A Great Adventure - Part 2

The second week of our Cape Town trip was just as wild as the first and by the time we’d dried out from our antics on Saturday night it was time to head back to the track and draw our grids for the second meeting, where this time we would be competing in the faster Hot Rod class.  The car I’d been using had to go back to its owner for him to use so I had to swap cars for this one.  I was very lucky though as my new friend and drinking buddy Carlo offered to let me race his brand new car!  Once again I drew a mid-pack starting position for the races . . . unfortunately I didn’t seem to have taken the luck I have for grid draws in the UK with me!

Once again Monday was a pretty wild night and in their wisdom a lot of the guys found themselves agreeing to play netball for the Tygerberg Raceway netball team.  Somehow I managed to remain sensible and avoid getting myself roped into this . . .  something I’m glad about as it was much more fun watching them run around without a clue what the rules were!  Deane and I also managed to fill the time between games by going upstairs and pouring water over them to help them cool down.

Wednesday saw us heading out to practice and I couldn’t wait to give Carlo’s car a run.  It had a 2.0 litre 16v under the bonnet and felt a lot more like our cars here.  Instantly I felt much more at home and headed off to the bar afterwards feeling much happier.  Kym had carried out some pretty big changes to his car, Trevor’s car had been repaired, Deane had bagged himself another one, Paul and Stu kept the same ones and Hughie had managed to secure a car as well so we now had a team of seven.

It would have been rude to go halfway round the world and not go night clubbing so Thursday night saw Leone (the promoter’s daughter) take Stu, Kym, Smiffy and me to a club in Cape Town.  Everything in South Africa is really cheap and it’s easy to get carried away - something we seemed to do most nights!  Another good thing is that due to it being so hot at night you sweat all the drink out - leaving you hangover free in the morning!

Saturday saw us head off for our last meeting and it was also the hottest day of the trip with the heat rising to around 39 degrees in the middle of the day!  Carlo picked me up early and we headed off to get the car ready.  The bodies on the cars are held on with ten bolts and literally just come off in one piece.  My body had to be fitted onto his car and I went mad and bought a new set of tyres for us to use.

Because it was so hot they had to really water the track to make sure it would be ok to race on.  This was fine but it made the parade laps very hard work!  We managed to make a bit of a mess of it with all of us pointing in various directions and stuck at one point!

Carlo was also racing in the 2.1 class so the car had plenty of work to do on the night.  This, mixed with the fact that the track was wet, meant we were kept busy scraping mud off from underneath the car so it didn’t jam the wheels up and stop them from turning, and keeping the radiator clear so the car didn’t overheat.  I’ve never seen so much mud - it was piled up in great heaps everywhere.  Although I was much quicker than the first week I didn’t have any results to speak of.  Apart from Deane who was again unfortunate with engine problems we all managed to finish the races.  Kym drove a blinder in the final and came third, so collecting the third overall trophy and the international driver award.  Carlo also flew in his car collecting first place in the 2.1 class.  He’s won two more finals at different tracks since we have been home, showing that he really is the man to beat at the moment!

The night that followed for me was the best night of the holiday.  It was great seeing Kym get some silverware to bring home and the drink was flowing freely all night.  Everyone signed my overalls and they are something I will treasure forever.  When we arrived everyone said that we would watch the sun come up at the track and sure enough after partying all night I stood in the stands and watched the sunrise.  It was amazing.

I can honestly say that it was one of the best times of my life.  It was a fantastic holiday with a brilliant group of guys.  The racing was incredible and a fabulous experience . . . going sideways flat out is such a good feeling.  We met so many great people and have forged some lasting friendships.  The weather was brilliant and some of the nights will go down in history.  SAF Motorsport really went on tour!

I would like to say thank you to a few people – firstly to Leone and her dad Chris for everything they did for us and making the trip happen.  I know we must have been very hard work!  A special thank you to Carlo and Hilda for letting me use the car and for your hospitality; I just hope you can come to the UK and race my car now!  To everyone at Tygerberg Raceway for making us feel so welcome, Chris at Hyundai for the minibus and Herman for letting us cause complete chaos in your bar every night!  Also to Neville Loosemore and his family for flying down to support us both weekends.  Finally thanks to all the new friends we have made - you guys are awesome.  The only question now is “When will we be back?”

After pouring a bottle of wine over Deane one night I now have to spend the next year living in fear as I have no doubt there will be a very cold bucket of water heading my way at some point when I least expect it!

Thanks as ever for reading.

“Tot n volgende keer”

Mikey

A Great Adventure

Trying to condense what was arguably the best two weeks of my life into an acceptable size blog is going to be a hard task so excuse me if this turns into a bit of an epic.   Even finding a place to start is proving difficult!

Obviously going somewhere new and so far from home was a little daunting but as soon as I stepped off the plane in Cape Town and felt the heat I knew my decision to leave a wet and dark UK behind for a couple of weeks was the right one!  Due to being the most disorganised bunch of people in the world we couldn’t all manage to get on the same flight so the first two hours was spent doing several runs to the airport to collect everyone.  Altogether there were eight of us on the trip; the man himself Deane Wood, Paul Frost, Stuart McLaird, Kym Weaver, his father Hughie, his mechanic and friend Smiffy , Trevor Dibnah from the 2-litre Stock Cars and myself.

Our first port of call was to collect our transport for the week, a brand new minibus lent to us by the local Hyundai garage.  It had been sign-written with our names and UK racing team down the side.  From here it was straight to the track offices to meet everyone and let them see exactly what they’d let themselves in for!

The racing in South Africa is run very differently to here and the Monday before every race meeting all the drivers have to go to a meeting at the track to draw grid positions and just have a general briefing about how the race will be run.  After getting lost a few times we finally managed to arrive pretty late!  It was a good chance to get to meet all the other drivers and find out a bit about what we would be doing.  What anyone failed to tell us was that after the meeting finishes the bar stays open and everyone stays and gets drunk, something that surprisingly enough suited us all down to the ground.

The next day it was time to have a look at the cars we would be racing.  Now the principle of the cars is similar to ours but obviously as they are racing on dirt they have lots of differences too, the biggest of these is the tyres.  Although there are no rules on tyres everyone chooses to run a 15-inch Dunlop road tyre.  The cars had Corsa shells which had all been painted and sign-written to look like our cars from home.  The car I was going to race had a Mazda rotary engine under the bonnet but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Practice was arranged for the Thursday evening so we could get a bit of seat time in the cars.  The track isn’t dissimilar to something you would see Sprint Cars racing on in America - it is much bigger than any track we drive on in the UK and is made up of clay.  As the meeting goes on and it dries out it packs down like tarmac giving more and more grip each race.  Due to the heat they spend all week watering the track so it doesn’t just rip up into one giant dust cloud as soon as a car puts a wheel onto it!

Now as soon as I pulled onto the track I scared the absolute life out of myself!  The noise and speed from a rotary is incredible, it sounds like there are twenty engines revving as soon as you touch the throttle!  This coupled with the fact they don’t slow down when you lift off the throttle makes it an altogether very scary experience!  I’ll be honest with you all and say that in truth I was pretty rubbish at the whole racing thing and struggled a bit to adapt to the flat-out sideways driving style of the dirt racing . . . but what an amazing experience it was to drive round that track.  I will just say that Deane was on a mission and having only done a few laps he was throwing his car around the track as fast as any of the South African guys!  We do all forget that he was actually a world champion on shale - albeit before most of us were even born!

After the practice it was straight into the bar for another night of chaos.  Unfortunately we had made a reputation for ourselves on the first night so we could hardly let it slip now!  The way of life is so different there and although everyone takes the racing very seriously they always meet in the bar afterwards for a chat and everyone gets along without any of the nastiness we seem to get here.

Saturday arrived and it was time for race day.  I know we have some keen fans at home but these guys were mad for it and the stadium was packed out by 1pm.  Lots of the spectators were keen to chat so we spent a long time talking to folk before it all got started at 6pm.  In the international race there were twelve South Africans, three Namibians and the six of us.  After the grand parade we all headed out on our parade laps before stopping at race control for the national anthems to be played and to meet the South African Minister for Sport.  Looking around the stadium you could see it was packed and the atmosphere was like the World Final at Ipswich.

You line up for the race in the pits, then pull out onto the track and do one rolling lap before the green flag drops.  Now one thing I will say is the drivers have so much more respect for each other than we do back at home and there is very little contact because they give each other enough room to pass cleanly.  It’s also the only time I have ever felt old at racing as some of the guys out there racing us were just 14 and 15 years old.   Watching them throw the cars sideways through the corners was pretty impressive.   The car control they will have when they get older will be something amazing.

I kept myself out of trouble and finished all the races but like I said I didn’t perform any miracles.  Deane was flying only to be hampered with an engine failure, Kym was on a mission as well but also suffered a few car problems, Paul was flying and ended up fifth overall at the end of the night.  Stu was having a good night as well but unfortunately Trevor had to retire due to a snapped steering arm.  One thing I did have to show for my night though was a very burnt leg! The exhaust of the rotary runs right up the tunnel and I have never felt heat like it in my life!

After the meeting there is a big trophy presentation in the bar and I’m sure you don’t need to be a genius to figure out where this is all going!  It turned into a very epic night that ended up with lots of water and ice being thrown around and a very wet ride back to the hotel in the minibus!

We didn’t just spend two weeks solid racing and drinking - we went out and did the tourist stuff too.  We took a trip up Table Mountain (something I would recommend to anyone), visited Robben Island and went on boats trips and spent quite a bit of time at the Cape Town Waterfront.  We had a great time but if I was to go into detail about everything we did we would be here all week and I‘d miss the first meeting at Birmingham!

That in a nutshell was our first week.  Instead of making this too long I’m going to split it into two parts and come back next week and tell you all about the second week of our trip and more exciting racing.

One thing I would like to say before I go is “Thank you so much” to everyone who voted for me to win Most Improved Driver at our awards night recently.  It really means a lot to me.  That was another very eventful night and I will no doubt get round to putting that into a blog soon!

Thank as ever for reading.

Until next time

Mikey