Race Report 111 – Zwartkops Extreme Festival Round 1 – 18th February 2023
111, our first race of the season is always a hustle and bustle and exciting to say the least, as you walk through the pits seeing who has been hard at work on their cars over the holiday season. It’s quite easy to spot the culprits as they typically present themselves with fresh decals, new gloves or shoes and the drivers have recently sent their babies to the panel shop to iron out any wrinkles and spray job.
(Something like a day spa for race cars)
I am quite interested in identifying the new competition joining the series and to see which of the old dogs have new tricks up their sleeves. Over the festive break I spent quite a bit of time preparing the Shield Golfs and was quite confident and sure the team was in for a smooth weekend racing —-
(As what could possibly go wrong having ensured everything was in order).
Due to work commitments, I unfortunately could not take the car out prior to the official practice season on Friday. Race cars, they can give trouble just by staring at them for too long. Only making the 2nd practice season around midday on Friday and doing a reasonable but disappointing time I could feel a strange surge in performance, which is typically related to a fueling problem or blocked filter.
One thing about motorsport is that you find a blend of people that are always willing to help and jump in to try fix the problem to enable you to make the grid on race day. Craig, Andy Gossman and Mike Ramsay a big thank you for your assistance in helping find the gremlin in the form of a facet pump, which decided to give in after a good few years of service ….. (don’t let your tank run dry on the dyno as the facet bump does not like it) Unfortunately after running around town to try find a new one, which is like searching for hens teeth, we were still busy with the operation by 5 o’clock and missed the last session .Fortunately we had time to get it ready and working for Qualifying Saturday morning.
Qualifying: with the car hopefully sorted out I had my pit crew and biggest fan supporting me to get the season off to a good start. Qualifying went fairly and manged a 3rd in class.
Heat 1
Heat one was a close race with both Wayne Masters (father of Keegan Masters who participated last year in the international Porsche Racing Series) and me managing to get past Hopkins and Weyers, who Qualified 1st and 2nd respectively in the first few laps. Masters and I battled it out neck and neck until the last lap when I noticed my heat gauge in the red and had to bring the car in. I am sure you can just imagine how disappointing and frustrating that was for me as an alternator water pulley belt had jumped off, which was simply enough to replace but had cost me the race and valuable points.
Heat 2
Hopefully all the gremlins had been sorted out in the car and with the second race being at the end of the day I noticed the rain clouds starting to creep in which hopefully could be an advantage as starting out in the back of the field in P26 in the rain could open some opportunity.
Starting out in the back of the field in the rain is sometimes not a bad thing as several of the front runners seems to take each other out in the first few corners and thus allows the back markers to work their way up to the front systematically. Exactly what I thought would happen did and the Shield Golf managed to work its way to right up to 2nd in class.
Overall, this gave me 2nd for the day as number of class B competitors never finished in the rain …
Big thank you to Shield
