Zwartkops Race Report Shield Golf Regional Extreme Festival 24 June 2023
111 Care Care Clinic Series
I am thrilled to announce that the Shield Golf was in top form on Saturday and managed a 1st overall in Class B for the day , collecting some valuable points towards the championship.
Friday Practice
Out the blocks I knew the car was on point and without any effort I was running in the low 1 min13 seconds on used tyres and help from the cooler air temperature, which plays a major part. Class breakout time in Class B is 1min 13 and therefore I had to be cautious not to dip into the 1 min 12 bracket which could either mean a grid penalty and warning if by less than .5 of a second or moving up into Class A.
Considering the car setup was good and the weather extremely cold I decided to get car through scrutineering and then use the remaining time to prep for Saturdays Qualifying session.
Qualifying
Saturday morning was jammed packed with close on 30 cars and with the cool temperatures I manged to dial in a competitive time of 1min13,4 – which was good enough for 1st in Class B
Heat 1, 2 and 3, virtually a mirror image of each other with Roland Hopkins , Charl Weyers and Fabienne Lanz a lady karting champion all with 0,5 of a second separating us in each race . Interesting in Heat 1, Charl Weyers after spinning out on lap 2 in corner 8 managed to chase me down to almost pip me at the post, but in the chase manged to do an amazing 1.11,8 which blew him straight into Class A.
Unfortunately, this is what happens in a timed based series when you have drivers with cars that can do times well below the 1min13 breakout time but sandbag. Chasing down a fellow driver in the class when the adrenaline is pumping to gain back your position pushes patience out the window and leads to the breakout… Roland Hopkins in his Polo and Fabienne Lanz in Golf GTI were just meters behind when the flag dropped and Charl ran in to some fuel pump issues on the last lap or two allowing me to get past which was really irrelevant as he had broken out – this I only came to realise when we looked at the grid sheets for Heat 2 .
Heat 2 was a much tighter tussle with Fabienne as the weather had started to warm and Golf GTI turbo had a slight advantage over the normally aspirated Polo and Golf. I managed to keep her at bay until the end but I knew in Heat 3 this was going to be a problem, which it was as in Heat 3 she managed to get past me at the start and I had no answer for virtually crossing the finish line with the Shield Golf attached to her bumper… this made for a great race and the spectators loved it.
