Fat Bully's Story

​We lived in Pretoria for about ten years.

Zwartkops Raceway was my home track. I loved the place. Still do.

It’s a proper circuit, run by people who give a shit, which already puts it ahead of most things in this country. I’ve always said that if someone like Peter du Toit oversaw motorsport in this country, the sport would thrive.

We’d have world-class facilities everywhere instead of excuses, weeds and locked gates, like Phakisa Raceway. But that’s a pipe dream. We don’t really do functional utopias in South Africa anymore. 

​Anyway, I was at Zwartkops one Wednesday afternoon way back when the new track just opened. My crazy German mate Olly was there in his tweaked black 911. I was in my 928-S on Bilstein shocks, HR coil-overs, new Porsche Cup2 wheels, Bridgestone Potenza tyres and the best setup we could dial into the otherwise stock suspension. 

During one of the morning sessions I caught up to four older 911s with painfully obvious novice drivers behind the wheel - stiff arms, death grips, braking where braking wasn’t even an idea, eyes the size of saucers.

So what was I to do? - Play axe-murderer, of course. Carved them up like I was late for a braai. One guy pointed me by on the straight like he was doing me a favour. Another missed an apex by a postcode and neatly parked it in the kitty litter.

When I came in, Olly was leaning against the pit wall, arms folded, shaking his head.

“You’re a bully.” He quipped.

I told him the car under-steered like a fat pig and he laughed and said,

“Then it’s settled – the car is Fat Bully.”
​
That was that. Once a car has a name, you’re done arguing.

Later that year I entered a few Porsche Club time-trial events and won hands down in the class I was running, which did absolutely nothing for my already questionable humility.

Then came that magic day at the Gerotech banked oval. A local legend – who shall remain anonymous for now - reputation bigger than his lap times – ego the size of Texas - was circulating in a very well-known, gazillion-horsepower twin-turbo 911.

He could not get rid of me. He’d disappear down the straights like I’d hit reverse, but I’d reel him back in through the banked corners by doing something highly technical and advanced - keeping my right foot flat.

Every time we hit the main straight I was tucked right under his massive rear wing, lap after lap, like a bad rash.

Eventually the entire pit area was in stitches. Mr Local Legend got so thoroughly cheesed off that he didn’t greet me for the next five years. Which, frankly, felt like a winning trophy I didn’t have to polish.

But that’s another story.  

I’m a firm believer that different cars put you in different headspaces as a driver.

Fat Bully as a road car, was a bad influence. A 928 is a proper GT - smooth, quiet, planted. The danger is that it doesn’t feel fast, which means you’re usually going far quicker than you think.

Like the day my wife Danielle and I were heading back from a Sunday drive to Hartebeestpoort dam and I tripped an old-school speed trap at just over 200 km/h.

I didn’t stop.

My old man’s voice popped into my head, clear as day: “If a cop is going to pull you over for speeding, at least make the bastard work for his money”.

Something primal kicked in. I floored it. Kept it pinned and smooth, let the big V8 do its quiet, relentless thing. No drama. No panic. Just distance.

Dannielle was completely oblivious.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You’re driving like an idiot.”
“I’m enjoying the car.”

She squinted at the speedo and said,
“Enjoy it slower. Leave the speeding for the racetracks”

By the time she realised something was off, the cops were already someone else’s problem. I didn’t say another word. Neither did she.

That silence lasted longer than the chase.

That reminds me of a saying - If your wife is cross, buy a Porsche. She will still be cross, but you'll have a Porsche.

​Picture this...

A lone Honda CB400 Four stretched flat-out in top gear along a dead-straight country road.

The rider is plastered to the tank, chin hovering just above the clocks, elbows tucked in tight for whatever aerodynamic advantage he can steal. His black leather jacket is snapping itself to death in the turbulence.

The little four is screaming its lungs out - speedo and rev-counter needles blurred, valves dancing on borrowed time - doing an optimistic 170 km/h with everything it has, and a bit it doesn’t.

Behind him sits Fat Bully. Long nose. Squat tail. V8 barely breaking a sweat. No drama, no noise - just that relentless, hydraulic-like surge that only Stuttgart physics can deliver.

On our way to Sun City. Danielle, beside me, wrapped into the snug but genuinely comfortable Porsche Sports passenger seat.

I wasn’t chasing the bike, per se. I was simply sitting on his tail, whether he liked it or not. Patiently. Quietly. Making him nervous.

The road was empty and sun-bleached, slicing through South African nowhere - mealies on one side, thorn trees and hard red dirt on the other. No traffic. No fences. Just heat shimmer and the distant smell of veld.

For a few mad minutes it was man and machine versus destiny - a high-strung, banzai Japanese four and a German GT calmly reminding him of his place in the motoring food chain.

Dannielle was starting to get nervous (again) and giving me the usual static from the passenger seat, so I backed off a fraction and let the bike open a fifty-metre gap.

We were looking forward to our weekend away. The last time I’d been to Sun City was October 1984, for the opening night of Queen’s The Works Tour - long before Dannielle and I had met.

I figured everyone should do a Sun City weekend at least once in their life, if only for the experience. Relax a little. Eat well. Take in a show or two. Maybe gamble a bit - feed some coins into the greedy throats of the one-armed bandits. Not that I’m a gambler. My luck is such that if I ever fell into a barrel of boobs, I’d probably come up sucking my thumb.

We were still pegged at 170. I kept one eye on the road while fiddling with the cassette deck, trying to find a better song. The bike was still there, fifty metres ahead. That was clearly all the top end it had.

Then, without warning, the rider bolted upright - as if someone had rammed a red-hot iron rod up his arse - and promptly turned off the road straight into a freshly ploughed field, disappearing in a cloud of red dust.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Pulled over and ran across to see if I could help. He was sitting there, arse planted firmly in the dirt, wearing a look of pure bewilderment.

I asked if he was hurt.

“Nope. Don’t think so…”

There was no blood. Nothing obviously broken. I helped him to his feet and asked what the hell had happened.

He said he’d been resting his chin on the top triple clamp, hit a bump and knocked himself out cold. Next thing he knew, he was tumbling through ploughed land at close to one-seventy.

In the same breath, he said it was okay to laugh if I wanted to.

I did. It was hilarious - the funniest accident I’ve ever witnessed.

To come off at that speed and walk away unhurt is nothing short of a miracle. He was lucky. Even the bike was more-or-less fine. We picked it up and pushed it back to the road. I used the pump from the Porsche’s space-saver spare wheel to blow both rider and machine clean of red dust.

After a few cranks the Honda fired up and he rode off, heading back the way he’d come. Whatever his original destination had been, he’d clearly lost the appetite for it.

I watched him disappear, wondering if he’d also been bound for Sun City.

Perhaps he should have carried on - before his luck ran out.

Some people mistake speed for winning. Others just live long enough to realise the difference.
​

By then, the writing was already on the wall. I was gonna turn Fat Bully into a full race car.

You know the sickness – reduce weight - strip it, cage it, stiffen it, put big brakes, slicks, fender flares, aero, obsess over it, ruin it financially.

So I dropped the car off with Marino in the south of Joburg and told him what my plans were.

Marino looked at me and asked,..

“You sure?”
“Yes.”

“You know this will get expensive.”
“Yes.”

“And stupid.”
“Yes, again.”

He nodded.
“Okay then.”

Back then, the problem with building a race 928 became obvious the moment we started shopping for upgrades.

In 911 land, there were tons of aftermarket plug-and-play options. Want handling? – Order the parts. Want brakes? - Order parts. Want power? - Throw your money at Marino and let him do his thing.

In the 928 world there were almost nothing available in terms of upgrades. Nothing to just bolt on. Most of what went onto Fat Bully had to be invented with a combination of brains and stubbornness - Designed and modified with lots of F-Bombs.

We stripped the car bare and sent it to his body shop to check it on a chassis jig. Marino and old slow Ted from Afrishox spent hours on the shock dyno developing a custom set of Bilstein with H&R coil-overs with spring rates suitable for something that weighed about as much as a guilty conscience.

We started with a base weight of 1,550 kg and hoped to end up around 1,250 kg. The weight of the wiring loom alone was criminal. - there’s something like 13 kilometres of wiring in a stock 928. Thirteen freakin' kilometres of wiring. Who was this thing designed for, NASA?

The original ’83-S motor remained stock. 350hp. I opted for handling before horsepower. The gearbox, also stock, but got a shortened GTS shifter and a limited-slip diff from Transaxle Developments in Pinetown.

Brakes were lifted from a Turbo 964 courtesy of a mate who was so anal he replaced all four callipers and discs because the callipers had a few stone chips.

I paid him R8k for the lot and kept my mouth shut.

For wheels we went with spacer adapters to run BMW PCD, so I had more choice and didn’t need to bond my house to buy genuine Porsche rims.

Then came the bodywork. I’d always wanted a wide-body 928 of my own design, so I sketched, collected reference photos, and handed the car to a fibreglass guy working from home. A three-month job took over a year. I got the car back eventually, mostly done but the quality of the bodywork sucked.

I lost interest and parked Fat Bully for three years while I went 250 Superkart racing.

When I got my head straight, I took the car to a guy who built decent fibreglass street rods. He fixed the fibreglass sins and built a proper roll cage.

Then, back to Marino’s for final setup, and a shakedown at Midvaal Raceway. The car worked okay, albeit down on power for its weight...
​

​Instead of easing into it sensibly, I jumped straight into the local GT Challenge series.

That was educational.

I was used to scratch racing, no handicaps and crap. We all started when the lights went off and raced as hard as we could to get to the front and hopefully stay there until the checkered flag dropped.

GT Challenge was bracket racing – different car classes with massive speed differences between the classes. That’s sports-car racing.

Getting lapped by the big chequebook cars wasn’t all bad – traffic management was a new game. I quickly learned to use them to punch holes for me - allowing me to pull moves on the cars in the class I was racing against.

When I first arrived on the scene a GT Challenge Primadonna said to me...

“Welcome to the big leagues, bru.” 

Idiot.

He tied a ribbon to the rear wing of Fat Bully - a signal to the other drivers that I was new to the class, a rookie.

I promptly ripped it off.

Then he walked around the car twice, crouched down, peered into the wheel arches, looked at me, clearly trying to wind me up -

“This thing looks heavy.”
“It is.”

“In what class are you racing?”
“The one they put me in.”

“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”

“You know what you’re up against, hey?”
“Yes.”

“You’ll get lapped.”
“I hope so.”

He gave up and walked away. They say racing attracted kings and clowns. The idiot didn’t leave the impression of a king.

That year’s championship concluded with Fat Bully 1st in Class and Runner Up in the overall results. I raced hard, had a blast and bullied a few of the faster cars along the way.

At the end of the season, I parked Fat Bully and that’s where it remained – In storage. Perhaps one day I’ll recommission it and continue the relationship.

And that idiot assclown who tried to wind me up came over...

“You made history with that big car of yours. Well done!”
“Thank You.”

“Where did you learn to drive like that?”
“On back roads – I was Ten.”

I think he thought I was being sarcastic.

​- Pierre Martins
​

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