Allan McNish: Going the Distance

A thrill of a lifetime, my sincere thanks to Randy Mamola

Hello everyone.

I have just left Misano in Italy where I have had one of the best motorsport experiences for a long time. It was superb.

The MotoGP scene is very different to the last time I was there, when it was the old 500s. The competition in all of the classes is just as extreme, but my visit was topped off by a ride on the two-seater MotoGP Ducati with Randy Mamola.

I have been into bikes for a very long time, as some of you may know, and actually started in motocross when I was just a wee lad, but I never really appreciated - even though I have been in quite a few paddocks and riding bikes on the road and things like that - what it was like to be perched on top of one of those things going into a corner at 260kph. Braking so hard that the rear wheel goes up in the air, skipping underneath you, and you start to then crank the bike in and lean it in towards the apex.

It was absolutely frightening. It was sensational, exhilarating.

Feeling the wind blowing straight at you, and just how hot it was inside the leathers. Every single bump and input that Randy had on the throttle, or on the brake, or leaning into a kerb or anything.

It was an experience that ranked up there with anything else I have ever done in my entire life - not just in my racing career but in my life.

I think that it has also added a bit of extra special feeling to me because, like I said, I have always liked bikes and my Mom and Dad were very much into two wheels prior to me getting involved with karting and then into car racing, and spent a lot of Easter Mondays at Oulton Park and places like that.

But I remember Randy Mamola as a legend and a name when he first came across with the TransAtlantic Trophy in the 80s, so to have one of those guys I grew up watching on television giving me a ride around a circuit on that particular bike, was awesome.

The two-seater is a two-year-old 1000cc Moto GP with a little bit of a foam seat stuck on the back. It is nothing less than a fully fledged racing machine, with just a wee bit of foam there. You have got two grab handles that have been attached to the tank.

The grab handle side of things also gave me another pointer on how physical these things are. You know, us racing drivers have got to fit because we are in the car for a long period of time and it is up to three and a half fours at Le Mans per stint. In Formula One, you're pulling extremely high G's as well so you have got to have strength in a lot of areas, and you have got to be cardiovascular fit because your heart rate can be 170bpm for a couple of hours.

However, it is all very different muscle and strength fitness because we have got seat belts and we have got a seat to keep us in place, they have got nothing. All the rider has got are his knees, his feet to push down on the pegs, and hands to hold onto the bars.

Under extreme braking and with the rear wheel leaning in, I had to put incredible force on my wrists to hold myself in position and even then my backside was lifting up off the backseat. I could feel a little bit of air underneath my feet on the pegs as well.

I did two laps and I just thought 'crikey me, that's three or four minutes, I wonder what this is like for 45!'

Another factor which is different for us is that racing overalls tend to breathe very well, and there has been a lot of development within that with companies like Alpinestars. But on bikes it's just leathers, and these are a lot heavier than our overalls, and also a lot hotter because they cannot, just by the nature of the beast, release the hot air out and so they don't breathe as well.

That was another thing, after just being in the leathers for five minutes, before even sitting on the bike, I was sweating as if I had done a 30-minute stint in a racing car. So that is why they have to be fit, but in a very different way to us.

However, there are a lot of similarities as well. The way that you approach a race weekend is similar, the way the bike actually works has a similar philosophy because a lot of the physics haven't changed.

The one thing that has changed is that in car we load everything on the front of the car to turn. What I didn't appreciate until riding around, and also speaking to some of the riders afterwards - especially Randy, who was explaining it to me very clearly and precisely, is that now riders use the rear end of the bike to get it into the corner and to turn it.

It's not a case of leaning in and using the front tyre to sort of pull it round, they use the rear end and the weight that they can position onto the back of the bike to actually turn the thing. That is completely different to us but it makes absolute logical sense because they have a tiny wee front tyre, but this big, heavy wide tyre at the back so from a contact patch point of view it is very logical.

Randy Mamola © LAT

It was interesting as well to see that another similarity was the people up and down the pit lane, some of whom I recognised, one being Alan Jenkins, who was the chief designer at Arrows in Formula One for a long period of time. He also designed the Stewart Grand Prix F1 car. 'Jenks' is now with Ducati and involved in bringing in a lot of mentality from F1 and philosophies in attention to detail and electronics into bike racing where, historically, I think it has been a little bit more reserved I would say, but now you can see it with Kawasaki, with Honda, Ducati, that they are really pushing the boundaries.

These are not your average racing bikes, they are a pukka, thoroughbred, 100 per cent on the limit of everything in a very similar way that a F1 or Le Mans car is, and I also think that also adds to a little bit of experience that when you are there, you can see it, you can feel it, and you can touch it.

That is why bike racing now has such a strong following, not just because people can relate to it, but also you can get much closer to the riders and the action, than you can do in most series, which I think was certainly appealing in my point of view. I have been in many paddocks before, but I have to say there were so many people in there with so much passion that it made it one of the most exciting and best motorsport weekends of my career.

Certainly I can say that in the last five years of my career, it ranks up there as number one.

So, Randy Mamola, thank you very much, not just for all those memories as I was a wee boy growing up, but for one of the best memories ever - of sitting on that bike and you terrifying me, absolutely terrifying me, but you have given me the ride and thrill of my life!

Until next time,