Making our way to Delmas on Friday morning the Shield Golf team had put in extra effort into ensuring the car was well prepared. Hopefully the last-minute adjustment of the back wheel alignment, which is a major job was the secret to finding a couple of seconds that was somehow lost at the Zwartkops Xtreme Festival a few weeks back. Sarel and the 8V Performance team also had the car back on the Dyno and managed to find a bit more horsepower which always comes in handy, especially considering the long straight on the otherwise twisty 4km circuit.
Redstar is an extremely challenging track and having spent quite a bit of time on the circuit over last two years doing the 24-hour Endurance events I have managed to familiarise myself better around 13 twisty corners, which in theory should work in my favour regarding improved lap times.
Friday afternoon practise session went well and straight out the box was on lap record pace in the low 1min17 bracket. Not often am I this fortunate that the car is so well setup straight off the trailer which as you can imagine I was extremely pleased with and was silently hoping that with a bit of luck I could dip into the 1min16’s in the early 8am qualifying slot on Saturday.
Qualifying
Due to low clouds (mist) Saturday morning qualifying was delayed and created a layer of dew on the circuit which was not ideal if I had any hope of trying to dip into 16 ‘s and qualify up front of class as I had some stiff competition in the form of current Clubman’s champion Rodney Kruis in a 24 Valve Honda Balade and newcomer Wayne Robb in his Ford STI Focus Turbo.
Heat 1
Heading out onto the circuit I knew I had to make the start count and try get past both the Ford and Honda early in the race or I was going to be in trouble due to extra pace they had down the back straight as my only hope was to try pull a gap in the tight twisty section. Once the pace car had indicated it was pulling in the butterflies in my stomach elevated to whole new level and this is normally just before the flag drops which then creates a blur as the Shield Golf heads for the first turn ( with a bit of luck we all make the corner) and then down the back straight to see who has the positioning to take turn 4 as fast as possible before the cars settle in to some type of semi organised chaos. The Shield Golf is always eager for the challenge and manged to get ahead of the Honda and was chasing down the Ford Focus of Wayne Robb into turns 5 and 6 before the back end of the car let go and I found myself looking into the mielie fields of Delmas.
Heat 2
Starting alongside Rodney in the Honda on the inside line of the grid I knew I could possibly pip him into back straight and hopefully get a needed tow from the Ford to gain an advantage as he was quite a lot quicker than us down the back straight. When the flag dropped the Shield Golf was wide awake and manged to tuck in behind the ford Focus making me ham in the sandwich between the Honda and Ford. Lap after lap with a Honda on my rear bumper I managed to cross the 1O lapper in the same position which ultimately gave me 3rd in class for the day due to my overall 2 sessions time being more than the Honda because of my costly mistake in Heat 1. Next time ………
Big Thank you to the Shield team for their support and look forward to seeing you all next weekend at
Kyalami Extreme Festival on the 13th of April ….
