Turns out it’s not just photographers who like to be out in ‘the golden hour’
Motoring journalism can take you to some exotic places, but few feel quite as special as a proving ground in the half-light. By and large, these are not exotic places.
The ones with which I’m most familiar are a repurposed airbase in the West Midlands and a rather nondescript chunk of rural Bedfordshire – namely Horiba MIRA and Millbrook. But I’m sure the phenomenon that I’m about to describe is just as likely to happen at Dudenhofen in Germany, Mortefontaine in France or Idiada in Spain.
The half-light is the important bit. Dawn or dusk: you can take your pick. Go for the former and you’ve got the quiet satisfaction of beating the rest of the waking world and much of the usual proving ground traffic to the start of the working day.
With the latter, you get to watch as all those unfortunates who drive their Vauxhall Insignia and Nissan Juke prototypes over miles and miles of cobblestones or in seemingly never-ending figures of eight pack up and knock off, leaving you exclusive use of your favourite working playground.
Either way, you feel as if it’s just you and the car: there’s nobody to impose on your schedule and all the time you need to get into your well-rehearsed test routine and be certain of the repeatability of what you’re doing.
The environment is well set for the numbers you need. The air is dense, the ambient temperature cool, the ground warm and dry – or at least drying.
At some point in the next hour or so, the perfect conditions will exist to set the optimal standing start, braking distance or lap time. It’s as if the natural world is helping you to get the job done.
Some of the natural world, at least. Proving grounds are big open spaces with ecosystems of their own, and fading light can do strange things to the local fauna. When a pheasant, hare or fallow deer goes for a crepuscular frolic in an otherwise empty field, of course, he or she isn’t typically at risk of being taken out by a fast-moving Lotus or BMW.
In other words, while you may feel like you’re the only person on the mile-long straights late in the afternoon or early in the morning, you’re very often not alone.
So you take what care you need – and it feels like a very special privilege indeed. All the distractions have either gone or have yet to arrive. The ambient noise levels are low, so every sound the car makes and every input you give it feels as if it’s amplified by the pervading calm around you.
The light has that soft, clear, ethereal quality and your consciousness feels pin-sharp, discovering details about the car beneath you that the bustle, noise and sensory overload of the day have thus far covered up.
The world is turning under your wheels, and it’s all happening in 4K ultra-high definition. Where else would you rather be?
