Zwartkops Season Finale

Where to start, this weekends race was one of the tougher ones and with so much having happened i’ll attempt to get it all down

i was in line for the MPC class B title, if i won both heats , heres how it unfolded

 

Having gone testing on sunday at the supertrax day prior to the weekends Race i decided to skip Friday Practice, save the car a bit and shoot through on saturday morning

on Friday i went to Vw techniques and Oom Piets son ( not sure which one of the 12) soon had the gauges on the car and did a quick check on the alignment to find it was horribly out, we got the wheels pointing in the right direction and i was off to an afternoon meeting

i then got a call from Craig precision informing me billy bunker had run bearings, afer a few calls we sourced a new one and Wayne from iron horse collected it for us while i finished off the meeting, that night we swapped all the bits over and by 1am that morning Robs Golf was again breathing life.

 

Saturday morning and still half asleep i was bound for zwartkops and the 8h35 qualifying session, Final checks and everything was good to go , on the warm up lap the car had a horrible vibration on the brakes and what sounded like a swarm of wasps under my bonnet , with rain spitting i tried to at least get one lap in and feared the pressure plate or clutch where having a major failure, the noise eventually became too bad and i retired the car to the pits, With a spare gearbox and clutch , i was preparing myself to start ripping the old box out but on closer inspection found it was the clutch cable rubbing on the vernier pulley , what a relief , but still my qualifying session was botched and i was placed eighth on the grid

 

Robs motor that we had built the night before had again run bearings,with disheartenment the order of the morning in the bunker pit i offered the Firequip machine to my fellow racer so at least he could partake in the silvercup Races, he would start from the back of the field in 26th , finish 13th and leave me with my heart in my throat for the entire race watching from the sidelines

 

Race one

With a blistering start i flew past Adrian Dalton and had myself on the outside of Juan Gerber entering turn two, with better drive out of turn two i quickly dispathed of him and found myself challenging Jannie van Rooyen in his monster VW Scirroco into turn 4,We dragged up the back straight, his much faster scirroco made a few meters on me but i dived him into turn 5 and held him at bay for turns 6.7 and 8 , Jurgen Pillhoffer had in the meantime pulled a gap from us , but the much faster car of van rooyen soon had me up the inside of turn 4,through turns 5,6,7 and eight i had my car glued to the side of his , i was fighting a loosing battle and by the time he hit the back straight again he was off, he quickly passed Jurgen ahead of me and i had Adrian and Juan hounding me from behind, i managed to catch up to Jurgen a lap later and left the hard chasing Adrian and Juan in my dust, into turn 5 on lap 4 i stuck the car up the inside of Jurgen and forced him wide, set my sites for Jannie and drove the pants off the car, i made up some ground on Jannie but unfortunately the race ended and i placed 2 seconds behind him, 3rd overall and second in class, We found after the race that the front toe angle was horribly out, during the race the cars handling was not at its best, and last-minute camber adjustments had caused the toe to be so far out

i quickly sorted the toe out with Wayne’s gauges and Craig speedophiles help and was confident for a race win next time out, we also replaced the clutch cable which had been damaged in Qualifying, thanks to mical for for the cable

 

Rob went out for his second silvercup race in the chariot of Firequip, and was soon up from 13th to 7th with a blinding first 2 laps of driving , unfortunately the new clutch cable settled and he was left with a slack cable and no gear shifts, the field soon consumed him and he ended up finishing 13th, disappointing but luckily in hindsight it didnt happen in my MPC Race

 

Race two

 

Lined up in third, Second in class and staring down my rival Jannie Van rooyen to my left, lights on , lights off and we where away, i bounced along side jannie into turn 1 and held my line to have the inside line into turn two, with awesome drive out of the turn i was off and Jannie’s scirroco was slowley getting alot smaller in my rear view mirror, for the next lap i ran on jy own, but watched as Jannie’s car got ever closer every time we hit a straight, the pace of the scirroco was incredible and i was preparing myself for his arrival onto my tail. by lap two he was back behind me, i got my block face on and was adamant i wasnt going to let him past, for the next 3 laps i defended my position with all i had, often   my rear view mirrors to see Jannie’s arms flying all over his cockpit, he clearly wasnt happy with my tactics but i wasnt concerned with his newly found issues, on lap 4 however Jannie lined me up down the back straight and walked away from me with his superior power, with two laps to go and chasing with all i was worth the car picked up a small miss at 7000 RPM, with a quick hail mary i begged for the car to hold together , i had enough gap on the third place man Adrian Dalton to lighten my pace up a bit and resorted to shifting at 5000 RPM and make the finish, the water temp had also bounced up to 115 degrees which is very uncharacteristic of the car, happy to see the chequered flag, Second for the race.the day and unfortunately the season

 

Overall a hard fought Race day with decent results !

 

Looking back at the season it has been one of many lessons , close racing and finding the fun in racing again – which is ultimately why i do it

 

I’d like to thank Dave,Elmarie.Alison and Dirk from Firequip for the support on the day as well as the backing for the year, you guys are a huge part of where i and the car am today – www.firequip.com

Stace for still scaring small children , supporting me with your entire heart and being louder than the commentary system at the track whenever there are mm’s between me and my competitors

The bunker Boys Billy,Craig,Craig 2 , Elts , mic and Geoff , your presence and support at the track is invaluable!

Sarel From 8V Performance for the amazing motor and always being ready to get stuck in should anything go wrong

Wayne H from ‘fast by wayne’ for all the tech support at the track and always being behind me

Ross and Bern from RBTS for the faultless tuning

 

Next season will be time for new bigger things ! watch this space!

 

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