After spending thousands of rands on soil, labouring on the track for months on end and painting after-hours, painting in the heat, actually painting every available moment, our track was finally ready for the 1st off-road National event of the year. And with the promise of assistance from quite a few club members, we were ready for the Nationals, come what may! (Maybe I should have started with the pre-Nats, two weeks prior to the Nats, when the track’s surface was as near to perfect as can be, but by then the painting wasn’t done yet.) Anyway, when the 1st cars and caravans pulled in at the track Thursday afternoon, we were ready for them.

Friday - Practice Day:
Friday went well, with lots of compliments on the condition of the track. We were also privileged to have met a number of guys who have never been here ever before, especially a couple of Kwa-Zulu Natal drivers. They told us that that they were duly impressed with what they found.
After the day’s practice, the track showed signs of breaking up on a spot or two, but the SARDA off road Chairman decided that it was not severe enough to do repairs on it.
Saturday:
At the driver’s briefing on Saturday morning, Dean Steenmans announced that he was happy to see such a big number of entries. 81, or was it 83 entries? He assured Henry that from the committee’s side they found the track and the facilities to be better than just sufficient. Henry and all his helpers were again complimented on all the efforts that were put into hosting this event. SARDA implemented (tried out) a new way of starting the qualifying races and it was unanimously accepted by the drivers. Actually the drivers just loved it as there was less chance of their cars “flaming”! As soon as everyone got used to this new way of starting, the races just went as smooth as an oiled machine. The only hiccup was during the 1st qualifiers when some of the personal transponder failed to work. The erroneous transponders were tested and found to be mounted in places that hindered the signals to be picked up properly. The relevant drivers were advised to either use club transponders or to mount their PT’s away from all electronics. No problems were encountered thereafter. Of course there had been the occasional complaint from a driver or two that someone else ‘deliberately tried to take me out’, but ah, those will be amongst us forever. We made use of race referees and just had to rely on their impartialness. A number of warnings and even “stop/go” penalties were given by the race referees.
Saturday - Qualifiers:
Heat 1 - Electric Buggy:
In Heat 1 Round 1 the fastest lap belonged to Danie de Swart 47.82 dec
In Heat 1 Round 2 the fastest lap belonged to Danie again - 48.69 sec
In Heat 1 Round 3 Danie’s fastest lap was 47.67
In Heat 1 Round 4 the fastest lap belonged to Jaco Taljaard, when Danie was plagued with car trouble. Jaco Taljaard and Steve Rieckhoff were Danie’s closest rivals throughout this heat.

Heat 2 - Electric Buggy:
The results of every round in this heat presented the drivers and the spectators with a surprise.
There was no pre empting possible of whom the winner was going to be. The best lap was however raced by Warren vd Merwe – 46.13 sec.

Heat 3 – Nitro Truggy:
David Parkinson won this round hands down and his best lap was 49.74 sec
He also won the 2nd round and equaled his best lap – 49.74
In the 3rd round David did not start and Brendon van Staden won the race with Steve Rieckhoff at his heels. In round 4 David was back and won again, but could not improve on his best lap.

Heat 4 – Nitro Truggy:
Jason Raath won the 1st round with a fastest lap of 47.93 sec. (Four of his biggest rivals did not start.)
In round 2 Dean Steenmans beat Jason to the finishing line and also beat his fastest lap. Dean’s best lap – 46.2 sec. Sandra Greyvenstein only ended 6th, but if I can believe my eyes, Sandra achieved a very promising 48.78 sec lap. Well done, Sandra!
Dean won round 3 as well and improved on his previous best lap – now 45.29 sec. Jason again in 2nd with Sandra in 3rd. Round 4 saw the same three in the top 3 positions.
In the previous Heat it was only David that came in under 50 seconds, but in this heat it was achieved by Jason, Dean, Sandra, Quintis vd Merwe, Murray van Lelyveld and Wykie van Wyk. Eish, this is excellent racing….to die for!

Heat 5 – Nitro Buggy:
The very young Cameron Balie took the lead in the 1st round and boasts a best lap of 49.64 seconds. He repeated his victory in round 2 and even improved on his best lap time – 48.10 sec. But this double-take victory was by no means an easy task; not with MJ Schoeman and Stephen Smith blowing down his neck. In round 3 MJ took the first place with an awesome fastest lap of 49.82 seconds. Round 4 saw Stephen in the lead. Lekker man lekker! Happy for you. Here we saw Kevin Bann retiring from the race with a broken A-Arm and Riaan Maas also took an early leave from the race. By the way: Riaan Maas is a very courageous young man with limited eye sight, and drive with the aid of a pair of special eyewear.

Heat 6 – Nitro Buggy:
All the rounds in this heat were mainly dominated by four guys: Jan Vermeulen, Jarod Ment, Colin van Jaarsveld and Francois de Jager. To see who REALLY performed the best, is to see where the four of them landed in the squad list for the Finals. Looking at the fastest lap times however, it seems that young Jarrod Ment boasts several laps of less than 50 seconds. Well done, Jarrod!
Heat 7 - Nitro Buggy:
The names that continuously jumped up in the 1st four places are: Hein van Rensburg, Morne Louw, Danie de Swart and Calvin Barnard, in no particular order. Danie de Swart had the fastest lap time of them all (47.16 sec) but not necessarily with the best average. I will again suggest that one look at the Final squad list to see who the best driver in this heat was.
Heat 8 – Nitro Buggy:
Now we are talking Best of the Best! Throughout the rounds in this heat, there are 5 names that grab my attention: Dean Steenmans, Miguel Haasbroek, Thomas Schmuck, Tiaan Oelofse and Warren vd Merwe, in no particular order. All these guys are so fast and such good drivers that it feels like a sin to make an exception. But to be fair, it needs to be mentioned that the fastest lap time was done by Dean Steenmans – 45.3 seconds. Brilliant racing, well done all of the 10 contestants in this heat!

Sunday's Finals:
Disaster!!! (or not?)
Upon waking up in the early hours of Sunday morning, we realize that we are dealing with (rain)water on the track..and LOTS of it, too! But, we also had confidence in ourselves as we had done this many times before. We knew that there is nothing that Meyerton Raceway members can’t handle. Scoops, buckets, brooms and even a vacuum cleaner were put into good use. But even more important: those voluntary helping hands! Later in the day we would learn from the drivers that saw Kevin Bann’s early morning shots of the drenched track on Facebook that they gave up on any possibility of racing on that day. According to them, after seeing the photos, they could not imagine the track being in a racing condition before 12 ‘o clock, which would have been too late to start the Finals. But by 9 ‘o clock we were ready! The excess water was gone and sawdust was strewn to soak up the last signs of moisture and the racing started.
Well done to all that took part and I hope that you have achieved your personal goals for this National event. If not; just try again!
Below find the names and photo’s of those who got podium positions this time around:

Overall results - A Final Electric Buggy:
1. Miguel Haasbroek
2. Dean Steenmans
3. Thomas Schmuck
4. Danie de Swart
5. Warren vd Merwe

 

Overall results – B Final Electric Buggy:
1. Nelson Almeida
2. Steve Rieckhoff
3. Charles Rieckhhoff
4. Jagger Virasamy
5. Attie de Jager

 

A Final – Nitro Truggy:
1. Dean Steenmans
2. David Parkinson
3. Jason Raath
4. Sandra Greyvenstein
5. Adam Sweeting

 

B Final – Nitro Truggy:
1. Francois de Jager
2. Jaco Taljaard
3. Rowan Brink
4. Kobus Griesel
5. Danie van Jaarsveld

 

A Final – Nitro Buggy:
1. Miguel Haasbroek
2. Dean Steenmans
3. Warren vd Merwe
4. Thomas Schmuck
5. Tiaan Oelofse

 

 

B Final – Nitro Buggy:
1. Daniel de Azevedo
2. Brandon May
3. MJ Schoeman

4. Jarrod Ment

5. Chris vd Westhuizen

 

C Final – Nitro Buggy:
1. Jan Vermeulen
2. Francois de Jager
3. Willem Steenkamp

4. Gavin McLean

5. Ish Hurrienarain

 

D Final – Nitro Buggy:
1. Johann van Zyl
2. Zainul Choohan
3. George Symes

4. Charles Rieckhoff

5. Leon Erwee

 

Special award: Riaan Maas
The award was given for being brave to race with poor eyesight and with the aid of special eyewear.

Truggy Concourse‘d Elegance : Murray van Lelyveld

 

Buggy Concourse’s Elegance : Jan Vermeulen