GETTING BACK ON TRACK
How racing the Praga R1 has helped two ex-servicemen with their rehabilitation
‘I WAS ALWAYS INTERESTED IN RACING, but until my injury I never had any ambition to be a racing driver,’ says Warren Mckinlay. ‘Same here,’ adds Martyn Compton. ‘I always loved cars, but I joined the army at 16…’
Both Warren and Martyn are ex-servicemen dealing with, and recovering from, horrific injuries, but who’ve found a new purpose in the world of motor racing. ‘I’d been at Headley Court [the Armed Forces’ rehabilitation centre] for over four years,’ says Martyn, ‘and then got diagnosed with PTSD and started going downhill.
‘But then I joined a karting team, and it built on from there. It gave me everything I’d lost: a focus, something to look forward to, a target, being surrounded by guys that you can talk with.’
‘I’d already been discharged from Headley Court before Martyn got there,’ says Warren, ‘but I was approached by the same charity that started Martyn karting. I’d been out for nearly ten years at this point, but I didn’t realise what a bad situation I’d let myself get in. Getting together with a load of ex-soldiers, regardless of injury, but who were competitive – with others and within the team – made me realise I lacked focus and was just drifting. It’s the same now: with the season ongoing, it gives me focus, and even in the off-season we’re trying to find sponsorship.’
‘It also brings back the banter,’ adds Martyn. ‘Particularly what we’re used to, because it’s slightly darker… These days we work closely with a charity called Back on Track, which helps injured veterans with both physical and psychological rehabilitation. If it wasn’t for the injuries we received, we wouldn’t have got into this or met each other.’
After karting there were appearances for Martyn in a Golf in Britcar, and then they teamed up to drive together in the VW Fun Cup in 2018, and an Aston Martin GT4 in 2019. Their Praga adventure started when VR Motorsport held a competition to drive an R1 and Martyn won. On the day the car had a technical malfunction, but both were invited back to a trackday. ‘We had the test,’ recalls Warren, ‘and we both said: “That’s what we want to race!”’
In last year’s Britcar the duo finished third in class, and would have been second but for a shunt at Silverstone that wasn’t their fault. For this year, they’re hoping to upgrade to a turbocharged R1T – and, as Warren says, take the championship. When we spoke, they were grafting to find sponsorship for the new season. Their other aim is to have fellow vets helping in the pits as a way to get them into motorsport. ‘When you’ve left the military, and you come into the racing environment, you realise how much you’ve missed the banter and camaraderie you once had,’ reflects Martyn. It might only be driving a car around in circles, but there’s nothing quite like the power of motor racing.
slow and fall foul of the other thing I’ve been warned about: because you can’t get your right leg over into the space where the brake and clutch are, you need to select neutral before you stop rolling else the obvious happens, you stall. Which I promptly do, in a flap of feet and cursing.
Restart, and we’re off, buzzing down the pitlane, already thankful for a tipoff about wearing earplugs, and straight into Redgate. There’s no messing about with a pure racing machine such as the R1 – its dialogue is instantaneous, the clarity of its meaning unambiguous. The steering is incredibly direct, and negotiating the Craner Curves requires little more than the deftest of nudges to alter the car’s trajectory, steering not so much from your wrists as from your fingers, albeit with a reasonably sturdy effort required. I’m also immediately conscious of what’s happening at the rear axle, trying to be as smooth as I can so as not to provoke the car into oversteer – potentially a mistake given that generating heat in everything today will be crucial.
The buzz-saw engine note really tries to bore its way into your head, but strangely enough the NA R1 doesn’t feel that fast. A glance sideways towards the grassy banks and glistening Armco suggests we are in fact travelling very quickly, and our closing speed on the next corner reinforces that belief, but the sensation of speed is curiously submerged beneath trying to get a feel for the car and judging those all-important appropriate cornering speeds.
To be more precise, today is really about judging entry speeds. I know so much of the R1 NA’S performance is about its downforce, and so the real battle is a mental one: we’re on wets, which ‘give’ a little, although not a lot, but there’s a certain amount of self belief and belief in the car required to really commit. It’s a devilish task to judge just where that point may be, particularly through Mcleans and Coppice, so I simply try to run through them faster with every passing lap, using freshly garnered experience as a confidence booster to carry more speed in metronomic incremental improvements. The fact that the grip levels change from corner to corner, let alone lap to lap, doesn’t make the task any easier. The brakes, predictably, are masterful, with a very solid pedal feel, and because the car’s so light it’s almost more of a challenge not to overbrake than it is to leave your braking late enough.
After a while my brain starts to warn of impending overload and I peel off into the pits for a breather and a mull over how I might get those turn-in speeds higher. In the meantime the VR Motorsport team that runs the Pragas in Britcar decides to fit slicks as there’s a definite dry line appearing in some sections of the circuit. It makes sense, but there’ll be no shallying around now
‘IT SNAPS SIDEWAYS IN WHAT FEELS LIKE A MILLIONTH OF A SECOND’
– I’ll need to be really aggressive from the pitlane exit to get tyre and brake temps where they need to be.
Without the tangible communication of load build-up that the wets were able to provide, the R1 is a tricky thing to get a handle on in these conditions, and that tantalising promise of massive, sucked-to-the-floor aero grip and balance from warm slicks proves elusive to find. A little too much trail-braking and commitment into Old Hairpin and the R1 snaps sideways in what feels like a millionth of a second; the recovery is of the instinctive type that I’m not sure I can explain afterwards, leaving my arms pumped and my eyes on stalks. Actual power oversteer in this NA car feels almost an impossibility, because the mechanical grip is very high, but when it does slew on the exit of the chicane it needs to be gathered up smartish.
It’s one area where the Praga feels very different from a traditional track car like a Radical, which also looks intimidating to drive quickly in less than ideal conditions but which behaves – relatively speaking – like a very quick road car with a wavelength that you can tune into and then exploit. The R1 is several rungs of seriousness and
performance above that – it demands absolute accuracy of input and complete confidence from the off, but that makes it a thrilling challenge to sink your teeth into.
Frustratingly, evo’s time in the car ends before the track can dry out any further, so we can only look on enviously as drier and warmer tarmac after lunchtime inevitably unlocks more of what this car can offer. Hopefully next time we get to try one those slicks will be nicely sticky, because properly on the boil the R1 promises to be a devastatingly quick machine.