Mmmmm, when the cat is away, the mouse will play… Just joking.  Henry, the track owner and Big Boss of the club had to work at his day job and André Steenekamp, our usual assistant and I had to run the show on our own.  I can safely say that we did a good job.  No hiccups were encountered and everything went smoothly.

A bite in the air reminded us that winter was indeed with us. The temperature could not have been more than 5 degrees above freezing point. But as usual, by 10 o ‘clock bare arms were seen, as soon as the guys started to get busy.  

As always, a good vibe was palpable amongst the drivers, despite the cold weather in the early hours of the morning.

Talking about guys; we did not have any lady drivers in this discipline this month. Charmaine Wright, our regular lady competitor, is hibernating for a month or two, I presume….

Johan Barnard, an old Meyerton Raceway member, had been at the track the week before, expressing his desire to come race again, but he said that his work responsibilities may well prevent him from joining us.

New member, Gerrie Pieterse, entered online for this race a couple of weeks ago. He had practiced at the track devotedly for almost two months consistently to be racing ready …then damaged his car doing street racing, I guess. Not good, Gerrie…not good!

Obviously Boss Henry would have preferred to race instead of work, but that is life… duty before pleasure.

Because we only had two classes, namely the 200mm nitro and the 8^th scale GT classes, we weren’t much in a hurry to start and the official race only started after 10am.

Thanks to the wives, kids and friends who act as pitcrew for the GT drivers.

 

The Race

200mm Nitro:

Piet du Toit entered for this class, but he had difficulty getting the car to keep its wheels on. He subsequently decided not to race in the competition any more. That left Jason Landsberg and Stephen Smith to battle this one out between the two of them. Nothing new…they had to do this many times in the past, anyway.

In Round 1 Stephen cleaned up this round when Jason had to retire from the race after 7 laps. Stephen’s quickest lap: 16.01 sec.

Jason returned to the scene with a bang in the 2^nd round, when he beat Stephen’s best lap time with his 15.98s lap. Sadly it was Stephen who now quit from the race too early.

Round 3 was much more successful for the both of them, when they both succeeded in finishing the race. Jason now boasts a best lap of 15.96 and Stephen showed off with a 15.65s

200mm Final race:

Stephen raced for 14 minutes when he lost a belt on his car. But even before that, something happened that took him out of the race…once for almost a minute and then again for 82 seconds.

I recall seeing his car on one of the islands, but what caused the car to land there, I did not see.  It might have been a collision or lost of control…

It seems like Jason was now racing blissfully without any interruptions. But when he saw that Stephen wasn’t coming back to complete the race, he only drove a couple more laps before he also decided to quit. I think they call it ‘saving on wear-and-tear’.  Jason drove exactly 50% of the race – 900 seconds out of the 1800 seconds that they were supposed to race.

I would really loved to have seen the whole race, because it would have been a treat to witness the whole 30 minute battle between these two very skilled drivers. Maybe next month.

Jason’s best lap – 15.85s and Stephen’s fastest lap – 15.89s.

 

1/8^th Nitro GT:

7 guys competed in this race today. We are usually spoilt with 9 or 10 drivers in this class.

Round 1:

Piet du Toit surprised all of us by beating all the others to the finishing line in the 1^st round.  Well done, Piet!!  Wayne Smith ended second and also boasts the quickest lap – 17.64s.

Jakkie Landsberg ended 3^rd. Rolan Ferreira, Johan Korff and André Steenekamp encountered various degrees of car trouble. Jacques Brits did not start.

Round 2:

Jacques overcame whatever problems he had with his car and managed to win the race.

Also André shed his trouble and ended 2^nd.

Piet du Toit ended 3^rd this time.

Wayne, our 2016 8^th scale champ, had a little trouble and ended in 4^th place, although he boasted the fasted lap again – 17.08s. Impressive!

Rolan and Korff completed the race without hiccups, but it seems that this is round and about now that the trouble started to develop for Jakkie.

Round 3:

André convincingly won this round. The 1^st time that we saw 20 laps in a qualifier round today. Well done!! His fastest lap – 17.18s.   But wait for Jacques’s best lap…!

Wayne took the 2^nd place and Korff ended 3^rd.

Rolan, in 4^th place, reached his best average for the day. Happy to see you are enjoying nitro as much as you do the electric classes, Rolan.

Jacques, boasting the fastest lap time so far, sadly could not complete the race, due to a broken something…  His best lap – 16.95s

Piet also quit racing after 13 laps…not sure what happened.

Jakkie retired from the race after only 5 laps. It would later become evident that he had blown 6 glo plugs for the day….ouch…..

Final 1/8^th GT:

André and Wayne both scored 95 laps, but only one person can be the ultimate winner. This time it was André. Congratulations!!

Wayne’s best lap – 16.90

André’s best lap – 17.04

Jacques’s best lap – 16.81s

Ah Jacques, what a bummer, that throttle linkage that fell out, cost you the winning position. Jacques ended 3^rd.

Both Rolan and Korff improved on their personal previous best lap times. Great job, you two!

Piet, your best lap of 17.35s was not bad at all. No, actually it is really good, but that one of 17.30s in the 2^nd round is still your best.  Beware guys, Piet is coming for you….he can easily take the 1^st place away from you.

Jakkie gave up racing for the day after yet another blown glo plug in his 3^rd lap.

Best presented Car of the Day:

Jacques’s unusual new ‘bloody’ paint job caught every one’s attention and attracted a couple of funny remarks, as you can imagine.