October 2016 Off Road

Again an “intimate” little race…haha . To say it was a ‘small’ race sounds so …small?

The previous night’s rain has obviously convinced many potential drivers to stay home, rather than risking a wet day at the track.  But the day was beautiful and sunny, with no real threat of another rainy day.

The day started early for some of us, like Henry who went out to open the gate to the track and connect all the equipment in race control for a possible race. And Wayne Smith and his son Stephen also arrived at about 7 am, which means that must have departed from their home in Johannesburg quite early. And then there were those who only arrived very late, after making sure that the track was indeed dry enough to race on, after the rainstorm of the previous night. To make sure that the track was totally drivable, that last water was scooped up, vacuum sucked and last but not least; sawdust was scatterd on the still damp places. 

Nitro Truggy :

Wayne Smith won the 1^st round, the 2^nd round as well as the 30 minute Final race comfortably.

Johnny Claes and Henry Ogden took turns to end 2^nd in the qualifiers and their performances were quite close to one another. But Johnny beat Henry with 8 laps in the Final, after Henry suffered multiple flameouts. Johnny also had one flameout of almost 5 minutes, but his other, very fast laps, put him in a position to earn him a convincing second place. Wayne’s quickest lap : 50.88 sec and Johnny’s best lap 50.96 sec . Well done, guys!

Nitro Buggy :

Henry Ogden beat Ewald van der Neut with 4 laps, after Ewald’s late start in the 1^st qualie. Johnrique did not start. In the 2^nd qualifier, 6 year old Johnrique stood his ground against the grown men, when they all managed to complete 5 laps in 6 minutes. In the Final race Johnrique was forced to quit after 15 laps, due to a broken con rod and Ewald was plagued by car trouble for more than a third of the race.  This left the field open for Henry to win this race. Henry finished the whole race and won comfortably, although I suspect he nursed his buggy around the track for the last couple of laps. Apparently the throttle was playing up… and Henry drove at a slow(ish) pace till the 30 minutes was over.