JULY RACE REPORT – 28/07/2010

Hi all, a bit of a change this month, I watched the last race from the back of my bakkie trying to keep my camera dry and take pictures at the same time, and eventually at about 2 in the afternoon I cried enough, I was soaked through and freezing cold, so I went home. I did however manage to talk to a few drivers, and the most meaningful one apart from comments like, slippery when wet, its cold etc. was from the “RegenMeister” Jochen, I asked him if he had better rain tyres than the rest, he started saying they were good and then said, “no, it’s the driver” with a big smile. I was impressed with his driving though, showed everyone a clean pair of heels. Anyway, I have defaulted to James race report for this event, and will post some rain pictures as soon as I get them off my PC at home.

Enjoy “The view from the Back”

Much as I enjoy racing in the wet, the drive to and from the circuit is much less fun in the wet. The forecast was for periods of rain interspersed with showers and the occasional downpour over the course of the day. Five minutes before I was due to leave home the first shower arrived. I arrived at the race track, reasonably dry and mostly warm, found a pit and set up camp.

With the enormous amounts of standing water, timed quali was abandoned but there was a ‘sighting session’ in its place. Without venturing from my pit, I had a rough idea of what the track would be like: wet! Craig went out in his Harper Type 5, and I relied on his reconnaissance, and kept my race kit dry. Craig’s report indicated that there were small patches of race track which could be found if you looked carefully between the rivers, meanders, oxbow lakes and other elements of high school geography.

The first heat revealed a very truncated grid, with only 16 cars starting. And with more than half of them being Porsches, it looked like a Stuttgart benefit. There are usually a fair number of Sevens in Sports and GT Cars, but on Saturday I was the only one out there. The sighting lap for the first heat also revealed that Craig had significantly over-stated the amount of race track that was discernible.

Godfrey Lancellas (Lola 212) had elected to start at the back of the grid to avoid being flattened by the Porsche blitzkrieg, Andre Brink (Porsche 993 RS) was also reluctant to take his rightful place on the grid and Craig took a while putting on his make up (or something), which meant that I started with three cars behind me. Going into turn 1 I could see nothing but the tail lights of the Porsche ahead of me, and I backed right off because if there had been an off in turn 1, the first I would have known would have been when I joined it.

After half a lap Craig dived past my starboard bow on the entrance to turn 3 and then, mixing metaphors furiously, proceeded to perform a graceful pirouette with a couple of toe loops, a half volley and a WTF as he exited into the scenery, stage left. Godfrey roared past as I slowed slightly to check that Craig didn’t come to any harm.

The track was wetter than I’ve ever seen it. Fifty metres before turn 5 there was a river running across the track. In the dry, I brake just past the 50 metre board. In the wet I was starting braking at the 150 metre board, then coming off the brakes to let the car skip and skim across the river, and back onto the brakes before the turn. The two kinks, one after turn 5 and after turn 2, are usually fairly uneventful. In the wet, they both became rather more exciting than I am used to.

Francis Carruthers evidently didn’t enjoy driving in the rain, and parked his Juno S2000 at the exit to turn 1, where he could enjoy a close up view of the rest of us threading our way between the large puddle at the corner apex and the even larger puddle at the corner exit.

Most of the rest of the race was simply a case of keeping the pointy end of the car facing forwards. Andre was reeling me in slowly, but with a lap to go he spun coming out of turn 5 and that was the end of his challenge. Craig was back on the road and managed to pass me with most of a lap to go.

For the second heat, unbelievably, there was even more water on the track, and even more falling out of the sky. I’d left my race gloves on top of Blossom’s cylinder head so they were nice and dry and toasty warm when I put them on. Long before we were on the circuit they were soaked through. I was gridded 13. I'm not superstitious, superstition is unlucky, but if you're ever at the back pits at Killarney, between pit 12 and pit 14 you will find, courtesy of me and some black insulation tape, pit 131, a reminder of a previous race meeting.

On the sighting lap I watched with a mix of disbelief and terror as the car in front of me swerved crazily from side to side, as though the driver was trying to warm the tyres. I’m pretty sceptical of this technique in the dry, but in the wet, applied with gusto, I was expecting the car to go skating off into the shrubs.

For me, the second race was largely a replay of the first. Craig went shooting off pretty smartly, giving he and I a scary moment as he chose to overtake going through the Great Lake that had formed on the kink after turn 2. And that was the last I saw of Craig. Shaun MacKay (Porsche GT3) had been gridded behind me for the start came past, but I salvaged my ego by overtaking Garth Livingstone (Porsche GT3) and pulled out a small lead over the course of the race.

Looking back, I may have been driving gentler than necessary. I didn’t feel that there was anybody ahead of me that I could catch in either heat, so I concentrated on staying on the black stuff and ahead of whoever was behind me in both heats. But, my sole aim in racing is to have fun, so I can claim “job done!”, and any race meeting that finishes with my car car-shaped is a good race meeting

26 JUNE RACE REPORT – 06/07/2010

My goodness what a cold day, I ended up at the track just after 8H00 and in time to have a quick chat to the drivers as they were lined up to go out for grid times, Gary was chuckling away saying how he has set the in car temperature to a “nice 22 degrees” , James wished his Lotus had a heater, and Wally had a heater from their pits sitting in the car warming things up a bit. I sat on the stands at turn three for the first race, and it was freezing cold, how you drivers in the open cars cope I have no idea.

Apart from me getting some nice pictures during the practice session, there is not much to report, and so on to the race. The start was good, with Wally and Steve dicing into turn one, with Steve making his pole position stick. Wally tried everything he could to try and get the V8’s nose in front, but the Mallock was just too quick around the corners, and he slowly headed off into the distance. Louis was heading up Class B and had a fantastic race, but the race of the day must go to Kosie and Gary. Kosie in a Ford Noble M400 had started at the back of the grid and pretty quickly made his way up to Gary in the Porsche GT3, and the dice was on. They swapped positions a number of times, with Kosie eventually beating Gary to the line on the last lap. Chatting to both drivers after the race it was evident that they enjoyed it as much as the spectators did, and one of the comments was on how clean the dice was, no dents and bumps, just clean racing. Well done you two, it was the highlight of the race.

Race two started with an inverted grid, and once all the drivers had sorted themselves out, it was a pretty uneventful race. Unfortunately Kosie and the Noble did not start, and so we did not have a repeat of the dice as in Race one, but I must admit that James in the Lotus had a great drive, sitting on the tail of the much more potent Ford GT 40 of Jean Fourie. Steve once again drove off into the sunset, and Gary, Louis and Francis had a good battle for Class B. I unfortunately had to leave straight after the race due to another commitment and was unable to chat to any of the drivers, but will post a few extra pictures to make up for this.

See you all in July.

08 MAY RACE REPORT – 26/05/2010

What a beautiful day for racing, the weatherman really out did himself this last weekend and provided perfect weather for the year’s third Sports & GT race. The day started with an early morning practice session, and a number of drivers commented on the lack of grip from the cold track, and that they as drivers had a really cold time of it, James saying he was shivering so much he had difficulty in engaging the clutch. Is there room in a lotus for a heater? Wally was having issues with the Mustang miss firing and after the practice session there was frantic activity in the pits to try & sort the problem.

Race 1 started with Steve and Nick on the front row, and Wally trying like mad to out drag them into turn 1, however they managed to keep him back, and with the Mustang still not on song, pulled out a bit of a lead. Steve and Nick had a race long battle for the lead, and despite The Mallock starting to grade the track with it’s front spoiler, this battle continued until the Lola eventually lost a wheel, and that allowed Steve to take the win, with Wally in second. The rest of the race results can be seen on the spreadsheet.

Some comments from drivers, Jochen Weida commented that at the start of the race Gary caught him, said that the track was a bit cold in the beginning, and the Porsche only started handling properly after about two laps when the tires warmed up an got some grip. Otherwise it was a pretty “boring” race and the car is going well.

Gary Kieswetter commented that the start was excellent, but then they guys locked up into turn 1, there was a lot of smoke around, and although it looked like it, it was not from my car, but I did almost have a Lola park in my engine bay, and after all the drama, I got a good exit out of the turn and managed to make up some places. It was then a matter of getting some heat into the tyres and completing the race. I had a very good dice with Francis who had the better of me through the turns, and I had the better of him down the main straight.

During the break between the two races, Wally replaced all the electrics in the Mustang engine bay, as well as a set of new plugs, and this cured the miss fire. This time with the inverted start, he was on the front row of the grid, and managed to pull away from the Mallock and Lola into turn 1. On entering turn 2, he saw a puff of white from the front of the Mustang, and thought that the front bodywork had come adrift, as it looked like fiberglass dust, and the Mustang had had some major body repairs to the front after an off during Fridays practice session. Then the fun started, in fact a hydraulic hose from the power steering had let go and the fluid was being pumped onto the track. Turn 2 turned into a merry go round for some of the drivers, and for once I had the luck of having my camera pointed at the right place, at the right time, and am now the proud owner of a sequence of shots shoeing a number of cars spinning. Fortunately no damage was done, but the race was red flagged so that the marshals could clean up the mess and put down a layer of cement dust. Wally drove to the pits, and his crew managed to replace the hose, and he rejoined the race at the back of the grid. The race was now on, and with some aggressive driving Wally managed to pass everyone except Nick Adcock in the Lola.

Race Report – May 8 James Reinhardt

In motorsport, like in other sports, you need to be ready at all times. Ready to trot out a plausible, blame-free excuse for poor performance. If your excuse can make you look good while you screw it up, so much the better. Here’s mine: I was too fast. Sadly, I wasn’t too fast on race day, but at the track day a week previously. With my 6 year old son on board (who loved it) and my wife (who loathed it) I had been quicker than Porsches and Ferraris, so I was even more than usually full of myself, and even more than usually full of it.

Qualifying on Saturday was very slippery on an ice-cold track, which slowed a lot of people down. Although I was not happy with my lap times in qualifying, my grid position was acceptable as I managed to qualify ahead of one of the guys who always finishes ahead of me. One of the things that I was unhappy with was the fact that during qualifying I got caught behind cars that I know I can beat, but was not able to get past them. What I should have done was to slow right down for half a lap to get some clear space, but it’s easier to be clever after the fact, even if I was making a very basic error at the time.

The first race started with drama in turn 1, when Godfrey Lancellas (Lola T212) decided to spin around and take a look at the guys behind him. From where I was, there was an almighty cloud of blue smoke and the sight of race cars ducking for safety. Nobody anything suffered worse than heart palpitations though, and we were racing. I say “we were racing”, although looking at my video footage, what I was doing was driving Miss Daisy. Brake points were all over the place, and so was I. Almost. The one place that I was not all over was the apex. I had a pretty dull race watching Martin Coward (Birkin S3) get smaller in front of me while Stephen David (Marcos Mantara) got smaller in my mirrors.

There was a brief moment of excitement when Steve Humble (Mallock) chucked parts of his car skyward shortly after lapping me. Evidently a clip holding some of the bodywork in place quit. Two hundred metres away I saw pieces of orange race car leaping for the heavens.

For the second heat I was determined to make amends for my lacklustre performance. In turn 2 Jean Fourie hit an oil patch and spun, and I made it past him. Johan Engelbrecht (Porsche GT3) was being cautious around the spilled oil, and I went past him too just before the kink. Just after turn 3 I went past Andre Brink (Porsche Carrera RS) who was also being cautious. I’d gained three places in as many corners, now all I had to do was run like I’d stolen something. But, with all the oil on the track, the red flags were out. The air inside my crash helmet went blue with cursing.

On the re-start, Stephen David ignored the instruction to stay in line for the first corner and put his car between mine and the car in front of me, and there were no opportunities to make places in turn 2. I found myself behind Arno Lambert (Mercedes SLK) and Jean Fourie (CAV GT40) and the three of us had a good dice for the remainder of the race, with Jean blocking Arno and Arno blocking me. More than once I snuck past Arno, only to have him re-take the position. And more than once Arno made his car about eleventy-seven feet wide in the approach to turn 5, preventing me from getting by him there. On the last lap Jean slowed and Arno and I passed him.

The cement dust laid down to pick up the spilled oil meant that my video footage was mostly grey after a few laps, and many people were experimenting with new lines in turns 2 and 5 (where the cement dust was worst). As a result, lap times for most people were slower in the second race than they had been in the first. I was gutted to lose my excellent start, disappointed to have a poor re-start, but pleased that I had spent almost the entire race dicing with Arno. Before the next race meeting I will experiment with some small changes to my car’s setup, and some large changes to my mental approach!

SPORTS AND GT – 27TH March 2010 – RACE REPORT

The overall results of the days racing and points score are listed on the race results page, and here are the race reports from two of the drivers. I want to thank them for taking the time to talk to me, especially after a race where there is always something going on.

We also want to thank Wally Dolinschek and Industrial Abrasives and Tool supplies for the continued sponsorship of the Sports and GT races, as well as the great social event held at the company premises on Tuesday night. The trophies look great, and we look forward to more of these events. I also want to encourage all sports car owners to join us for a Sports and GT Track day on the 1st May. This event is an opportunity for you to chat to the drivers, put your sports car on the track with full support from marshals and ambulance services, just like a race day but in a social setting. Contact the chairman, Louis for more details and to book you ticket for the day.

Sports and GT Race report, 27th March 2010 – Race 1 – Steve Humble

The race was great, although there was a lot of oil around, Wally and Laurent putting me under a lot of pressure it as a matter of me holding them until the back straight with them having a lot more power than me they just blast past into the distance. I caught them again after turn one on the second lap, and they seemed to be really rubbing each other up a bit. Laurent got ahead and Wally also got a few car lengths on me, but then seemed to be having problems and I caught him again. It turned out that Wally was having problems with his brakes, and I passed him going into turn two, and I was once more in second position and I remained in this position until the end of the race.

It was then a matter of keeping my head down until the end of the race, although the back markers came up very quickly this time, normally I don’t worry about them until about lap four, but this time it was earlier. It was probably the oil that they were having problems with, so it affected us all.

There was also a lot of oil on turn three especially, and some on turn four, turn three is a bit tricky and if you leave the track you are bound to hit something, so I just tried to push a bit faster every lap until I found the limit and then stuck to that. Turn four is not really a problem for the Mallock, and even with the bit of oil I was able to slide it round with my foot flat, so it did not bother me. I did find that the rear brakes were coming off a bit towards the end of the race, but other than that the car was fine. The track was also a bit green following the rain, but we all have to deal with that.

Sports and GT Race report, 27th March 2010 – Race 2 – Louis De Jager

Race two was arranged with an inverted grid, meaning the faster cars in the class of the previous race started behind the slower cars. I was sitting on the third row of the grid, position six, but Dawie Joubert’s car would not start, allowing me to start in position four, very nice for me. From this position I was able to race against cars that I would normally not see, as they invariably start in front of me and disappear into the distance, but with the inverted grid, they have to pass me. Dave in the Tiga passed me, but then seemed to be a bit down on power, and I managed to overtake him again.

The cars behind me, Gary Kieswetter and Patrick Driscoll were then really starting to catch up to me, being quicker than me, and going down the back straight, Patrick came past me but put two wheels on the dirt and this caused a bit of a nervous moment, the car getting pretty out of shape, but he held it all together and made the overtaking move stick. Patrick then seemed to back off a bit as I was able to keep up with him until the second last lap, when Gary got past me into turn one. My story is that the ABS brake system on his car doing the trick for him.

But in general a very good race for me, I really enjoyed it, especially being able to mix it with some of the quicker cars in the class. Thanks to all concerned.

Here also is the race report from James Reinhardt and “Blossom” his trusty Lotus 7

After the last race meeting, where I found and fixed a problem with a plug lead, I expected to have a trouble free day’s racing. I had given the car a number of blasts to the rev limiter, something which feels much fiercer on the public road (in second gear, officer), and is much louder without the muffling effect of a crash helmet. But of course, life doesn’t really work like that. On the way to the petrol station to fill up the jerry can it had felt as though the misfire was back. I couldn’t be certain as the rev limit is higher than Blossom’s rev counter reads. After filling the jerry can I gave it another blast, and all seemed well.

But of course it wasn’t. When we went out for our first heat Blossom was not revving at 100%. It wasn’t the disaster that it had been, but there was coughing and spluttering at high revs. On the opening lap I managed to sneak past Hennie Trollip (Locost 7) , but coming out of Turn 5 he came past me in no uncertain manner and went off past Ant van Malsen (Porsche 944 V8 conversion). Ant had gotten a good start, and made up a place or two in lap 1.

Martin Coward (Birkin 7) came past me on the straight after a lap or two and pulled a very brave overtake on Ant, putting two wheels on the grass into Turn 1, but held it all together and scampered away. That left me harrying Ant in the 944. I was all over the back of his car in the twisty parts of the circuit, but couldn’t find a way past. I tried a pass in Turn 5, but Ant shut the door firmly to keep me back. When Colin Howard (Ariel Atom) came past to lap us after 5 or 6 laps, I saw my opportunity and snuck past Ant in Colin’s wake on the exit of Turn 5, but the 944 had the legs on me, and retook the position on the straight, and that was how we finished. I was disappointed with the position, and not happy with the car’s spluttering, but I had enjoyed a race-long tussle, and that is always fun.

Craig Harper (Harper Type 5) had retired from heat 1 with fuelling problems. He managed to sort the refuelling problem out but discovered that he no longer had 1st and 3rd gears, so he would not be starting the second heat. As Craig’s car runs the same motor as Blossom, I snaffled his spark plugs, and on his advice riched up the mixture on my car. With reversed grids by class for the second heat, I found myself gridded among guys I seldom see once the lights go out. I don’t mind taking advantage of good fortune giving me a leg up the grid, but I was really worried that I was just going be a moving chicane, going backwards down the order. Once the dust had cleared on the start of the second heat I found myself behind Andre Brink (Porsche 993RS) and with Blossom back on song, set about pestering him for all I was worth. After a couple of laps Jean Fourie (CAV GT40) managed to get between me and Andre.

The Porsche and the GT40 would pull away from me down the main straight, and then I’d have a good view of the GT40’s engine and wiring loom from Turn 1 to Turn 4, after which a gap would open again, until I closed up again under braking for Turn 5. On reflection, I might have been a bit cleverer around Turn 2, but it’s very easy to be both wise and optimistic after the event.

On the cool down lap, I slowed right down at the stands between Turn 3 and Turn 4 to give Craig a big “Thank you!” wave for his help in getting Blossom back on song. To my surprise the whole stand waved back at me.

“Well of course they did mate!”, was Craig’s response when I mentioned this to him. “There was a hot Porsche, a fancy GT40 and you, in a small, buzzy wasp keeping them honest. They loved it!”

The day finished with Blossom running better than she was at the start, and that’s a happy thing! I owe Craig a set of plugs, and at the next outing – a track day scheduled for May 1 – I will re-set the fueling to its usual level. If the problem stays away I will know that there was a spark leak at the pugs. If it comes back I will know that I need to revisit the mapping.

To all you Sports and GT race fans, the next race is on 8th May, please come and join us at the track for a great days racing.

PICS

SPORTS CAR HISTORY

This category of Main-circuit racing machinery has now become well established at Killarney, having been created to fill a growing need, one that no existing categories were catering for. There was a growing number of replica sports cars, whose owners wished to race with them, but, because most of them used non-original mechanicals, were precluded from participating in Classic Cars due to their non-originality. At the same time, there was a small but enthusiastic core of both genuine, as well as faithfully replicated sports cars, who were racing amongst the Classic saloons, often feeling out of place due to their size difference. The solution was both simple and obvious, and this new category quickly became well supported. Due to the more highly stressed nature of this type of car, we are sometimes afflicted by reduced fields, but there has nevertheless been a slow but steady growth in our fields, always with several new cars in the pipeline.

One area which is ripe for development however, is participation by street-legal sports or GT cars. It seems that we are on the verge of seeing growth in this area, with some exiting cars soon to hit the track.