I am pleased to feature this article from an old friend, Paul Batten, a former engineer development driver for McLaren Cars. Paul is also a Bible believing Christian. In our molly coddled world of over protected, woke safety, are we not losing something of the essence of life? Muses Paul.

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

The reward is the risk 

Paul Batten

May 2023

‘Don’t think, just do.’ Maverick’s words to his young protégé, Rooster, in the second Top Gun film, resonate with me. As an engineer, I’m a chronic over-analyser, trained to think of the worst-case scenario and work backwards from there, as well as a chronic risk taker. Writing this article is a risk. Misbehaving in high school when you don’t think your class is well run is a risk. Building a business is a risk. Holding it pinned at 220km/h in an 800 horsepower McLaren through turn 10 of the Nardo Handling track is a risk.

But boy it feels good.

They say that nothing great is ever achieved without risk. We intuitively understand this. Greatness is often preceded by failures and struggle, or at least the prospect of it. So, why does the modern Australian approach strangle anything risky?

Risks give us a heightened sense of awareness and a residual feeling of satisfaction afterwards – if it comes off. The consequences of it not coming are terrifying, but this makes us more alert and, counter-intuitively, less likely to fail. When the stakes are high, so too are the abilities of our senses and intuition. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve experienced bad accidents and near misses and they are terrifying. I used to work with an Indy 500 winner and survivor of a 214g impact (the highest ever survived). He taught me the truth about philosopher Josef Pieper’s notion that courage is the sweet spot between cowardice and recklessness – a fine line where either side can yield disaster.

‘To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.’ I’m not sure I completely understand Bruce McLaren’s words, who at 21 moved from New Zealand to England on a racing driver to Europe scholarship in the 1960s. He died at Christ’s age, testing a CanAm car at Goodwood when his bodywork broke and he hit the only thing there was to hit – a lonely flag marshal post. His time was up, but his legacy endures.

I’d love to ask Bruce what he meant when he said, ‘measured by achievement, not in years alone’. By achievement, I’m not sure he meant what you and I would think of as worldly success. Despite racing successes, the vast McLaren operation of today was just a small garage operation during Bruce’s lifetime. I think he would equate achievement to be that feeling you get when you have reached the summit of your mountain.

The mountain differs for everyone, but they all share similar elements. It might be standing on the podium on race day, holding your first child in your arms, or getting a dream job. You’ve overcome a lot of fear to get there, and the moment is bigger than you.

Australia and New Zealand used to be a bastion of risk-takers. Renowned for skill, bravery, and courage as Light Horsemen, Bomber Pilots, and Grand Prix racers. Now Targa Tasmania has speed limits. What has happened?

Taking the apple isle’s famous road race, Targa Tasmania, as an example, what was once a motoring cavalcade where men, women, and machines fought it out with everything nature could throw at them on open roads with no speed limits over five days is now a toothless tiger. ‘Experts’ have deemed it unsafe and put speed limits in place.

I wasn’t kidding when I said it felt good to take turn 10 at Nardo flat out. I once lost my McLaren test driver’s license for doing a test I’d been allowed to do a month before, but was no longer allowed to do due to politics. I went through hell because our newly appointed, risk-averse, driving standards coordinator wanted to control the uncontrollable. I didn’t get pinged for sliding at over 200km/h, but was busted for doing 15km/h over a 250km/h speed limit. Two months later, I was asked to do at test at over 300km/h. When the rule makers reside on their own planet people eventually bypass their rules.

Personally, I think the Australian approach to speeding is ridiculous. Sure, velocity squared and all, but what about concentration and focus? We have lower speed limits than when Datsuns and Toranas were hooking around the old Hume Highway over Razorback, yet we’ve bypassed roads with anything remotely resembling a curve and modern cars can sit on 200km/h without blinking an eye. Targeting zero is a mathematical fallacy – zero is the asymptote. You can try to avoid death by mandating that everyone is wrapped in cotton wool, but it won’t work. Further, the safety-state managers contradict themselves – we aren’t allowed to die anymore, but euthanasia has been legalised.

The Karens that run our illogical public service have infiltrated Motorsport Australia’s governing body. Targa Tasmania’s speed limits serve as a warning, where does the ‘helicopter parenting’ stop? Drivers who used to be in the zone, at one with their machine, like Maverick in the second Top Gun, must now concentrate on their speedometers at 200km/h. This forced distraction coupled with a deceptive sense of security has resulted in more accidents. If people aren’t allowed to take their own lives in their hands, are the safety Karens okay with taking the blame if things go wrong? Of course not.

The feeling of freedom and exhilaration you get out on the open road, on fast sweeping bends with your foot flat to the floor is something that transcends ordinary human experience. Like live music, it’s a visceral sensation that transports us to another dimension. I was at an Alt-J concert last night at the Hordern Pavilion and it blew my mind. The sound quality, the energy, the timing. You pay good money for a ticket to a concert to lose yourself. And, at special times, during special songs, you do. You aren’t thinking about work, your mortgage, or tomorrow’s to-do list, you’re completely lost to the moment. That’s what you pay for, that’s why you leave the comfort of the living room couch. It’s something Netflix just can’t provide.

The same is true of live motor racing. People pay good money to watch people drive cars fast around in circles. They are experiencing the spine-tingling raw of the engines, witnessing a human in control of chaos, at one with a machine and flirting with death. Seeing Casey Stoner on the back of a MotoGP bike, holding it pinned out of turn 12 onto Gardner straight at Phillip Island is something visceral. You are watching many awe-inspiring factors, finely balanced and performing to perfection; where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Imagine experiencing that feeling, that mixture of absolute focus, oneness with a machine and channelled terror. There aren’t many things that would make me feel more alive. I think that is what Bruce McLaren was getting at in his famous quote. It’s why Maverick is such an endearing protagonist. There is something spiritual and inspiring about those moments. You might not recognise them as spiritual, but that is what spiritual is. They reveal what humanity is capable of, beyond the control of the safety Karens, where life is bigger than us and the moment points to something greater. We decide whether to experience these moments or not.

People, and young men in particular, need to have an outlet where they can experience this mountain top, this touch of the transcendent. Rather than medicating, speed limiting, and dulling down society while providing insurance or immunity from liability for the controllers, we should accept that risk is inherent in the design, and the reward is in the risk.

Paul Batten is the founder of the LifeMapp app – an AI based routiniser, smart to-do list and goal seeker. He was formerly a senior vehicle dynamics engineer at McLaren Automotive. His drive in the wet 2010 edition of Targa Tasmania was rated as one of the best in the history of the event.