A race for fuel economy in a Mazda2 left Conor Twomeywishing for some front and side punchbags - and the freedom to kick down on the throttle
THE PREMISE was simple: drive 106km from the Topaz station in Kill, Co Kildare, around the foothills of the Wicklow mountains, up the motorway towards Dublin before eventually finishing in another Topaz station in Templeogue. Whoever uses the least fuel wins.
There was a motley crew of journalists assembled, including myself and my brother (who I had roped into navigating for me entirely against his will) as well as a couple of fuel economy experts, Johnny Horan and Alastair Lindsey, who were to be setting the benchmark.
All the cars were identical Mazda2s with 1.3-litre petrol engines and all were the exact same weight. They had all been filled to the brim with 95 octane unleaded petrol from the same pump by the MG Rover Club of Ireland (who are, for some reason, experts at filling cars to bursting point) and the bonnet and fuel-filler cap were sealed to prevent cheating - not that any of us would, of course.
There was nothing at stake, other than pride and a curiosity to see just how economical we can really drive if we put our minds to it.
Before we headed off, I picked the fuel expert's brains for some fuel-saving tips but, apart from recommending we chug along the motorway at 60km/h, it's all pretty obvious - turn off everything, including the air conditioning, stereo and lights; accelerate gently; shift up early; brake as little as possible and avoid stopping (rolling up behind a line of traffic slowly so that you don't have to stop and put it in first gear saves 20 per cent around town alone). Oh, and avoid looking in the rearview mirror too often - a long line of steaming traffic will make you more inclined to speed up.
The next two hours were the most arduous, scary and downright stressful I've ever experienced behind the wheel of a car. Once out of the Topaz station we were immediately on the M7 southbound, hugging the inside lane while trying to keep our speed down to 60km/h. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes before we pulled off the motorway into the first of many roundabouts we would encounter. The key here is observation - it's better to speed up or slow down a little bit to avoid having to stop for other traffic.
Once I knew my timing was right, I then had to drive a straight line across the roundabout, clipping imaginary apexes by hugging the kerbs to make the route as short as possible.
In Naas we encountered our first traffic lights, so I switched off the engine to preserve as much fuel as possible.
Horan had advised me that, if I did this, it was wise to have the car in first gear and be ready to pull away immediately so as not to waste a drop of fuel.
As it happened, the light turned green before we had even come to a stop, so I could fire it up and pull away in seconds, thereby saving a few more millilitres of petrol.
As soon as 1,700 rpm appeared I snatched third - and so it continued all the way up the rev range until we reach our cruising speed of 60km/h.
At that speed, in fifth gear, the Mazda2 is happy to chug along, although I tended to put on a little spurt as I approached hills so I wouldn't have to change down before reaching the summit, while some of the downhill sections involved letting the car coast along using gravity as its only source of propulsion.
At one point we travelled almost 4km with the clutch depressed, reaching a heady 70km/h for a moment - depressingly, the fastest we would travel all day.
But for the most part, the experience was horrific. Irate drivers, delayed by our snail-like pace, honked, flashed, gesticulated, yelled and tailgated us the whole way. The sight of a truck in my mirrors filled me with dread because the truckers didn't have the room or pace to overtake us on the back roads and became even more annoyed than the car drivers.
On the three-lane section of motorway leading into Dublin, we were positioned in the slowest lane - but that didn't stop one trucker from tailgating and flashing us for several minutes before eventually overtaking and slowing down to 50km/h, 10km/h slower than we were travelling.
It's a classic piece of road rage, except that I was more than happy to sit behind him, saving even more fuel by slip-streaming him. After three minutes, it dawned on him that I wasn't going to take his bait, so he abandoned his attempt at getting a rise out of us and took off. What I want to know is, if he was in such a rush that my 60km/h positively offended him, how did he have the time to vent his aggression at us for at least five full minutes?
Pulling into the Topaz station in Templeogue was one of the happiest moment of my life. I could sense that, given the fact we were amongst the first to depart the starting point and the very last to arrive, we would do well - and so it proved.
Our discipline and thick skins meant we were the most economical of the non-experts by some margin and trailed the pros by only the tiniest amount. We burned 3.69 litres over 106km, which equates to 3.48 litres per 100km or 81.17 miles per gallon, just shy of the 3.66 litres (3.44L/100km 81.97 MPG) used by Horan and Lindsey. Were it not for one wrong turn which took us about 1km off course, we would possibly have beaten them.
Although such figures are attainable, you could never drive like this, day to day. It's too stressful and too unrealistic.
However, a few small changes to your driving habits could knock hundreds off your annual fuel bill every year, particularly in slow-moving traffic where we all waste fuel by accelerating quickly, only to fritter it all away by braking moments later.
We also sit for long periods in traffic with our engines running, leave the air conditioning on even on cold days, drive around with fog lights on (despite the fact they offer no meaningful illumination except when it's foggy), drag loads of superfluous items around with us and rarely check our tyre pressure.
The premise of driving economically might be simple but the practice is extremely complicated, although if you get it right the rewards can be immense.
In normal driving, I might get 500km from a tank of fuel in a Mazda2. If I continued driving as I did during the economy run, I'd be able to cover 1,200km between fills.