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Eating Crow...With
Relish
If you want a novice trainer for the Advanced Trainers, never
mind the Novice Trainers (equivalent to the real world's Formula
3s), try the F2 Cooper, aka Coventry. I know I said the Cooper
(along with the Honda and the BRM) is much too heavy to make
a competitive F2, but the Cooper is so pleasant to drive (it's
as smooth and effortless as riding in a limo) that it serves
well as a painless entry-level F2 machine. At Spa, where it's
only a couple of seconds off the pace of the 'King' Brabham (thanks
to the Brabham's killer Vmax, about 5 mph higher than the Cooper's),
you can drive it flat out through turns that call for a 'confidence
lift' in every other car: exiting the second half of Eau Rouge
(the uphill left), all the way down the long righthander at Burnenville,
unflinchingly through the dreaded Masta kink (although I do admit
to severe 'foot shrinkage' more than one occasion there), slicing
across the apex at Cottage, and full-bore through the penultimate
turn at Blanchimont.
The Cooper's long wheelbase makes it a good candidate for slightly
modified Eagle setups. But like the Eagle, its long wheelbase
makes it ungainly at the really tight tracks like Monte Carlo,
the Ring, and what Doug Arnao laughingly refers to as Mexico's
'Rhythm Section'. It works well at 'pure' handling tracks like
Zandvoort and Mosport (although its weight begins to slow it
down), reasonably well at Kyalami, and acceptably almost everywhere
else...but it really shines at Spa, so that's the only setup
I'll include for now. |