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So after the damage to the head (the engine – not just my ego) at Midvaal we had very little time to get ourselves up and trucking again before the Kyalami round this past weekend, G spent time on the car and did everything to get the car to the dyno by early last week for the power run required by the SuperHatch regulations, and we were down 10kw! Eina! So Jaco Kriel took our old damaged head to his guys and had it ‘worked’ we got it back last Wednesday and G got to work and still not quite the power we need for class A – but that is what we had and that is what we had to race with, with us being 65kg’s overweight (be nice, this is car and driver combination). We would have to do our level best with our class A/B car.
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Friday didn’t see me get too much track time as running an event and being in the office a lot and being on track is a tough call – but hey then I’m a tough girl.. so I put on my big girl panties and I dealt with it as best I could, I got out on track in the second of the SuperHatch sessions and battled with the gears, we found a that a bolt on the gearbox mounting had come adrift and of course G got it fixed and replaced in record time and even had some of my fellow class A drivers assisted. Thanks Chris.
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I then went out in the 2nd SuperHatch session and it was better, the car however is just not quite as ‘grunty’ as it usually is (and I just don’t seem to find the lines at Kyalami until the end of the weekend) But I did what I could and got back to work, with the car being fine other than a bit of wheel spin and under steer and the wrong gear ratios for the track – so the things we could fix we did, G got me 2 brand new tyres (this is only for the ‘pre-madonnas’) – thanks G (thanks Lubbe family for selling us yours so that we had for the next morning)
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Saturday morning and I had to qualify as I had not finished at Midvaal and was not in the top 5 grid reversal. I managed to be 7th in class and that put me 6th on the grid. I had a great start but backed out a bit when Geoff got a little ‘sideways’ in turn 3 and Mark got past, as did Chris, the new tyres didn’t help the wheel spin nor the gear ratios – obviously and only assisted a little in the understeer (as I said ‘pre-madonna’) but I did my best and managed to stay out of trouble and didn’t break anything and I finished up in 8th spot after being passed my Shaun on the last lap (its ok he was in a Opel)
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Race 2 and I had to start 8th where I had finished, I had a good start but not great, and gained a few spots and lost a few, after Greg got all out of shape in Sunset and me just missing him, 8th it was and this is pretty much where I stayed for the entire race not close enough to the front guys and not pulling a gap from those behind me – I started closing the gap to Pieter on the last 3 laps was that wasn’t enough, although crossing the line with no gremlins is a great feeling all on its own. Other than that it was a little bit lonely.
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I had set myself a goal for the weekend and that was to do a 2.08 at Kyalami – I never reached that goal I just could not break the 2.09’s…never mind next time. We also figured out what all the wheel spin was from, G has fitted solid top shock mounts and the car has now been raised by 10mm in the front (yes 10mm does make a difference)! The gear ratios are not something that can be fixed as SuperHatch we run one gearbox all year unless the box is broken.
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So here we are with a DOUBLE finish and some work to do and we have a HEAVY few weeks of racing in June and July:
- 8 June – Midvaal
- 22 June – Phakisa (Phakisa 200 as part of the Festival)
- 13 July – Phakisa (2 sprint races)
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| P.S. this race was all about the Rhinos and all of us in SuperHatch ran the event with a rhino horn on our cars. |
As always – THANK YOU – for all your support.
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