Shield Golf Extreme Festival – Redstar Raceway 14 May Race Report
Redstar, designed primarily as a motorcycle track and has a number of tight twisting corners to contend with and changing the rotation of the circuit every 6 months as you will appreciate becomes a challenge for us drivers to say the least. Running in both the Clubmans an 111 series on the day makes it hustle and bustle from early the early morning and it winter you need additional time for defrosting. Quail and race heats are roughly an hour apart giving the team just 45 min between events to sort out any issues on the car and re-hydrate —- so things need to run smooth.
Qualifying in both events went well and the Shield Golf was running in the low 2.14 which I thought was quite a competitive time, considering the two long straight favouring the more powerful cars.
Heat 1 in both 111 and Clubman’s went according to plan and managed a top 3 placing in both classes which positioned us well for Heat 2 .
Clubman’s run a reverse grid in the second heat which meant I started 3 last on the grid with two extremely quick Hondas of Fed Kruger and Dirk Louwrens waiting to run over me before turn 1 .
Reverse grid formation from a spectator point of view makes for far better entertainment but in the same vein can be hair raising for the drivers in the slower cars when you have a hornet’s nest of cars all over you eager to try get past and taking gaps at the most inappropriate places considering the speed differences of some of the cars. Fortunately, after all the mayhem on the first couple of laps the race settled down and managed to finish 2nd overall in class and 5th overall on Index and performance
Heat 2 in 111 was what you call a bumper Extreme Festival and emphases on the bumper coming in the form of a collision in the last race of the day with Piet Potgieter, who wasn’t expecting a nippy Shield Golf to pass him on the outside of Turn 1 — keep an eye Piet these Shield Golfs mean business.
The team at 8v performance is busy refreshing some of the key components on the car and we should be ready for Zwartkops on the 11th of June to challenge for some silverware.
BIG THANKS TO SHIELD AND TEAM
