Wet, wet, wet (and no we are not referring to the band)

So here we were and G had decided that we would go to Midvaal at Dawns crack (Sparrows fart) which ever you prefer on the Friday of the Midvaal race weekend – this is the same Friday that the cold front rolled into the Gauteng region and brought along the rain! G decided that leaving home at 5am was a great idea to miss the traffic and get to Midvaal nice and early and bunt off a nice area where all of us Super Hatchers could park together (as pit allocations is not something that we get at Midvaal). Do you have any idea how many people go to work at that ridiculous time on the morning? Wow I was shocked, any how we made it to Midvaal, and it was cold, wet and … well miserable.

We all know that I am no wet weather driver and I decided to just go on with some work I had to do and save the car from going off and hitting something… then G asked me nicely to please just go and make sure all was ok for the next day’s race, so I went out for about 4 laps and came in, went and weighed the car and ensured all was 100% for the next day, as I was reversing into our pit I felt uneasy about the steering and asked G to check as it felt as if something was lose on the left front and yep you guessed it I was right AGAIN! The lower control arm bolt was lose, so G tightened it and put a double nut on ensuring that there is no ways this will come loose again. And there we were all set for Saturday.

We stayed overnight to not have to get up at that early hour again, and as always a number of our fellow Super Hatchers stayed too, we had fun and made the most of the crap weather and the fact that we were getting as wet under the roof as if there wasn’t one, we had an early night and woke to more rain…

Race 1

Due to the very wet track the officials decided that we would be racing under yellow from the start until we had gotten onto the long back straight! So there goes my chances with my killer starts…. Anyway, lights on and off and baaa baaaa we pulled away no big revs no wheel spinning nothing, it felt like we were doing a procession lap… anyway onto the back straight and I was behind Garland who was completely sideways and you end up losing so much momentum getting off the juice to miss him, then chase hard, and sideways Sid was at it again each time I got close enough to think about the move, and no such luck, Mark got past me and I thought I better get going, and I managed to fall off all on my own in turn 1 on the exit…

I couldn’t see the side of the track due to all the mud and wet grass and heard a massive BANG and thought I had burst the front left tyre, so I got back on the track and it felt ok and so I hoofed it and started catching up .. I got right onto the back of Chris and looked up his inside going into yes you guessed it – turn 1! He shut the door and I spun AGAIN! Got back on track and the car didn’t feel punchy like it usually is, I had certainly lost pace and was battling to get through the class C guys, unusual. And with 1 lap to go I braked for the corner at the end of the long back straight and the car cut out I parked…

Once we got the car back to the pits, we saw that the cam belt was off (eina pain) and that the cam follower pulley was gone! A marshal in turn 1 reported they had a pulley and I ran down and fetched it, but it wasn’t mine so we ended up having to retire, not something we do easily, we had a spare head there ready to go on, but without the pulley we couldn’t do anything

Race 2 – DNS

Since the race G has stripped the engine and in true Mel style I did a proper job, and bent 14 of the 16 valves….. BUT we will be sorted in no time and will test the car before the next round which is in less than 3 weeks’ time.