Recently LA2DAY had the unique opportunity to be invited into a whole new world of speed, adrenaline, beautiful girls and cars…very fast cars.

Welcome to the world of racing!

It is not often you are presented with an opportunity where an entirely new world opens up to you. Observing what it takes to prepare a race car driver for his challenges, and the team that is necessary to tend to every technical, logistical and tactical need, is beyond impressive.

Having won the 2005 Atlantic Championship, the Condor Motorsports team did well last season, but have their eye on the ball for this year’s run. Rookie drivers Franck Perera (France) and Junior Strous (The Netherlands), both have strong European racing backgrounds. Franck led every series open test session and unofficially broke the Atlantic track record back in March at the test runs in Laguna.

Naturally the team was psyched to get going with the official tour and put their practice sessions and all the rigorous preparations to the test.

The first race was in Las Vegas on April 8th. All preparations commenced the Wednesday before, getting the car ready for the practice and qualifying races on Friday and Saturday. Getting ready does not actually sound as simple as you might imagine. The mini drama that unfolded, was something to be expected from a cheap comedy!

Franck had acquired a sponsor deal with Stand 21, supplying him with his racing gear needs. One of the manager’s duties was to bring over the new race suit and helmet from London. Unfortunately, the helmet never arrived on time at the manager’s house. The courier company (we won’t name names) responsible for the “timely” delivery of the helmet then went into a pursuit of tracking down the manager before his flight. Without a boarding pass, there was not a chance in hell customs would let the courier driver through to meet with the manager. As a result, they pondered all sorts of strategies in trying to arrange a meeting place at Heathrow airport. On Airside you have a frantic manager about to miss his flight, on Landside, you have a nervous driver in brown shorts (oh dear, did we just reveal the courier company?) trying to rid himself of a helmet that is desperately needed. After all desperate last minute attempts, the manager boarded the flight by himself as they were ready to leave without him. A spare helmet was arranged for the practice and qualifying races and luckily the official helmet did arrive on time in Las Vegas for the actual race.

It’s interesting how different the dynamics are between the practice and qualifying sessions versus the actual official race. In Las Vegas, Long Beach and Houston, Franck did very well in the practice and qualifying rounds. Landing mostly any of top 3 positions and occasionally also landing the fastest lap times.

Then when the actual race takes place, all sorts of unexpected things happened. Where in Las Vegas for example, the roads were relatively narrow (bear in mind, the track is configured on regular city street roads and was one of the first ever done there). The track did not leave much room for take-over points (which also led to a 6th position start, having been stuck behind backtrackers). It made the race challenging, not only due to the actual track configuration, but I suppose also the psyche that comes into play and the fact that the race is in the desert, leaving the track dirty.

Everyone wants that no. 1 spot. As a result, especially on a narrow track with many bottleneck points, the race turned chaotic. Here you have 27 drivers where some are experienced and others are not, all competing for the main position. It’s a 50 minute race which should allow for approximately 22 laps. Unfortunately, due to the chaos and many wrecks, roughly only 9 laps were actually raced, with only 12 cars making it across the finish line. It was a “survival of the fittest” scenario (and probably quite a bit of luck required on top of that), where the fit were then stuck, spending most of their time following around the safety car.

One could sense the incredible frustration with Franck, knowing the lap times he had previously posted in practice runs were entirely up there, then due to a change in emotional climate, the race turns to chaos. Long Beach proved to be better, but the actual race results were the same. Currently Franck has posted 5th position in the last 3 races. Brazilian’s veteran Atlantic driver Raphael Matos, currently holds the number 1 spot, having won all 3 races so far.

We’re excited to have a chance to take a closer look at this mad bad world of racing with more races coming up in June through August. It will be an interesting experience to see what strategies and tactics will help this young driver to a top 3 position.

Somehow, I can’t help myself but think of those days when I would watch Days of Thunder over and over again…I know I know, that was stock car racing…but still, this has the same ambience and dynamics. That raw passion, where a young driver, surrounded by a sophisticated team of professionals that have been around the block a few times and are here to do what ever it takes to ensure the car, it’s performance, the driver and all the other little things that come into play to put this show on the road are taken care of in order to bring home the checkered flag!

Also read: CHAMP CAR ATLANTIC, STARRING FRANCK PERERA!