Friday Practise Session
Heading to Zwartkops early morning on Friday, I was wondering what had happened to winter as the weather was simply stunning. Entry for the Inland event was jammed packed with close on 35 cars which included several drivers down from Botswana and Mozambique wanting to show the local boys what they can do.
Following Kyalami a couple of weeks ago, I had to do quite a bit of prep work on the car as the high-speed circuit takes a lot out the car as it is stretched way beyond what it was originally designed to do.
Practise went according to plan running into the low 1m13 straight off the trailer which is always encouraging and provides some comfort that we can be competitive over the weekend. I parked the Golf, and the team gave one final check, put newer rubber onto the front to hopefully find some more pace for qualifying early Saturday morning.
Qualifying 7.45 am
Early morning qualifying in “Winter” has its pros and cons as the cars run better in the cooler air, but the tyres take longer to warm up and with only 10 minutes session you really have 2 laps to semi warm up and then a lap or two to dial in a blistering hot lap or two to ensure you well placed on the starting grid. Unfortunately, within our warmup session the class before of us had a major incident and spilt oil at the top of turn 5 and the end of the back straight which is extremely dangerous as it’s a high-speed braking zone. Needless to say, with oil on the circuit, limited time to get the tyres to optimum temperature it was definitely a recipe for disaster.
Qualifying was cut short as a number of cars ended up sliding off the track resulting in various safety cars and tow trucks entering the session and having only completed a lap or two, I manged a 1.14 flat which was good enough for 4th in Class and 9th overall.
Heat 1
Clubman’s, with a full field was important for the team that I get a good start and to try stay out of trouble coming into turn two before the cars could start stringing out along the back straight towards turn 4. I used the sighting and warm lap to sway side to side across the circuit to get heat in the tyres which helped tremendously when the flag dropped and had to hit the brakes hard at turn 2 …… cold tyres just don’t grip.
Coming out of turn two I was behind the Honda’s and quick Golf 7 GTI which helped tow me along and keep me on the back bumper and slip stream of the quicker Hondas. Using every trick in the boo I just could not get past them as they simply had to much pace in the straight which was extremely frustrating but made for great spectator value, as I would catch them in the corners giving everyone including myself hope that I would pass and then must slip back behind out the corner. Long story short I mange to end up 4th in Class D and 7th overall running in the 1min 13 bracket which just wasn’t quick enough to get past the top 3.
Heat 2
The Shield Golf has never say die attitude and as we all know you have to cross the finish line to complete the race and in this Heat I managed to get ahead of the GTI who had trouble and then stay right on the bumper of Rodney Kruis the eventual winner of the Class as the two front runners on the last lap took each other out in Turn 5 leaving me to pick up a 2nd and a 4th which was good enough for 2nd overall in Class D for the day
Big Thanks to the Team & Shield for all their support
I look forward to seeing you at the next event on the 14th of September at Zwartkops for 111 and the 21st at Red Star raceway in Delmas
