With the return of Johan Korff  to the Nitro scene, we were looking forward to a nice big race, but then Piet du Toit cancelled, due to illness in his family. And Esmarie Geyser had to attend a work related seminar Cape Town. 

From the start, Henry’s GT did not want to play along. Maybe a little maintenance during the four week interval wouldn’t hurt?

Qualifier Round 1:

Rolan Ferreira kicked the day’s racing off with a convincing victory. 20 laps

Johan Korff followed in 2^nd place and André Steenekamp ended 3^rd.

Francois Geyser completed 17 laps and Henry quit the race after a mere 2 laps.

Rolan completed several 17 second laps, of which the quickest was 17.02s.

Qualifier Round 2:

Rolan achieved a second victory in the 2^nd round. Again 20 laps behind his name. He now achieved a fastest lap of 16.80 seconds.

We saw Korff and André in the same positions again as in round 1. Francois had a little bad luck and now completed 2 laps less. Henry kept on struggling… However, his consistency percentage for the laps that he did complete was a whopping 97%.

Qualifier Round 3:

André Stenekamp took this round. He managed to complete one more lap than Rolan, when he succeeded in completing 21 laps in 6 minutes. Average 17.6 and fastest lap 16.6sec. Whoop whoop!! André’s consistency percentage - 96.3%

Rolan equaled his previous 20 laps and ended 2^nd.

Korff now ended 3^rd.

This time Henry completed the race. And although he couldn’t beat Francois’s quickest lap, his average was better.

Francois was .05 short of braking through the 18 second barrier (which he had broken through before)

Top qualifier positions for Final:

1. Johan Korff
2. Rolan Ferreira
3. André Steenekamp
4. Francois Geyser
5. Henry Ogden

FINAL 8^th scale GT nitro race:

Rolan took the lead for the first 6laps. Then André took over and stayed in that position for quite some time into this 30 minute final.

From lap 22 to 25, Rolan briefly took back the lead. But then disaster struck and everything that possibly could go wrong with André’s car indeed did go wrong.

With fierce competitors like Rolan and Korff, that had been terribly bad luck for him. He was so anxious to keep on racing, in spite of a seriously bent body, that his pit crew actually gave up on calling him in for a pit stop! The longer the race went on, the more things went wrong for him, until his rivals slowly caught up and then surpassed him. André ended 3^rd overall. Sorry André, there is always a next time..

With André (almost) out of the way, Rolan all of a sudden had to fend off Joahn Korff as main opponent. More than one flameout did not help to alleviate his stress levels. He was on his way to a well deserved victory, despite driving his car without properly working clutches for 50% of the race, when another driver bumped into his car in the last minute of the race.

That was all that Korff needed to secure the 1^st place for himself. He won the race with .33 of a second better average lap time than Rolan. Congratulations!

Although Francois did not get a podium place this month, he boasts the highest percentage for consistent driving of them all. And completing 79 laps is still a great achievement! Well done!

Best lap in this Final race : 16.82 by Rolan.

Overall:

1. Johan Korff                              91 laps
2. Rolan Ferreira                         91 laps
3. Andre Steenekamp                 84 laps

 

 6 Month series:

1. André Steenekamp
2. Piet du Toit
3. Esmarie Geyser