Friday morning first thing, we had to make a detour past 8V Performance as the Shield Golf for no reason had picked up a miss fire and was battling to idle even when loading on the trailer. Sarel and the crew quickly came to the rescue and went to work bringing out all the necessary equipment for an emergency operation and had the car ready in race mode in no time.
With just two races left in the season, all the top contenders were at RSR to ensure that any points up for grabs where not gone begging.
Currently second in the championship behind Roland Hopkins, I knew that I had to get the maximum out of every race if I wanted to bridge the points gap to the top and keep Michael Grobler, who was only a few points behind me, at bay.
Heat 1
Redstar with a number of tight corners makes it critical to get a good start which was fortunaly the case, as I managed to get to the back straight ahead of Masters and the angry Hopkins and Grobler .
Managing to keep ahead of the pack for 2 – 3 laps before Masters passed me, and started to notice a drop off in times due to a bit of under steer, which was not normal and enabled both Hopkins and Grobeler to slip past which was extremely frustrating. Heading down the back straight, I picked up a major vibration on the car and thought I had broken a CV or something on the steering rack or gearbox.
I was forced to pull off the track near a marshal who informed me that my tyre was busy disintegrating which then just made sense as to the drop off. Considering the damage to the tyre, I was fortunate that the car never ended up skidding off the track or worse ending up on its roof.
Heat 2
Due the to the DNF in Heat 1 , it meant the Shield Golf would be starting way back on the grid in 28th spot ensuring that I would have my work cut out to catch the front runners. The Shield Golf is always up for a challenge, and when the flag dropped I kicked down a gear and made a few crucial passes before the start of the long straight.
8 V Performance having sorted the car out, and with 120 kw on the wheels enabled me to pass a few of the slower cars quite quickly and by midway in the race I could see my targets in the form of Hopkins and Grobler about 100m up the road. Lap by lap I managed to claw back meters and with 2 laps to go managed get past Hopkins and then Groblear, eventually taking the win in Class B as Masters had either pulled off or never made the start.
Following Redstar the Shield Golf is laying 5th in the Overall Chamionship and 2nd Overall in Class B – 12 points behind Hopkins and 2 ahead of Groeblar in 3rd .
Zwartkops is the last round on the 18th of November which will be the decider on the champioship and guaranteed to be action packed.
Hold thumbs, and with a bit of luck we could hopefully bring home Class B or at least end up in the Top 3.
24 Hour Ilumuna Endurance Race.
Our Shield driver was part of the winning 4-man team for a 2nd year in row at this year’s 24-hour event.
