Being a public holiday in South Africa as well as having the highway closed because of protesters in our immediate vicinity, we were really worried about the turnout. Top that with a poor online entry rate during the week…and you can imagine that we seriously considered cancelling the race.  But in the end, everything went well.

7 drivers rocked up for the much loved 8^th scale GT class.  Sadly the 10^th scale class still remained “under utilized”… Eish, I really don’t know when it will pick up momentum again….

A very unfortunate situation presented itself when the timing system caused havoc.  It apparently had a too high noise level, which caused some drivers to lose out on some of their laps, when it failed to register the drivers’ laps from their transponders.  The problem was sorted out later, but not before a couple of drivers was – understandingly so - highly upset.

Best Presenred RC body award:

Francois Geyser

 

8^th scale GT class:

Round 1:

Wayne made no mistakes and claimed the victory in this round. He boasts a much better than average best lap of 16.72 seconds. Whoop whoop!

Piet du Toit put on a brutal fight and ended 2^nd.

Johan Barnard ended 3^rd and he was followed by Henry.

André Steenekamp ran into trouble and missed out on at least 3 laps, when his transponder failed to pick up. Should that not have happened, he would probably have ended 2^nd.

Hein Korff picked up car trouble and quit after 8 laps.

Jacques Brits DNS due to clutch problems.

Round 2:

In this round, it was Wayne who has missed one lap because of the timing system hiccup. On the printout, he had 20 laps, but if you add the lap that he missed out on, it would have been 21 laps, which in turn would have resulted in making him the winner again.

André and Jacques both completed the same amount of laps and they achieved the exact same average, but the BBK system put André in 1^st and Jacques in 2^nd position.  Jacques boasts a quickest lap of 16.68sec. Well done!!

Piet du Toit was in 4^th place and he was followed by Hein and Henry in short pursuit.

Johan Barnard also lost quit a number of laps because of the transponder not picking up his laps. Unfortunately, it is very hard, no…totally impossible, for one person (me) to watch the computer, watch the race and add laps manually for more than one driver at a time. It needs to be mentioned here that nobody informed Race Control on his behalf that his laps were not being picked up. So sorry Johan, but I am just human….

Round 3:

Jacques and Wayne was involved in a neck to neck race..and it had been Jacques who won this time around.

Andre ended in 3^rd with Piet directly behind him.

This time I was prepared to add laps manually for Johan Barnard, but even with the help of Hein’s fiancé, it was too difficult to assist all the drivers at once… I suggested that Johan use a club transponder for the Final.

Henry had a knock over that cost him some time and Hein had a VERY late start.

Final GT:

Out of the 7 drivers, only three managed to complete the race.

Piet  broke a front drive shaft after 14 laps. He purchased a new one and fitted it and went back to complete the race.  May I draw your attention to his best lap?  – 17.38s. There were many more 17. Something second laps. Way to go!!!

Henry had a flame out ..actually more than one, so he quit after 45 laps.

Hein Korff retired from the race after 46 laps. His best lap – 17.78s

André also suffered more than one flameout, but he at least completed 52 laps. Best lap 16.81s.

Johan Barnard ended 3^rd with 82 laps behind his name.

Jacques ended 2^nd with 91 laps. Best lap in the Final – 16.73s

Wayne Smith broke a new- or long standing- record, when he completed 100 laps in this half hour race. Good job, Wayne! Congratulations.

 

200mm Nitro Touring:

Only Henry and Francois Geyser this week.

In the 1^st round Francois encountered a lot of car trouble.  Henry on the other hand didn’t have flameouts, but his car just would not perform well.

The 2^nd qualifier round went very similar.

In the 3^rd qualy Francois had less trouble than Henry. He also managed to do a very decent 19.62second lap.

Final 200mm Nitro Touring:

Henry’s car aggravated him terribly by flaming early on in this 30 minute race. He couldn’t get it going again.

Francois had much better luck this time. He was well on his way to complete the whole race, when we told him that Henry wasn’t going to make a comeback, so he might as well stop racing. At that point he had already finished 52 laps.

Let’s hold thumbs that the other 10^th scale drivers will return next month..?