The second last round of the 2024 Regional Extreme Festival took place at an exceptionally hot Red Star Raceway in Delmas on the 12 October 2024. With temperatures hovering over 35° C around lunchtime, the heat took its toll on both drivers and cars.
Friday – Practice & Setup
Redstar can be a challenge when it comes to pit allocation and I was extremely grateful for the Shield Gazebo which came in handy by providing a few metres of shade extension to our limited working area . The 111 series was first out for Friday practice, and I wanted to ensure that all the work on the gearbox linkages were working to spec and if need be we had sufficient sessions during the day to adjust if need be. Redstar is a circuit they change direction twice a year, just to confuse things and therefore the first session I normally use to get myself re-accustomed to the track, and check the car for any tweaks that may be required . Session, one went smoothly and I could feel that the car setup and gearbox linkages were all up to scratch as the lap times were looking extremely encouraging and close to my lap record without even trying too hard. Heading out for the session with only minor adjustments to tyre pressures and resetting the alignment to hopefully find some additional pace and within a lap or two I had dipped into the 2m16.5 brackets which was a 0.5 faster than my previous lap record. The Shield Golf was dialled in and all we had to do was clean the car, do a final check, any minor adjusting and ensure sufficient fuel was in the car for Qualifying.
Qualifying
The 111 Series was first to qualify and having been bumped up into A, I was going to need all the help I could get in the form of early morning cool air for the normally aspirated motor in the Golf Turbos cars in Class A simply have so much more power which really comes to life down the long straights. Using all the legal tricks known to mankind, I managed to qualify 5th overall in 2m16.5 which was good enough to be hanging around waiting for someone to make a mistake and hopefully pick up a podium spot.
Heat One
First race of the day normally means a clean circuit as the marshals sweep the track and clean off any debris after the last session. Heading down the back straight on the warmup lap, I knew things were going to be interesting as the Mobil V8 supercars had dropped oil all over the circuit which was now covered in cement. Cement helps dry up the oil but this takes a while for the cars to run over the patches which can be extremely slippery and avoided if at all possible which means taking different lines into the corner and making overall lap times and passing cars a lot more tricky. Once the cement dust had settled, and we all started to get into a groove, I managed to work my way up to 4th place overall in A, and was closing down on Piet Potgieter in his Golf 7 GTI who managed to hold onto a solid 3rd.
Heat Two
When lining up for race two even before the race had started everyone was eager to get out on track and to get back to the pits for a cold drink as soon as possible as the afternoon temperature was hovering around the 35 degree mark, which meant that in the car, it must have been well into the 40’s . Heading out on the warm up lap I was wondering how the Turbo cars were going to perform in the heat, which hopefully was going to work in my favour as the race progressed into the 10 lap race. Once the tyres were warmed up and the safety car had pulled in , it was lights out and the race was on, as we all headed down to the twisty turn 1 followed by 2 and 3 in short succession before being flat foot down the long back straight before the challenging sweeping turn 4 .
The top 3 cars in class A had the initial advantage and created a gap of roughly 100m in the early part of the race but as the unusually hot temperature was starting to play a factor, the Shield Golf started to claw back 10m a lap which meant I really had to give it my all if I was going to catch the front runners before the end of the race . Unfortunately, I needed another lap or two as I could only claw back enough to finish right behind Piet once again in 4th – must say the crowd loved the Shield golf coming back at the Turbo cars.
Big thank you to the Shield team for all their support and hopefully we can try to finish the year off with a Podium of sorts at Zwartkops in November
The year’s final Inland & Regional Extreme Festival events take place at Zwartkops Raceway on the 1 & 2 November and 15 & 16 November 2024.
