The Big Squeeze : A Tender Back Is Merely the First Problem This Lanky Racer Must Overcome

Sarel van der Merwe is not a contortionist, but the slender South African driver often feels like one when he tries to fit his 6-foot 4-inch frame into the tiny cockpit of a racing sports car.

Van der Merwe’s concerns about driving 220 m.p.h. down the back straight at Riverside International Raceway are minor compared to concerns of how to fold his knees beneath the dashboard and still manipulate the pedals at those speeds.

“The more comfortable you are in a car, the quicker you can go,” he said. “This year, for the first time, I have a car that I can fit in comfortably.”

The car is a one-of-a-kind Corvette GTP, a gray and black space age-appearing machine that is powered by a turbocharged Chevrolet V-6 stock block engine.

And the combination of van der Merwe’s comfort and the car’s 1,000-horsepower engine has paid off with a series of qualifying records.

That series ended here Friday, though, when a pulled muscle he suffered during a 33-hour trip here from his home in Port Elizabeth prevented van der Merwe from qualifying the Corvette for Sunday’s six-hour endurance race.

Van der Merwe (pronounced Mer-va) had the morning’s top speed of 127.507 m.p.h., but by the time qualifying began late in the afternoon, he was taking treatments on his back.

Team officials said they expected him to be ready to drive Sunday. Teammate Doc Bundy will qualify the car today.

The Corvette’s speed streak began at Daytona last December in the 1985 IMSA finale when van der Merwe lapped the course at a record 129.6 m.p.h. The Hendrick Motorsports team returned to Daytona this year for the 24-hour race and van der Merwe put the Corvette on the pole again by nearly a full second over the next fastest qualifier.

He followed that up with his third and fourth straight poles at Miami and Road Atlanta, winning $20,000 for being fastest at Miami.

Until Road Atlanta, however, where he and Bundy won to end a 16-race IMSA winning streak for Porsche, the Corvette had been fast, but not reliable. It didn’t finish a race until Atlanta and was withdrawn before the Daytona race because of vibrations caused by a crack in the block.

A seat harness belt, which became loose when it tangled with van der Merwe’s cool-suit hose, almost cost the pair the Road Atlanta win.

“When the belts loosened, I couldn’t keep from sliding sideways in the fast corners and my neck became very tired,” van der Merwe said. “I was in for my final stint, but when I came in for fuel I told Doc to take over for the final 18 laps or so.”

Bundy then held off a late challenge by John Paul Jr., in Phil Conte’s Buick Hawk, and won by 29 seconds.

The Corvette has never lasted six hours, the distance of Sunday’s $164,000 enduro. Road Atlanta was 310 miles. The longest the car has gone is 500 miles in its first race at Elkhart Lake, Wis., last August.

“We will have to be real easy on the car to go the distance,” van der Merwe said. “We had a go at all the horsepower in qualifying, but for the race we can’t push it as hard. We’re in uncharted waters in terms of endurance.

“It is a good package. We have lots of power and the handling is excellent. Our biggest problem has been getting full use of all the horsepower without breaking the gear box. The engineers are making changes nearly every day, trying to perfect the package.”

Van der Merwe estimates that if the Corvette were turned loose down the three-mile Mulsanne straight at LeMans, it would turn 250 m.p.h.

“These are the fastest race cars in the world, faster than Formula One or Indy cars,” he said. “Our lap times might not be as good because we aren’t as quick in the corners, but for straightaway speed, these are the fastest.”

This is only van der Merwe’s second trip to Riverside, but he has already developed a sense of apprehension about the aged 3.25 mile track that is slated to close in the next year or two.

“Riverside is a bit rough for GTP cars,” he said. “We would run much faster if the surface was better, but that isn’t the main concern.

“The biggest fright is coming up on slower cars in the esses, from Turn 1 to Turn 6. The speed differential is so great, perhaps 100 miles, between our car and some of the GTUs, and you can’t pass them because you’re never quite sure what they are going to do.

“You can’t expect them to stop and let you go by, because they’re too busy racing, but it can be extremely frustrating. And dangerous. Perhaps the organizers should hold a shorter race Saturday for slower cars.

“From Turn 2, the faster cars are going 170 right through the esses. You just hope for a clean run every time you come around.

“The situation will come quickly because the lead cars should be overtaking the rear of the field by the third lap.

The race should run approximately 200 laps.

In 1984, van der Merwe was here with the Kreepy Krauly team from South Africa shortly after it had scored a stunning victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona. The team finished sixth here.

The Kreepy Krauly team disbanded early last year after two of its $250,000 cars had been destroyed by fire and the Miami Grand Prix had been threatened by an anti-apartheid group if the car ran.

That left van der Merwe unemployed and available when Rick Hendrick formed his Corvette team in mid-year.

“1985 was a strange year,” van der Merwe said. “I had several offers to drive for other teams, but I felt loyal to Kreepy Krauly, so I turned them down. That backfired on me when the team quit, but then the situation turned around when I got a call from Hendrick to drive with David Hobbs in his new Corvette.”

Van der Merwe, who will be 40 on May 12, was one of the world’s top rally drivers before taking on IMSA Camel GT racing in 1983. He has won South Africa’s rally championship 10 times, 9 of them in succession.

In 1981 he brought his own car from South Africa and won the Reno International Rally in his only U.S. appearance in that type competition.

Van der Merwe entered IMSA as a co-driver for Gianpiero Moretti’s Momo team in 1983 at Charlotte.

“The cab was so tiny I had to stick part of my head out the window at first. When I came in after a few laps in practice, my head looked like it was on sideways.”

That season was one long frustration for van der Merwe as race after race he made the 20- to 25-hour flight from Port Elizabeth to a race track only to find the car unable to compete because of a variety of problems.

In 1984, with Kreepy Krauly running a full schedule with its own team, van der Merwe had the busiest year of his career. Much of it was in the air. He logged nearly 1 1/2 million miles of air travel, spending what amounted to 62 entire days on airplanes on 175 different flights between South Africa and the United States, as well as World Endurance Championship races in Spain, France, Portugal, Australia and Britain.

This year, van der Merwe’s only major European race will be the 24 Hours of LeMans, where he will drive a Kremer Porsche with Jo Gartner of Austria, one of the Sebring 12-hour winners. In two previous LeMans rides, van der Merwe has finished third and fifth.