I am sure that I would be safe in saying that all the off-road drivers of Meyerton RC Raceway were looking forward to the 4th leg of the RCX Challenge held on Sunday 26th October 2014. We would be given the opportunity to race against drivers from other clubs and this was very exciting. We had recently erected 100 sq meters of shaded area for the drivers and Henry had also paved under the shaded area. A lot of work had gone into the track surface in preparation for the big day.

 

A week before the time we started checking the weather report as it was clear that there was a great possibility of rain on the day. The track was opened for practice on Saturday 25th and although not too many people made use of this practice day, those that did found it to be extremely beneficial to them. Sawdust was ordered and kept on standby in case of rain. The weather forecast had predicted rain with a thunderstorm for race day. By Saturday evening, the track was prepared and ready. All we needed was good weather for the 60 odd entries that we received online. We prepared to be at the track by 05:30 am the Sunday morning to make sure that we could make final arrangements and changes if needed. The heaven opened on Saturday night and it rained extremely hard during the night. On Sunday morning we arrived at the track at around 05:30am to find at least 1/3 rd of the track under 6-8 inches of water! We had sawdust to dry out the track, but we would need about 5 tons of it to dry up all the water on the track.

Henry, being a very level headed and practical person, went and fetched a half a dozen empty nitro 2 liter cans which we cut open and he showed us how and where to scoop out the water and throw it where it would subside into the ground. There was just one thing going through our minds. Would we ever be able to get rid of all this water? Henry was confident that we would, but I am sure that many of us members were not that confident. There were about 10 guys scooping the water from the track when Andre calmly brought a wet and dry vacuum cleaner and started sucking the water into the vacuum cleaner. At first a lot of us thought that he had lost his mind, but soon it was apparent that he indeed knew what he was doing. The water was being cleared, the drivers were arriving and I am sure that most of them also thought that we would never be able to clear the track of water. The drivers briefing was planned for 07:30am, but this did not happen, due to the water on the track. With the assistance of many people and a lot of sawdust, we eventually managed to dry out the track by around 09:15. There was excitement in the air, there were now over 70 entries and we could see that we were in for a great day of racing. Our first heat of the day started at 09:42 am, more than 2 hours late, but we were going to have a great day of racing.

When the squatting list was printed at a quarter past 9, we had enough drivers for two Nitro truggy heats with 8 drivers each. There were 10 drivers in the Electric buggy heat, which were a nice surprise and 44 entries for nitro buggies.

The Qualifying heats:

Heat 1  Round 1 Nitro Truggy: Attie de Jager won the race with Jacques Albrect behind him and Henry Ogden in 3^rd. Kobus Griesel (4^th) had faster laps than Henry, but Henry’s more consistent laps awarded him the 3rd place. Divan Albrech was in 4^th position.  Johan Barnard is the proud owner of a brand new truggy and it was their 1^st ever competition, still getting to get use to one another. Johan ended in 5^th position. Young Patrick (Bloemfontein) apparently had problems with his truggy, but looking at his scores, he has got a very promising future in this class. Kevin Bann only managed to do 1 lap, but I really cannot recall what went wrong there….

Heat 1 Round 2 Nitro Truggy:      Patrick had now shed his car problems and won the race quite comfortably. Jacques Albrech ended 2^nd again and now Atties was 3^rd. Henry improved on his fastest lap from the 1^st heat with 3 seconds, ending 4^th. Kevin Bann has also recovered from whatever problems he had and raced 6 very good laps in this class, which I think was also a 1^st for him. He ended 5^th.

Heat 1 Round 3 Nitro Truggy: Jacques won the race with Patrick behind him and Attie in 3^rd. Henry improved some more on his own fastest lap time and so did Kevin, when he also improved his own best lap with 3 seconds.. Well done! Johan Barnard did not start.

Heat 2  Round 1 Nitro Truggy: SJ Coetzer, the famous Bloemfontein guy, won the race hands downs. David Parkinson was his closest rival, with Ilizio(Porra) in 3^rd place. Stephan vd Walt was 4^th and Colin van Jaarsveld ( a young boy and new to our track) ended 5^th. Sandra Greyvenstein, usually in the top 3 positions, didn’t have a good start and only managed 4 laps, with Ronel Bann behind her. 11 year old James Boogaard had serious car trouble and completed one lap only . The fastest lap in this race belonged to SJ, a brilliant 50.16 seconds.

Heat 2  Round 2 Nitro Truggy SJ  in 1^st again with Ilizio in 2^nd and David in 3^rd positions. Ilizion now doing multiple laps of 50 seconds and even one of 49.27! Mooi man! James Boogaard still suffered with car trouble.

Heat 2 Round 3 Nitro Truggy: SJ did not start and left the field open for Ilizio to grab the 1^st place. Sandra took the 2^nd place, with David now also experiencing car trouble. Stephan moved up to 3^rd place.

Heat 3  Round 1  Nitro Buggy: 3 Johan’s in one race..! But this was a real mixed grill of 11 drivers from different clubs with different levels of experience. Hein van Rensburg won the race, with Gustav Engelbrecht in 2^nd place and Hannes Kruger in 3^rd. Danie van Jaarsveld was 4^th with Robbie Kuhn 5^th. Johan Barnard ended 6^th and Johan Killian 7t. 8^th was Ronel Bann and Neil van Wyk 9^th. Jacques van Zyl and Johan van Zyl did not start.

Heat 3  Round 2  Nitro Buggy:    Hein van Rensburg won yet again. Hannes Kruger now moved up to the 2^nd place, while Neill van Wyk jumped from 9^th place to 3^rd place. Danie kept a steady 4^th position.

Heat  3  Round 3 Nitro Buggy: Gustav Engelbrecht jumped from his 7^th place in the previous heat, to the lead in this one. Hannes Kruger ended 2^nd and Hein in 3^rd place. Robbie Kuhn and Danie van Jaarsveld did not start.

Heat 4 Round 1 Nitro Buggy: 11 competitors in this round.  Johan Godwald won the race with Leo de Oliveira behind him and Francois Benade in 3^rd place. They all got 7 laps. Stephan vd Walt, Jonathan vd berg, Gavin Mc Lean, Attie de Jager and Christiaan de Meyer got 6 laps each, while Allan Dyer and Henry Ogden both completed 5 laps. Bjorn Boogaard did not start.

Heat 4 Round 2 Nitro Buggy: Top 5 positions the same as in round 1. Bjorn was now back in full force while Henry and Attie seemed to be the ones who had car trouble. Johan Godwald was now sniffing at the 50 seconds barrier… I am sure he will be thrilled to break it!

Heat 4 Round 3 Nitro Buggy: Leo took the lead away from Johan Godwald, to leave Johan ending in 2^nd and Stephan in 3^rd positions.  Johan is now unfortunately a little further away from that 50 seconds lap…., but he will get another try at it in the 30 minute Finals.

Heat 5 Round 1 Nitro Buggy:     Guilherme de Sousa, a guy that I’ve swoon over in the past, showed that what we saw a couple of months ago, were no stroke of luck. He won the race with an average lap time three seconds faster than the runner up. Almost all of his laps were less than 50 seconds and even one of 48.97 seconds. What a brilliant racer? !  Danie de Swart, the well known hobby shop owner from Secunda, also boasted a lap of less than 50 seconds. He ended 2^nd. Albie Greyvenstein, also known as Lammie or Loose Wheel Greyvenstein, came 3^rd. Oh, by the way, this was a rather big heat, with 12 participants. Ivan Nel did only two laps and Charles Ellis did not start.

Heat 5 Round 2 Nitro Buggy:    The top 3 the same as in Round 1, with Guilherme completing 1 more lap than Danie.  JP Pessoa now kicked Adriaan Johnsen out of his 4^th place and Adriaan moved down to 5^th place. And now it was Ivan who did not start and Charles that only managed one lap.

Heat 5 Round 3 Nitro Buggy: Top 4 positions stayed the same. Brian Hilder moved up one place. Martinette Huggett, the only lady driver in this heat, kept a steady pace throughout the three rounds, doing laps of low sixties….

Heat 6 Round 1 Nitro Buggy: No real surprises here; Miguel Haasbroek 1^st, Tiaan Oelofse 2^nd and Thomas Schmuck 3^rd. Here we are talking of world class RC racers. However, Daniël de Azevedo, Pedro Maldonado and Chris vd Westhuizen all shared average lap times of 52 seconds and best laps of 50. - something…Young Cameron Balie is also in that same league, because he had equal laps than those who preceded him. Jacques Brits and SJ Coetzer had car trouble.

Heat 6 Round 2 Nitro Buggy: With the track now much drier than in the early morning, Miguel managed to race laps of less than 48 seconds. Eish, what can I say..? If you’re good, you’re good!! Tiaan ended 2^nd again and this time it was Chris who moved into 3^rd position. Thomas moved down one place.  SJ apparently had his troubles sorted out and ended 5^th.  Jacques also overcame whatever problems he had before and raced well against the “big names”.  Paul Naude did not start.

Heat 6 Round 3 Nitro Buggy: Thomas regained his stance and took the 2^nd place, behind Miguel. Tiaan ended 3^rd. Pedro Maldonado, who is always striving to better his position, succeeded in moving up to 4^th place and also boasted a lap time of 49.82 seconds! Well done! Chris van der Westhuizen did not start.

Heat 7 Round 1 Electric Buggy: A nice, full heat with 10 entries. Thomas Schmuck won the race with Danie de Swart in 2^nd and Gustav Engebrecht in 3^{rd ,} respectively. Thomas achieved his goal to complete a lap in less than 50 seconds. Well done!

Heat 7 Round 2 Electric Buggy: Thomas took the lead again with Danie in 2^nd place. Hannes Kruger had a good race and succeeded in taking the 3^rd position away from Gustav. Neil van Wyk was also on a roll and he too overtook Gustav.

Heat 7 Round 3  Electric Buggy: Again it was Thomas in the lead. Gustav decided he was not going to allow any more of those pushing him aside, and he fought his way open to end in 2^nd position. Danie had to be satisfied with 3^rd place. The 10 of them would meet up again in the Final to continue the battle.

The Finals:

Electric Buggy  Final:

As one could have predicted, Thomas Schmuck won this final race. He managed to repeat his performance of breaking that desirable 50 seconds barrier. Danie ended 2^nd with Gustav 3^rd. 4^th was Hannes Kruger and Jacques Albrech 5^th. Neil van Wyk ended 6^th and  Attie 7^th. Danie van Jaarsveld had serious car trouble while Kerneels Albertse and Kevin Bann did not even start.

Truggy B Final:

Kevin Bann had a good race with no flame outs. Although he didn’t do extremely fast laps, his more consistent driving earned him his 1^st place. Well done! Kobus Griesel lost some very precious seconds after his 12^th lap, probably due to a flame out. He equaled Kevin’s 25 laps and ended in 2^nd place. James Boogaard, the 11 year old boy, ended 3^rd and was very much pleased with his own performance. So were we, James!  Divan Albrech, also 11 years old and also a novice, came 4^th , Johan Barnard ended 5^th and Ronel Bann 6^th. Just about every driver in this heat is new to this class.  So well done to you all, hope that you’ve enjoyed it enough to stay with the truggies!

Truggy A Final:

SJ Coetzer from Bloemfontein is a familiar name in South Africa when it comes to Off Road Truggy racing. And on this day he held his stance by winning the A main yet again. Well done!   Ilizio de Sousa however was SO very close to him, I am sure that he had SJ’s nerves just about wrecked! Only split seconds separated the two of them. In actual fact, Ilizio (Porra) had a faster best lap than SJ in the Final, but SJ’s average had been a tiny bit faster…  Both of them completed 22 laps in their 30 minute race. Sandra Greyvenstein recovered from whatever was holding her back all day long, by now ending in 3^rd place. Mooi so! Dis hoe ons jou mos ken..

The rest of the group ended in the following order:

4th Stephan vd Walt

5th Jacques Albrech

6th Patrick Bouillon

7th Colin van Jaarsveld

8th Henry Ogden  -   he had 4 very long flame outs

9th Attie de Jager  - quitted after 8 laps

10th David Parkinson  - quitted after 4 laps

D Final Nitro Buggy:

Robbie Kuhn won the race. Kobus Griesel ended in 2^nd position. Both had 26 laps. Ivan Nel came in 3^rd with 22 laps. Attie and Henry also got 22 laps each. Flame outs ruined their race…….

Johan Barnard – 21 laps

Johann van Zyl – 16 laps  eish, lo-o-o-o-ng flame outs

Paul Naude  - 15 laps – flame outs

Johan Killian -  15 laps  - flame outs

Jacques van Zyl – 15 laps – flame outs

Ronel Bann -  14 laps  - I notice numerous flame outs

Charles Ellis 12 laps – also lots and lots of flame outs

C Final  Nitro Buggy:

Neil van Wyk took the lead and stayed there throughout the race, to end 1^st with 30 laps completed.  Gavin McLean got a well deserved 2nd place after 28 laps and Jonathan vd Berg was quite happy with his 3^rd place. Jonathan, André Steenekamp and Martinette Huggett got 27 laps each. Danie van Jaarsveld, Allan Dyer and Bjorn Boogaard each completed 25 laps. JP Sweek managed to do 24 laps, while Jacques Brits retired after 8 laps only. Christiaan de Meyer did not start.

B Final Nitro Buggy:

Amongst the 10 of them, these guys are all capable of lap times in the low 50’s. But there must be a winner and that person was JP Pessoa. But to be honest, JP normally ends in the top 10 (A mains), which he missed with one position on this day. So ja, JP took the lead and also complete one more lap than his closest rival. Cameron Balie ended 2^nd and Gustav Engelbrecht 3^rd. Flame outs plagued the rest of the contestants and left them in the following order;

Leo de Oliveira 4^th

Stephan vd Walt 5^th

Hein van Rensburg 6^th

Hannes Kruger 7^th

Albie Greyvenstein 8^th

Brian Hilder 9^th

Adriaan Johnsen – retired after 9 laps

A Final Nitro Buggy:

More advanced RC driving skills, better skilled with setting up their cars, maybe more practice time, or a combination of it all, but there must be something in their favour, because I do not see any flame outs… only a breakage on SJ’s part. There’s not much more to say about these guys, because the end results say it all:

1. Miguel Haasbroek
2. Tiaan Oelofse
3. Thomas Schmuck
4. Chris van der Westhuizen
5. Guilherme de Sousa
6. Danie de Swart
7. Daniel de Azevedo
8. Pedro Maldonado
9. Johan Godwald
10. SJ Coetzer

 

Meyerton is proud to say that this was the best attended X Challenge so far. We all hope to see it grow even bigger in future.