost you panels, dignity, or worse.

I’ve watched the sharp end of the Shelby Can-Am field from trackside and from behind the wheel of my comparatively lethargic Porsche 928 when these cars are let loose in the feature races of the local GT Challenge series.

From there it became obvious very quickly who actually understood slip angle and who was just hanging on. The good ones weren’t wrestling the car – they were balancing it, deliberately nudging it fractionally beyond the edge of adhesion and holding it there like it owed them money.

Getting into that zone - where car control becomes instinctive at a pace that lives just past the limit of traction - requires a few things to line up. You need seat time. Lots of it. You need to understand the car you’re in, the tyres under it, and the strip of tar you’re pointing it at. And you need to know when you’re out of your depth.

So when I was asked to test a Shelby Can-Am for this article, I was excited - obviously - but I wasn’t delusional. I knew full well I was short on some of the attributes required to drive one of these things properly. That awareness probably saved me from doing something heroic and expensive.

I don’t treat track tests as joy rides. That attitude is for idiots and assholes. Every test is a responsibility. The car belongs to someone else, and my job is to bring it back in one piece while still driving it hard enough to understand it. Lap records are irrelevant. But loafing around teaches you nothing either. You need to get close enough to the edge to smell it - without stepping over and ruining someone’s day.

​​Right. Homework time.

I’ve learned over the years that it’s a good thing – a necessity – to familiarise myself with a car’s dynamics, suspension geometry and setup, tyres, engine specs and characteristics, gear and diff ratios and so forth - prior to getting into the car to drive.

​If you don’t have a well-informed idea of that a car is all about, how will you know what to expect from the car? – No room for track zombies here! 

​​On this occasion the Shelby Can-Am website provided the raw numbers.

Stuart Mack from Revolution Racing filled in the real-world gaps for me.

What you’re dealing with here is an 850 kg space-frame car packing 330 hp and 410 Nm, backed by a four-speed crash box and a locked diff, double wishbones, adjustable anti-roll bars, locally built SAX dampers, Wilwood four-pots on ventilated discs, and cross-ply slicks - 13 inches wide at the rear, 10”s up front.

Do the maths. This thing should behave like an oversized kart with a bad attitude.
Armed with that knowledge, I rolled into Zwartkops early on a Wednesday afternoon to find the car sitting there, ready. This example belonged to Craig Shorter of Execuline Underwriters - main sponsors of Shelby Can-Am Racing at the time.

This car was no shed refugee. It won the September Phakisa round with Wesleigh Orr at the wheel and had just been raced again at Zwartkops the weekend before by Donavan Roscoe.

Peter Jacquet of DAW Racing had it turned out immaculately. - Clean race cars matter. Sloppy preparation usually reflects sloppy thinking, and sloppy performance.

​Strapped in, belts tight, quick glance skywards - “Please don’t let me cock this up” - and I fired it into life, rolled down pit lane and out onto the track.

First impression? The engine note is offensively loud. Not the good kind of loud either - not a deep, mechanical bark - but a high-pitched scream that drills straight through your eardrums into your skull. I like engine noise, but this was just painful. Earplugs would’ve been sensible.

The car immediately felt honest. I spent the first couple of laps calculating the controls. The crash box shifts clutch-less both ways, but it demands commitment - half-hearted inputs are punished. Straight-cut gears whining away like they mean it.

Brakes came in quickly and felt solid. I defaulted to left-foot braking without thinking about it. No need to heel-and-toe - just brake, blip, and shove the lever home.

Time to stop pretending...

Time to pay attention and take control of the car - Short shift to third for Turn One. The fast guys take it flat, but bravery without familiarity is just stupidity with a stopwatch. I lifted slightly, fed the power back in at the apex and let the car settle.

Turn Two requires kart logic - brake hard, then get back on the throttle immediately to unload the inside rear or it’ll understeer like a supermarket trolley with bad front wheel bearings - thanks to the locked diff. Get it right and it rotates cleanly.

Out of the hairpin and through turn 3 the thing pulls hard and clean, easy to keep your right foot planted all the way to the outside curb onto the back straight.

At Zwartkops these cars run long gearing. First is good for over 100 km/h, which sounds wrong, but it works. The motor pulls well but revving past 6500rpm in the lower gears is pointless. The ratios felt too tall for this circuit - no way around that. You can hook fourth down the back straight and let the torque do the work - or stay in third and let it sing. I chose the latter.

Turn Four took a few laps to earn my trust. Staying on the gas later, letting the rear step out just enough to tighten the line, then feeding it back in without shocking the chassis. Slip-Angle-City!

The climb to the Tabletop felt laboured - something I didn’t like - but the car made up for it in Turns Five and Six. Again, kart mentality: off the brakes early, progressive on the throttle, rotate the rear deliberately. First gear works surprisingly well here, carrying all the way through the change of direction before grabbing second on the exit of T6.

Final corner: back to first gear on entry, second onto the straight, short shift to third and do it all again.
It’s not an easy car. It doesn’t flatter you. And if you’re not fit, it’ll grind you down over a race distance. But it rewards commitment and punishes laziness - which is exactly how it should be.

​Roscoe managed 1:04s here on fresh tyres the previous weekend. I ran low 1:07s and dipped into the 1:06s on shagged tyres during my first outing - not because I’m a hero, but because the car is fundamentally that good. Jacquet’s setup is neutral, predictable, and steerable on the throttle. It talks to you. You just pay attention.

My complaints are few...

The noise is brutal, and the gearing isn’t ideal for Zwartkops - but the rules dictate that, and cost control matters. I’ve no doubt it comes alive on longer tracks.

To sum it up - Shelby Can-Am cars don’t care who you think you are. They don’t flatter, they don’t forgive, and they certainly won’t tolerate track zombies.

​They demand attention, honesty, and respect - every lap, every corner. Drive one properly and it will teach you things about weight transfer, throttle control, and yourself that softer machinery never will.