DOIN’ THE KHANA THINGIE
By noderel:
You can call it Autocross, or gymkhana, or street khana, it is all about doing some high end handling on a very tight course. Quick is good. Precise is good. Gut grunt doesn’t mean much. Tire spin means nothing. Max RPM doesn’t mean much. Good torque is vital, good brakes are vital. Precise steering is vital. Good tire adhesion, well, you get the idea. Khana work by any name is about going where you wanna in the shortest amount of time.
This kind of restricted course for automobiles (anything, actually) is not something invented by the Now Generation, you know. It has been around since cars came on the scene, and in some respects, since horses. I stumbled across it first in Europe, where I had been doing the big race course and hillclimb thing in my Healey 4. And from the git go, I loved it. Not a steady diet, perhaps, but great for something to do between Nuremburg Ring and Monaco and those trivialities.
When I got back to the States, I discovered that some of the tea baggers were beginning to put on driving khanas (I suspect the word Khana is a carryon from horse contests, but don’t know), usually in market parking lots. It was something for them to do with their undersized, underpowered, under everything imports, and it held sway in their camps undisturbed until the Corvettes and such unwashed Yankee ilk began to show up and write done deal.
It should be noted that these almost-clandestine shenanigans failed to gain a spectator appeal, more because of the moribund attitude of the sponsoring clubs than for driving excitement. Sports car clubs were not, are still not, hot beds of youthful enthusiasm.
At the very first Rod & Custom magazine Street Rod Nationals, I introduced this closed car mayhem to a receptive, if askance, crowd. When we discovered we had a far larger turnout of rodders than anticipated, Tom Medley said “Man, we gotta come up with something for everyone to do, because we don’t have the show ‘n’ shine until tomorrow.” So I asked a few of the local host club members if they could round up some traffic cones, some cardboard boxes, and a couple of stop watches. Also, did anyone know of a good sized, vacant paved parking lot?
With that, we spread word-of-mouth that a special driving event would be held in a nearby movie theatre parking lot in two hours.
I showed the host club volunteers what we should do to lay out a driving course, and how it would be judged. From there it was a matter of letting the rodders attack. Which attack they took to with verve. There were a dozen or so driving and parking tests, with a ton of laughter. There were even a couple of Civilian Corvette drivers ask if they could join the fun. Yep, ok by us.
In the end, it was the most unlikely car among the hot rods in attendance to show how it was all done. A little bit of a car named, aptly, Itty Bits. I won’t reveal more, you just have to find a report on that first Street Rod Nat’s. Like the wise man says, the race does not always go to the swift!
Meantime, get off your duff, dust off some sticky tires, and hit the GoodGuys Autocourses!!!!!!!!!