By Mark Corbett
There’s a reason why it’s called a Super 7. It’s the closest thing to flying without leaving the ground. So it seemed to me as I was hunkered down in the passenger seat flying so close to ground it feels like 225 kms/hr down the asphalt. It should wear a cape it’s so super.
What really made an impression on me, though, was the bodily sensation of accelerating from 0 to 100 kms/hr in a mind blowing three and a half seconds! I don’t know what the G-force was—I’m sure there was one—but my driver’s casual direction to “hold on” just before the pedal hit the metal truly defined the experience for me.
We didn’t have a stopwatch that day, but engineer, racecar driver, and owner of Super 7 Cars Inc, David Saville Peck, once ran from 0 to 60 mph in 3.25 seconds, a feat verified in 2003 by the RCMP. At 102 mph, he also set the world speed record in reverse down an airport runway. These incredible speeds make the Caterham “Hayabusa” Super 7 the fastest production road car in Canada, and Peck a man who loves fast cars. His latest version the new “R” Type with a 1400cc Hayabusa engine has upped the ante even further with a mind blowing 0 to 60 mph in UNDER 3 secs!!
Peck is not the only one who loves to race these slick little cars. Since the 1980s, Caterham racing has become widely popular, and Caterham Super 7 competitions are thriving in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey and Japan.
Originally designed by Royal Air Force pilot Colin Chapman in the 1950s, the light-weight, Caterham Super 7 sports car, formerly known as the Lotus 7, is custom made right here on Vancouver Island by Peck and his small crew of mechanics and engineers. The model lineup, not only includes the outrageous Hayabusa motorcycle engined car but also more sedate versions using a 16v DOHC car engine and 5 speed gearbox.
Born in Britain,
Peck started racing cars professionally in the UK in the mid-1960s. He was very
good at it too. For 10 years he continued to make a name for himself as a winning
driver and record breaker in Europe.
“I’m just one of those people who can drive a car, someone with natural
abilities,” says Peck. “When I was racing though, if I didn’t
feel nervous before a race, I wouldn’t run. That’s when it gets dangerous.”
In 1972, he moved to Canada to get involved in the Can-Am Championship. But then disaster struck. While competing in the Road America Race in 1975, his racing career came to a crashing halt when he was seriously injured in a spectacular and fiery wreck. “I received third degree burns to 85% of my body,” says Peck.
Although he was through with racecar driving as a career, he had used his time well and became closely involved in the design and manufacture of the high-speed vehicles he raced and loved. In 1976, he opened Ennerdale Engineering in Duncan to become the Lotus distributor for Vancouver Island moving his specialty sales, repair and restoration shop to Chemainus in 1980 where it remains to this day.
In 2000, Peck obtained the world rights to manufacture these new Caterham Super 7s. For those gear heads reading this who like all the numbers and letters, it’s the Caterham Super 7 GSX 1300R Hayabusa. And it’s incredibly fast, I swear.
What this means to non-racers like me, is that one of those crotch rocket motorcycle engines has been custom fit into a sporty yet classic little 1,000 lbs. Caterham Super 7 chassis built for two. It’s not ideal for families, but it can do everything else. It can be driven to the grocery store (although you’ll have to pack light as space is extremely limited), you can take an adventurous wind-in-your-hair road trip along the coastline, or take it to the race track where it will likely stomp all over the competition.
It’s not very often that a world-class racing car can adapt to everyday urban traffic, but this one pulls it off with flying colours. During our interview, Peck demonstrated just what this little dynamo can do. A little off-roading, barely even feeling the speed bumps he ignored, and tires that stick to the road like crazy glue are just some of the surprising features of this amazing car.
Although Peck doesn’t race the big cars anymore, he does indulge his life-long desire for speed and returned to Kart Racing in 1995 at age 50, representing Canada at the World Championships in Thailand in 2000—he came 2nd! In 1997, he established the Chemainus and Port Alberni Grand Prix and loves getting on the track again, albeit on a smaller scale. In 2005, now at age 60, he returned to the big tracks again in one of his Caterham Super 7 “Hayabusa” and has not looked back since; track records at Mission Raceway in Vancouver and Knox Mountain Hillclimb in Kelowna to name just two.
Over the years Peck has also spent much of his time advocating good, clean, fast car racing that teaches primarily younger drivers how to not only operate a vehicle, but master it in a controlled, safe environment here on the island, a much better alternative to dangerous and illegal street racing.
Without a doubt, Peck is a perfect example of someone who lives more and lives fast. With his long gray hair flowing in the wind, he can still be spotted driving his personal Caterham Super 7 around the Island. Maybe he’ll even get it that cape one day.
This article appeared in the July August 2009 issue of More Living magazine.
