We used to race in France, with a Fouquet - basically, a ground-up spaceframed 4wd rally car:
which would make an S2000 sound like a Maybach at the best of times - it was great at full tilt, but over there you're driving back to service on the roads with the normal traffic. It didn't like 30mph. Or traffic jams. Or anything less than full throttle.
Now, quite aside from the massive drum-like thrumming that the carcass on the M/T tyres made on tarmac - the kind that makes your lungs vibrate and your hearing hum for about 3 days afterwards - it also had 3 limited slip diffs, all plated. All with lots of preload.
Three limited slip diffs designed for a lot of lockup on the throttle. And very little off it, just enough to balance the car.
So, just poodling along, they'd vary between the whole lot from front to back chattering, clunking and squeaking, to going tight as a drum mid corner or pulling out of a junction - in which case half the wheels started squealing and hopping up and down as they were locked up and scrubbing.
Someone solid mounted those diffs to a lovely tubular steel spaceframe. You know, something nice and stiff and great for transfering, say, noise and motion across the entire car no matter where the noise started from? Great idea. Now half the tyres are fighting the other half of the tyres, the diffs are vibrating, the whole frame is vibrating and it sounds like half the body panels are falling off.
Whilst I'm on the subject of pulling out of junctions. You know if you fit a paddle clutch to your S2000, it judders a bit at low speed?
This had three.
All rather thick cerametallic plates, and every time you push the clutch in they jump and bounce around, making a noise like a troupe of chimpanzes who've had shipment of cymbals, and probably a sack of sugar, or maybe methamphetamine.
Oh, did I mention when you let it back out - say for slowly slipping the clutch out of a junction, the judder shunts the whole car back and forth hard enough to turn milk into butter? Well they do, and if you try it with a few less rev's to trickle out steadily into traffic, then that silly little 5.25" flywheel you put on there becomes rather less of a clever idea.
Ever tried starting a race motor on lumpy cams, in the middle of traffic, at a junction, on plugs 2 heat ranges colder than a road engine?
It's good fun - everyone joins in and helps you along with suggestions via the musical medium of the car horn. Helpful suggestions like "Why the f**k are you using a tiny little battery that's given up after two cranks?"
Mind, it's nice seeing everyone wave at you, even if their fingers are in odd positions.
Of course, along with the clutch comes a race gearbox.
In this particular case, a rather heavy duty sequential dog-ring unit that in which the shift mechanism appears to have been made out of lead. So, you have two choices. Choice number one - you pull the paddle-shift lever, which triggers a solonoid, releases some rather high pressure air and slams the next gear into place - good at full throttle and revs, but a 2krpm whilst juddering down the road with bleeding ears, merely results in your head flying forwards and then the headrest catching up and giving you a clip around the ear to teach you a lesson.
Choice number two is of course the gear lever. In order to select the next gear, you either come hard off the throttle to release the dogs, and snick it in (not really an option at 2krpm, unless you like the guy in the Peugeot behind to join you in the cabin), or of course - use the clutch.
Remember that juddery thing from earlier? Yes. That.
The thing that makes you bounce between the car in front and behind like a demented powerball whilst trying to feather the next gear in without stalling your temperamental engine on it's stupid bloody flywheel.
So, once the noise from all the rocks and mud firing out of the tyres has subsided, you've got used to the tyre roar and diff chatter because your ears have started to bleed and no longer hear anything bar bass notes, and you've stopped worrying about the engine, clutch and gearchange because the mild concussion from the headrests has you staring vacantly and drooling, you start to enjoy the drive down the road and the kids waving. You don't even mind when the brakes barely work any more because they've cooled off, so you have to stamp on the pedal just to get the thing to slow down in traffic - complete with an ear-splitting wail that would shame a banshee - as they protest at being made to work while chilly.
That's when phase II begins. See, at 100mph, a fibreglass race car is a rather cool and draughty place, there's plenty of little panel gaps and no insulation.
At 20 or 30mph, with an engine right by your arse, things start to get rather warm. Toasty in fact - especially when the diffs are doing double duty as frying pans from all the plate locking going on in between rattling like a bag of marbles in a blender.
That's when you make the fatal mistake of popping a door open for some cool, refreshing air...
What's left of your eardrums start waving a surrender flag, and the one nearest the window is packing it's bags and booking flights as Hurricane Dumbass begins to form somewhere between the rear firewall and your earlobe - in your mildly concussed vacant stare you notice the pace notes merrily flying through the door hole, and, at that very moment, the last chunk of mud that's been clinging in desperation to a front tyre for miles decides to get it's revenge, comes through the window and - with unerring accuracy - goes straight through the visor slot in your helmet.
After arriving at service minus documents, checking with the paramedics for concussion, finding some more pace notes and wondering why everything is so quiet out of the car, you get back in and do it again. Because you're a certified moron who loves cars, and the minute you go full throttle, all that disappears behind your large, slightly mud-stained grin.
And that last bit?
That's how you cope with the car on the road.
