THE SPEEDFEST
The track day culture is booming, as we found out on the Winter Edition of The Speedfest
Two days at the BIC with the country’s finest supercars, and setting lap times in an AMG GT R
IIT’S A CHILLY WINTER MORNING AT THE Buddh International Circuit. The jackets are out, hands are stuffed into pockets and a sense of anticipation hangs heavy in the air as we wait for the gates to open. Beyond those gates lies India’s finest stretch of tarmac — 5.12km of blacktop that twists, turns, rises, falls and, more than anything else, excites. Hallowed grounds, where the likes of Michael Schumacher, Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton raced less than 10 years ago. Beyond those gates also lay a collection of India’s finest sports cars. Top-shelf metal — many tuned and fettled with top-shelf components — sitting pretty in the pits. And all that sitting around would last only as long as it would take us to get from gate to pits. This was after all, The Speedfest Track Day Winter Edition. All hell was about to break loose.
If you’ve been following evo India for a while, you will be familiar with The Speedfest. A bunch of hardcore enthusiasts that that have a collection of cars that would have left a 16-year-old me with a mess in my pants. We featured their collection of GT Porsches, their 911 Turbos and they even lent us an X7 for a comparison test. “Speedfest is nothing more than a group of enthusiasts who love to drive, coming to the track and spending two days of pure bliss and fun on the tarmac, trying to get the best out of their cars and the best out of themselves,” says Sahil Contractor, one of the members of Speedfest who we’ve gotten to know over the last few months. He was here with his BMW M3, appropriately tuned in the pursuit of a hot lap time.
That, as you would have already discerned from the photographs across these pages, was one of the tamer cars here. There was a little bit of everything — Porsches, AMGs and BMWs; mid-engined, rearengined and front-engined; manuals, RWD and AWD. The Speedfest is agnostic to the cars you own, even featuring front-wheel-drive cars like the Skoda Octavia RS in the past. There were some track-focussed machines like the 991-generation Porsche 911 GT3 RS. There were older cars like the 997 Turbo S and the W211 E63 AMG. There were BMW M2 Competitions, M3s and M4s. Many had been worked on, being stripped down to track spec and putting out ridiculous amounts of power. We weren’t planning on missing out
THE SPEEDFEST IS AGNOSTIC TO THE CARS YOU OWN, EVEN FEATURING FRONT-WHEEL-DRIVE CARS LIKE THE SKODA OCTAVIA RS
WE WEREN’T MISSING OUT ON THE FUN EITHER AND CALLED IN THE BIG GUNS
on the fun either and so we called in the big guns. The Mercedes-AMG GT R, AMG’s most track-focussed car sold in India, developed at the most fearsome track of them all: the Nurburgring.
These guys aren’t professional racecar drivers, mind you. They are enthusiasts from around the country who own performance cars, and know better than to unleash their full potential on the road. Instead, they come to a track like the BIC and have at it. Take the 992-generation Porsche 911 Turbo S that was parked in the pits. Incidentally, it was the first Turbo of this generation in the country and had arrived right after the lockdown lifted. That car has a claimed 0-100kmph time of 2.7 seconds but we all know how conservative Porsche is with its performance figures. Amrit, the owner, says he has tested it and managed 2.52 seconds. It would be suicidal to unleash that sort of performance on a road in India. The track then, allows him to really exploit it and push it to its limits.
“The idea is that you are safe, you are fast and you want to improve. Those that had performance cars didn’t have a place to safely drive them. The Speedfest is a way to make that happen, which is why you’re seeing possibly some of the most sought after cars at the Speedfest and drivers pushing themselves beyond what they imagined or what we thought they could ever do,” continues Sahil, when quizzed about why they come to the track.
That last bit is crucial, though. Drivers pushing themselves. These guys weren’t dicking around on the track, pulling big slides or anything of the sort. Even the editor was behaving himself in the GT R. Everybody was chasing lap times. Of course, they weren’t racing each other. Everyone was in different cars and everyone had different levels of experience at the track. Some were here for the first time, some had been here for every one of the five Speedfest track days. But everyone had arrived with a goal in mind — a benchmark time, that they had set out for themselves to achieve.
Siddharth Desai, fully decked out in his OMP race suit, was probably the most fired up about hitting those
goals. “My previous time on the Cayman GT4 was a 2:12. And with a fresh set of tyres, I wanted to achieve a 2:10 this time around.” Which he did, mind you. And having done so, he headed out again to try and put in a late 2:09. But he had also brought along his modded 911 Turbo S (the 991 generation) to the track, along with a set of super sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Rs — possibly the best dry-weather tyres you can get short of full slicks. Speaking about what his expectations of himself were in the Turbo, he said, “The last time I was here in February, I had done a 2:03. Today, I am going to give it my best shot to set a 2:02.”
He does admit that the Turbo doesn’t excite him as much as the GT4, though. “The Turbo has no emotion, it is just fast. It has got nothing — you don’t feel anything and after driving it so much I don’t even feel scared of the turn of pace,” he shrugs. “Whereas this GT4,” he says as he breaks into a smile, “I just can’t express the emotion. You feel really connected to the road, to the track, to the car, you’re changing gears through every corner. It’s an otherworldly experience.” Well, he’s got both so it’s the best of both worlds!
The fact that they weren’t racing meant the pits were filled with friendly banter and conversations on how to go faster — the more experienced boys more than willing to help the amateurs out. When they were out on track, they were constantly on the radio asking the timekeeper what their last time was and if there had been any improvement. And over the course of the weekend, the times dropped! With every session they
THE PEOPLE WHO BUY THESE CARS ARE ENTHUSIASTS, AND CLEARLY SPEND THEIR TIME AND THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY TO
ENJOY THEM PROPERLY
got faster and faster and hit the goals they set out to hit. Amrit, with his 992 Turbo S was out on the track for the first time ever and managed to put in the fastest times in his group. “Is it my skill or the car? It’s probably the car,” he laughs.
Witnessing these cars shriek down the main straight from the pitlane also made something else very clear. That the car market in India has evolved. Back in 2008, the Audi R8 was the only supercar you could really buy from an OEM in India. And the R8 was more an everyday, all-weather supercar than a track weapon. Kris Nagdev had brought along his R8 V10 Plus, but we also had so much more. With the likes of the M2 Competition and the Cayman GT4, cars that prioritise driver engagement over outright performance and presence seem to have found their niche. On the other hand, the AMG GT R and the 911 GT3 RS with their pornographic wings indicated that there was a market for track-focussed weapons. The people who buy these cars are enthusiasts, and clearly spend their time and their hard-earned money to enjoy them properly.
The Winter Edition of Speedfest was held in December 2020, right after the lockdown lifted and we were allowed to step out of our houses again. And with the logistical challenges getting together a track day of this scale wasn’t easy. Getting the cars ready isn’t easy either and work starts months in advance! “Prep begins three to six months before the event. Everything from getting tyres, changing brake fluid, engine oil, knowing what kind of viscosity to run,
coolant, additives, getting your tune ready basis the fuel you have, testing, training, integrity tests begin much before,” says Sahil.
It’s not all hunky dory at the track though. At then end of the day, these cars are machines and when being pushed to the absolute limit like this, they can break. Sahil’s BMW M3 was running new turbos, but he had an issue on his first outing itself and the car sat in the pits for the rest of the track day. Vedha’s M4, that he literally modded himself in a shed in Vellore, had a failed fuel pump and he was sitting things out as well. “I wish I had more time on track,” he said, disappointed. Vedha is a regular at the MMRT in his track-focussed M4 and said that this was the first time he was at the BIC. He would be back though, he assured me.
The Ed was having a wild time in the GT R himself. This updated GT R gets even more wild styling — the exteriors have been tweaked ever so slightly, and the insides have a lot more screens than before. There’s 578bhp on tap, along with 700Nm being sent to the rear via a 7-speed DCT. But the thing that really floored him was the turn-in immediacy. “With rear-wheel steering the GT R darts into corners like a bloodhound,” says Sirish. He was here as a participant and refused to do any work, assigning both the story and video to yours truly as he busied himself in making the GT R’s carbon brakes glow red hot. “The steering is so quick, so immediate, it is unbelievable,” he adds. And, like every AMG, the motor is the highlight. “It’s like a nuclear reactor. It is relentless. Inexhaustible. It roars and hollers. The torque is mighty. You have to be so careful with the throttle lest the tail starts to wag and the electronics intervene.” The GT R has the multi-mode traction control setup, a big yellow knob sitting proud on the centre console, allowing you to adjust the stability control intervention for each corner. You can dial down the intervention to square off the
THE ED BUSIED HIMSELF IN MAKING THE GT R’S CARBON BRAKES GLOW RED HOT