Car versus Man, it's the battle of the year. OK, maybe not, but when DRIVEN ambassador Sam Wallace recently featured a story on a sporting challenge known as the Bronco Test, it piqued our interest in the sake of competition. Anything man can do - walk, run, lap times, hold four cans of Coke while outrunning an angry rhino - a car can do better, right?
That was our thought and intention when our motor-based brains heard that there is a sport other than motorsport called 'Super Rugby'. They play this game on a grass field, apparently, and there's a team called the Blues and on this team is a man with many vowels named Beauden Barrett - the Scott McLaughlin or Shane van Gisbergen of rugby, if you will. And he set a record time. That's when we took notice.
The time was performed on a Bronco Test, favoured by these rugby players, and while we prefer 0-100 or quarter-mile or lap time games, anything with a time and a record gets out attention, especially with a 1.2km test that theoretically favours 'on foot'.
What made it even more appealing is when our Sam Wallace featured middle-distance runner Sam Tanner lowering the record considerably.
So Barrett's time was 4min:12sec.
Sam Tanner's time was 4min:01sec.
DRIVEN? Time to find out, in a car.
The Bronco test covers 1.2km, sequentially back and forth between markers placed at 20m, 40m, and 60m, done five times.
We grabbed our 2020 Hyundai Tucson II 2.0 diesel long-termer, and found a nearby private strip of grass and set up a course and a camera.
The diesel's a solid SUV, recording 0-100km/h in 9.9 seconds: reasonable without being slow.
Behind the wheel would be, well, me. DRIVEN editor Dean Evans, with a decent record of motorsport success.
In total 'road' spec, the Hyundai powers off, turning, sliping and sliding a little on grass and around the markers. It feels slow, but it's just one second off Barrett's time.
A range of different styles and methods help: deactivating ESP allows for lurid powerslides, and while the torque splitting all-wheel drive is good, it's a toss-up between centre diff locked or not. Second run is actually slower: 4:14!
Smooth is fast on the third run, and boom, the clock stops at 4m:07s, beating Beauden by a solid five seconds.
But beating Sam Tanner's time? Six seconds sounds a lot, less so if it's measured as just two-percent.
I engage ‘locked all-wheel drive’ with a button; this is a driver-selected setting for slippery surfaces that could either make it slower or faster. In simple terms, it’s designed for grip off-road, not tight turns. With ESP still off, it’s a two-step recipe to release more potential for speed.
The SUV starts to really slide around in the turns, and powerslide out like a V8 Supercar, but it is indeed faster: the reward is 4m:03s. Still two-second off Sam Tanner's record time, which dangles like fruit that’s not quite low-enough.
But I’m out; that was a clean run and not only is the grass getting more dug up and greasy, I don’t think there’s another two-seconds in the car or me. So I pack up the temporary markers – admittedly just a plastic recycling bin, suitcase and a wooden peg – drive away and admit a part victory/part defeat.
But…
In motorsport qualifying, you get time to set your fastest time; but you don’t always go out and set pole position on the first attempt. Typically, you set two hot laps, return to the pits, view data, rethink and reset. This is how I achieved my first motorsport pole position against (back then) V8 Supercar drivers. So after ten minutes of thought, I decide to put my determined brain back in and head back out to the field for one more try.
But a change was in order. Up until now, the driving style has been to go ‘around’ each of the markers, but just like the guys on foot, it might actually be faster to emulate the athletes and simply go forward and back… maybe?
The physical markers may be gone, but it’s easy to see where they were anyway from the scores of tyre marks around them.
Run five starts, and the biggest challenge with this method is shifting between gears. Modern gearboxes aren’t the easiest to shift ‘quickly’ between directions, and on the first forwards-backwards attempt (attempt five), the gearbox is a little slow to respond, and combined with some minor overshoots, results in a 4m:16s. OK, just one more (again).
Everything is switched off and on for the final full-attack, with the centre diff locked proving maximum traction, especially helpful given the lack of turns. There’s still bit of wheelspin off the start, shortly followed by a smooth left foot operating the brake, eliminating a few tenths of foot transfer time between brake and throttle. Maximum ‘threshold’ braking is just before the point where the ABS system starts pulsating, and it’s important to hit the brake markers at the right time: too early loses time, too late loses even more.
Back and forth to each of the markers, the trick with the gearbox is to compensate for the slight lag by shifting into neutral for the last car length, letting the SUV’s momentum and a later brake cross each marker while the momentary pause in neutral gives a chance for the car’s microchips to prepare for the opposite-direction gear.
Either the front or rear axle has to cross or touch the line, in the same way that either a left or right foot needs to touch the line.
On the fifth cycle through, I power up to the 60m mark for the final time, squeezing the brakes on at the 40m mark… don’t ask me the speed, I never looked once.
As I shift from 1 into R for the final and 15th time, I glance at the time as it shows 3m:52s, for the final 60m run home in reverse. I nail the throttle and grass chunks flip up and forward as I shift focus to that final marker point looming large in the exterior mirror.
The roads getting bumpy, but with one eye on the mirror, one eye and hand on the clock, I pass the finish line at almost full speed in reverse. It’s so bumpy in fact that I can’t stop the iPhone’s stopwatch, but I know I just saw the time flash up as I crossed the finish ‘line’.
3:59!
That’s 13 seconds faster than Beauden Barrett and two seconds faster than Sam Tanner. Yee-to-the-ha!
And phew! I’m a bit puffed, and exhale to let the time sink in and the adrenaline flow. I actually thought beating that time would be easy in a car - and on a road and in a faster car, it would be.
But by amazing coincidence, our 2020 Hyundai Tucson II Limited 2.0 diesel was not just in the same speed ballpark as Beauden Barrett and Sam Tanner, it took a concentrated effort to beat them.
So yes, guys, it took a car to beat your time, but it wasn’t easy; six attempts, a rethink and a change in tact to finally beat Beauden and topple Tanner.
Bronco, you’ve been tamed by a Tucson.
