"The Hyper PRO Racer is about a new world of motor racing and I’m about to find out what that feels like."

Jon Crooke's drive impressions at a Winton test day.

“Why don’t we build this?” Dean was holding a sketch of a small racing car, a sketch that had been floating around in my office for over a decade. My son had grown up glancing at it from time to time, while practicing the art of karting and motocross. As for me, I had harbored a dream going all the way back to the 80’s and my Superkart, Formula 2 and Group A days, of one day building the car. I had called it the ‘Missing Link’ and the concept was as valid now as it was when I first imagined it a quarter of a century ago.

Circumstances had change since that first vision. My son Dean had grown up to become an engineer and fabricator of some talent, and had combined those talents with a successful background in karting. I had spent the last 20 years designing, marketing and producing the world’s best racing car simulators. “Why don’t we build this?. Well, why don’t we I thought. Between the two of us we possessed all the critical skills required to make it happen. As time would tell, it was a partnership born in heaven, or more accurately in the back seat of a car. But that’s a story for another day.

It was 2005 and we were committed to our Superkart product, the Hyper MAX Racer. The year was one of long hours in the workshop, designing and building. 2006 was a year of total domination of the Superkart racing scene. ‘07 was a year of redesign, building and testing of the Mk2 MAX racer. ‘08 was yet another year of endless interstate road trips and again of total race domination. Dean was now a 24 year old race design engineer and champion driver, with a successful race vehicle product of his own design, dominating the market place. And throughout all this, the conversation was always of the PRO Racer. Ideas were thrown. Concepts were argued. Every component was dissected, rationalized and re-designed, in our heads. Again and again. In the end we could look at each other and know exactly what the other was thinking. We could have been put in separate rooms with blank sheets of paper and drawn identical engineering drawings of the Hyper PRO Racer down to the last nut and bolt. We were ready.

‘Holly crap” I thought as I pressed the start button. The engine, which is virtually bolted to my back, explodes through the firewall and into my brain. I squeeze the throttle. The engine barks instantly. This is a no bullshit race engine and I’m liking it. I pull the clutch lever against the shifter and select first. Pull back to change up, push forward for down. Ease out the clutch, feed in the throttle and I’m away. Easy. Out of pit lane at 3000 rpm in second. Track clear. Foot down.

Oh man, THE TORQUE !!. Never in my life have I driven a race car with this much low down grunt. 9500 rpm in an instant. A tiny tug on the shifter for third and it’s on again. Sensational unrelenting effortless power and speed. I pull the shifter again - the shifter - it’s better than a switch, so positive, so direct. It’s the shortest, most connected shifter I’ve ever used.

I do a sighting lap to get my head settled into fast mode and then step up the pace. I haven’t used the brakes seriously yet. This vehicle only weighs 250 kilos WITH driver, so with billet milled four piston aluminum calipers and discs on each wheel, and more rubber on the road than shit on the floor of a bird cage, I know it’s going to stop.

On my first proper run down Shannons Straight into turn 10, and with run-off area up my sleeve, I decide to see how late I can go. 100. 50. 25. No way I’m stoppin’ now. LEFT FOOT BRAKE. Instant harness bruising retardation. Man that’s impressive. Very impressive. On subsequent laps I find I’m going deeper and deeper, so deep in fact that I’m turning into the apex as I hit the brakes. This means I’m having to shift down two gears as I’m sliding into the turn. Just like the F2 ground effect days. It all happens so quickly that I almost don’t have time to make the downshifts. And all this without a hint of lock-up or bump steer. Bloody impressive.

But the brakes are not the Hypers only impressive trick. After braking comes cornering, and as you would expect with such a massive tyre patch to weight ratio, the Hyper sticks and sticks big time. What you don’t expect, is the feeling that steering the car becomes an extension of your mind. Nothing you have driven before will prepare you for this. At less than half the weight of a formula car, the Hyper has gokart responsiveness without a gokarts unsprung unpredictability. Look at a point on the track and you are there. Totally undisturbed by bumps. It’s a feeling of security that lets you push on to higher limits. And best of all, no matter how hard you drive it, how brutal you are with the equipment, at 250 kilos all up, you know you’re not hurting the car.

The controls are light and rapier sharp. But be warned, driving the Hyper fast is the real deal. It’s no hang-it-out sideways slider. The Hyper is driven F1 straight. Drifting - sure. Power sliding out of corners - with talent, absolutely. But always F1 straight.

Every aspect of the Hyper PRO Racer feels so sorted, so integrated, so solid, that you’re instantly at one with it. By the end of the session I found myself using a higher gear everywhere, than I had on the early laps. This motor has so much torque that you can eliminate shifts in the tight stuff and just grunt-on through, concentrating on car placement and maintaining mid-corner speed. And after a recent experience of the brutality of a Superkart - five laps and its off to the paramedics - the Hyper is a revelation. Fifty laps straight at Winton would be a breeze.

By the end of the day, development test driver Dean Crooke was putting down times on Wintons long track, that would put him on the front row between a Ferrari and a Lambo in a GT Production race. Given the low cost consumables the car uses, the fact that it can be towed to and from the track behind a small eco car, that the whole show can be run by one person and that that person will spend the day racing in an envirionment of safety unheard of at this price range - at a tad under $30,000, the Hyper PRO Racer is a no brainer.

Did I like it? If I were the owner of the last gallon of fuel on earth, I would put it into a Hyper PRO Racer.

Copyright 2009 to Hyper Racer - Dean Crooke - Jon Crooke