Inland Series SHIELD Golf takes 3rd Place in Historic Tour 15th April 2023 Zwartkops Raceway
On Track Clubman’s forming part of the Historic tour made for an awesome day’s racing and gave me the chance to relive some childhood memories of my father taking me to Kyalami to see some of our all-time greats like Ben Morgenrood, Sarel van der Merwe and Larry Wilford racing these absolute beasts of a car in some the classes. One thing is for sure that these animals do not have all the frills of the latest technology and machinery on track… these cars only take kindly to drivers with real talent (no traction control on these babies)
Qualifying
Saturday morning around 9am and with a slight nip in the air was perfect conditions to dial in a good qualifying time for the normally aspirated SHIELD GOLFS, which produce more horsepower and run better with the cooler air. Clocking in a respectable (1.14.0) I was still a little off pace as Wayne Pereia was doing a (1,12.6) and Rodney Kruis in new Honda Civic 20 v and Philip Emmenis’ in a M3 BMW doing a low (1.13.1 and 1.13.7) respectively with Like Dalton in an 8V golf just behind me doing an impressive 1.14.8.
Heat 1
Rolling towards the start line before the lights turn green, I knew I had to be well positioned coming out of tun 2 and ideally in front of Rodney and Phillip which I managed to do through some calculated late breaking and little prayer with my foot hitting the accelerator the minute I had exited the corner. Rodney remained glued to my bumper for the entire 8 laps as we were both doing times of 1.13.3 consistently and really pushing each other to the limits ending up with a hard fought 2nd behind Wayne Pereira… what a race for the spectators.
Heat 2
Starting alongside Wayne Pereira in Heat 2 meant Rodney had a better line and a gap behind Wayne to squeeze in and take a line that would push me wide and give him a chance to get past me which is exactly what he did – needless to say he did and the roles were reversed in Heat 2… great race. Well done Rodney as I tried every trick in the book to see if you would make a mistake under pressure to give me a gap… great drive and well done.
Overall
