Gilmour takes on extreme challenge
Emma Gilmour’s long career has seen her get behind the wheel of some varied vehicles around the globe, all of which have stood her in good stead for taming her latest charger. Catherine Pattison caught up with the Dunedin rally driver who is competing in
SPEAKING from Europe, where she will be based for the foreseeable future, as she “plays the MIQ lottery’’, Emma Gilmour says she hit the ground running in August’s Greenland round of the Extreme E series, based in Kangerlussuaq.
After being signed as Londonbased Veloce Racing’s reserve team member, Gilmour was promoted into the hot seat when the team’s female driver Jamie Chadwick, had a date clash with the W Series.
As the Extreme E’s fleet of onedesign Odyssey 21s were on route to Greenland, via the sea, by the time she arrived in England, Gilmour was unable to test drive the Veloce eSUV.
Turning up to the race location, having had zero seat time in the Odyssey, she was understandably relieved when the reserve drivers were able to take a quick spin in the series’ car.
Large, heavy and built to handle the brutal conditions the fiveround series races on, at 1780kg, the eSUV is nearly half a tonne heavier than Gilmour’s usual Suzuki Swift AP4.
“My rally car is more refined, but it’s designed for rallying on roads not going off road like the Odyssey. It was very rough over the jumps, bumps and dunes. Inside the car it was hard to focus at times with how much we were getting bounced around,” Gilmour said.
Compared to the twopass reconnaissance sessions, which are standard in the international rallies she has competed in, the Greenland course walk on foot didn’t give her an accurate feel for how the Odyssey would handle the terrain. There was also no codriver calling the pace notes, leaving her to become acquainted with the eSUV’s pace and cornering on her own.
Designed to withstand punishing temperatures and conditions, the Odyssey’s 54kWh battery pack produces a maximum power output of 470kW (equivalent to about 630bhp). It blasts the 2.3mwide beast from 0100kmh in 4.5 seconds, at gradients of up to 130 per cent.
“The Odyssey is relatively easy to drive. There’s no gearbox so you just put your foot down and there’s really nice power on tap, on such a linear torque curve. It didn’t feel as big as it looks but it is still a challenge to get the most out of it when all drivers have the same equipment.”
What viewers watching this Extreme E round on screens didn’t realise was just how challenging the terrain was, Gilmour said. With the Russell Glacier’s towering ice cliff as its backdrop, there was a mixture of rocks, boulders and fine sediment scattered throughout the course.
Big is necessarily better in
Extreme E, as Gilmour said the eSUVs “take a huge beating.”
Able to call on her offroad experience from contesting longhaul crosscountry rallies in Qatar and Italy in 2016, Gilmour funneled the knowledge of driving on sand into the short, sharp Extreme E laps.
In the series, all teams have a male and female driver, who share equal racing duties. Gilmour’s Veloce Racing teammate is Frenchman Stephane Sarrazin. Along with being a nice bloke, he was conveniently a similar height to Gilmour. It meant that when the fraught, midrace driver change took place, no seat inserts were required and they could swap from one to the other seamlessly.
Entering the pit lane at 30kmh was a requirement, otherwise teams receive a penalty and the drivers are not allowed to touch their seat belts until the car is in neutral. Gilmour admitted it was an area she will be looking to improve on at the upcoming Sardinia round, after cutting the power too early in Greenland as she approached the speedrestricted area.
The teams had their first practise run on the Friday. Then it was straight into two rounds of qualifying time trials on the Saturday. Each qualifying run consisted of one lap each by both drivers and points are awarded for the finishing position which was based on the combined times from both qualifying runs (four laps in total).