If he's stuck in a traffic jam, he usually caused it himself. Our Secret Agents editor loves cars, but cars don't love him. Long, long ago, at the Zandvoort Circuit, he was given a crash course in driving by racing legend Michael Bleekemolen.
Now that Michael and his two racing sons, Jeroen and Sebastiaan, will soon be back at the drastically rebuilt Zandvoort circuit to give racing experiences to the public, it's perhaps a fine moment to dig up that perilous adventure once more.
Boskamp remembers:
On a summery winter's day I narrowly escaped hell. Between Roosendaal and Rotterdam there were roadworks for miles. Really, you shouldn't subject traffic to such a thing – a lane narrowing lasting three quarters of an hour (at an average speed of about 80 kilometres an hour). It takes a great deal of concentration and stamina to avoid playing bumper cars for that long. Especially that afternoon. There were a large number of motorists on the road whose minds weren't entirely on the job and who thought tailgating would heighten the fun. Near Dordrecht it went wrong because of it. It happened four cars ahead of me. Suddenly I saw a car begin to swerve violently. Then I saw a Smart get launched. Literally.
The heart of the accident
The little car first reared up nose-first and then left the ground entirely. What happened next I don't know, because I yanked the wheel, passed behind a lorry and ended up on the far right of the road. The most improbable part of the situation was that we all simply drove on, as if what had happened there were just part of everyday life. I looked in my rear-view mirror. In front of the spot where the heart of the accident must have been, lorries stood at a standstill. So I couldn't see the outcome of the macabre spectacle, but I was hardly reassured that it had ended without serious harm. There were too many cars driving far too close to one another's tails for that.
On the Rotterdam ring road, at the Den Haag exit, my heart was still pounding in my throat. The fact that I was still driving here had a great deal to do with luck. I'd suddenly swerved to the right. Without checking my rear-view mirror, without making sure there wasn't a car beside me. Perhaps it was time to stop letting my chances of survival on the road depend on whether the gods were with me or not.
Michael Bleekemolen will be with me shortly. First he has to address the participants of Flying Start in the Paddock Café, right opposite the Gerlach corner of the Zandvoort circuit – a three-day course that is the best start to a racing career in the Netherlands. For years Michael Bleekemolen's Racing School has had the highest pass rate for the coveted KNAF racing licence, and that's hardly surprising when you know the lessons are given by instructors such as Jeroen, Sebastiaan and Michael Bleekemolen and Allard Kalff.
Off form
His speech doesn't sugar-coat anything. Bleekemolen tells it like it is. They're still driving too slowly, braking too poorly ("You need to play more with the brake pedal"), and the start wasn't quite right either. I could use an antacid for my stomach. If these lads, who seriously want to race, aren't doing it well, then what on earth will he think of me when I crawl through the Tarzan corner completely off form?
At the close of his address, the trophies for the best drivers of the day are handed out. Number one is four years away from getting his driver's licence. He accepts his trophy shyly. In that respect nothing has changed in all these years. I lived in Zandvoort for more than 20 years. In winter the village was quiet, but sometimes you'd be startled by the wailing sirens of police cars chasing the 14-year-old joyrider Jantje Lammers, who could barely see over the steering wheel. The officers had a tough, if not impossible, job on their hands there.
As Michael walks outside with me, to where his son Sebastiaan's Renault Clio stands – a car that has no idea yet what's about to happen to it – he says: "Racing isn't easy. It's not for nothing that an old codger like me is still on the starting grid. There's simply little real new talent, yes, that kid just now. But that's a real exception. Still, they'll all be able to race in the end. And that, after all, is what it's about."
Always ten to two
Once at the car, Michael explains that he'll give me a kind of condensed compilation, a 'best of' his courses, from a bit of advanced driving skill all the way to a bit of racing. "There's no way I can teach you everything in an afternoon," he says. "It's also important for me to know what you can do." As if reading my mind, he adds: "I'll just assume you have no talent. That way it's always a pleasant surprise."
He hands me the keys. "Before we go onto the circuit, I want to do the braking test with you first. Most motorists can't brake. You're not taught it during driving lessons either. The art is not to slam straight onto the brake, but to modulate with the pedal." He explains that a car comes from the factory with a brake balance – that is, the ratio of braking pressure between the front and rear wheels (usually 70% braking pressure at the front and 30% at the rear). That brake balance only works if you don't slam on the brake immediately. You have to let the car pitch forward first by pressing the pedal gently, to bring the weight onto the front axle. Only then does the factory balance hold true. "It's different, of course," he says, "if the car has ABS. Then the technology does the work, and that calls for a different approach again."
As I sit in the driver's seat of the Clio, hoping I won't be scared witless – which would force Sebastiaan to sign a sponsorship deal with a toilet-spray manufacturer – Michael asks me to show him how I hold the wheel. With me it's never half past eleven nor quarter past one, but always ten to two. "Well, you're doing that just fine," he says, laughing. The seating position leaves little to be desired either. A good rule of thumb, Michael explains, is whether you can rest the underside of your wrist on top of the wheel without leaning forward. The interior and exterior mirrors are set correctly. I'm allowed to go.
The mass exodus
"Just drive onto the circuit first," says the master sitting beside me, keeping in contact with the trackside instructors over a walkie-talkie. There are still aspiring racing drivers on the circuit, and we don't want to get in their way. I steer the car through the Tarzan corner. This really is a magical moment. For years, as a little nipper, I watched drivers such as Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda go by from the safe side of the circuit. What I found very irksome back then was that they never waved back at me. They only did so once they'd been flagged off, but by then I was already on my way home with my uncle and cousin, who were racing enthusiasts, to beat the mass exodus after the race.
At the Hunzerug, Michael asks if I'd like to stop. This is where the braking boards stand, indicating the distance covered. "Reverse," says the head instructor. "And just give it a try." I take a good run-up, floor the accelerator, shift up into second, and at the first board I slam onto my brake. I smell a smell that betrays I haven't done it quite right. "You need to be gentler with the clutch," says Michael. "Do you smell that? If you raced like that, you'd be in the pits after the first lap." I try again. This time it goes better. I also don't slam straight onto the brake. The odd thing is that you'd think you slide further when you play more with the pedal, but it makes a difference of at least a board and a half.
Deadly serious throttle
"If we practised this more," says Michael, "you could shorten your braking distance by 30 to 40%." The next obstacle is the verge test. Behind the main grandstand a sloping verge has been built. When you drive into it, an odd balance develops in the car that's barely possible to catch. You're bound to go into a slide, and then the trick is to turn the wheel very quickly to get the car straight again. Bleekemolen demonstrates. It looks like child's play, but when it's my turn I do get the car straight – only with the nose pointing the other way. But here too, practice makes perfect. After a few attempts you get used to the strange feeling of the car sliding out from under you and you no longer panic, which leaves room to use your brain.
Michael tells me once more that the Advanced Driving course involves much more than just a braking and verge test. It also includes, among other things, a large theory component, a steering exercise consisting of a slalom forwards and backwards, an evasion test, and driving the ideal line on a section of the circuit. And now that I can brake a little and verge ever so slightly, it's time to drive onto the circuit and get deadly serious on the throttle.
Michael explains that along the circuit there are red markings indicating where you should come out with the car. "Let's see if you understand anything about the ideal line. You don't have to go fast yet, just try to feel what the car does." Off we go. Tarzan corner, Gerlach corner, Hugenholtz, Rob Slotemaker corner, Nissan corner, Mitsubishi corner, Bos Uit – it feels to me as though there used to be fewer corners in the circuit, and that may be right, because after a major rebuild in '89 the circuit, which from above resembled the calm contours of France, was turned into something with a far more capricious shape.
Better than expected
I keep a close eye on my rear-view mirror, because while Bleekemolen can still tell me more about where and how to take the corners, the moment I spot a car in my mirror I follow everything at that modest speed except the ideal line. My passport may say Michael, but my surname is Boskamp, not Schumacher. After two laps I actually start to enjoy it. It also feels to me as though it's going better than expected. The finest moment is when the car comes out of the corner and you get it back onto the right line almost without steering. My co-driver is pleasantly surprised. "You're doing that remarkably well," he says. "Sometimes it really takes a course participant a whole day to get it. Some never learn it at all, but you've already got the hang of it." He laughs. "Just imagine, perhaps you'll take up racing in your old age after all."
On the straight in front of the grandstand I'm told to be careful. "Give a quick toot," says Michael. "You never know. Instructors are always crossing here. And those lads aren't so easy to find." As I enter the Tarzan corner, he suddenly says: "And now we're going to drive. Give it more gas." What do you do when you're told something like that and you're driving on the Zandvoort circuit, free of lorries, traffic jams and speed cameras? You do exactly as you're told. I step on the gas, and I immediately understand why this is Sebastiaan's car. After half a lap Michael asks whether it might be a touch calmer. "You're driving faster than you think," he says. "If you drove like that on a public road, you'd see plenty of fellow motorists tapping their heads or sticking up their middle fingers."
Concentrating on the race
After a while I begin to notice something, something that has everything to do with my behaviour behind the wheel on the road. I start to lose my concentration. I think about what I'm going to do tonight. I'm going to enjoy my girlfriend. I can even picture how. The ideal line suddenly looks very different in my mind and has everything to do with the measurements 90-60-90. And those are exactly the thoughts I can't use right now. With a jolt I realise that I don't actually drive all that badly, but that it's hard for me to concentrate behind the wheel. After Michael finally shows me how it's really done (as he hurtles towards the Tarzan corner at top speed, he says drily: "And I've been doing this for more than 30 years now."), the big moment has arrived. The evaluation.
Sitting on a little table in the Paddock Café, he tells me once more that it went a hundred times better than expected. "I really thought you'd drive terribly," he says. "That's what I'd assumed, but you did remarkably well."
In all honesty I tell him what my problem is. Somewhere between the Mitsubishi corner and Bos Uit I figured it out. "Well," he says. "That's a familiar problem. I have it too. When I drive at the Monaco circuit, in the city where I have a house, my thoughts sometimes wander as well. And then I have to force myself to concentrate on the race."
A little later, as I drive in my own car on the Zeeweg towards Haarlem – the road where I secretly taught myself to follow the ideal line – I wonder what that driver was thinking about when he rear-ended the Smart. It might be better to think about something else. For instance, about why the car right behind me is flashing its lights and getting ready to overtake me on the right.