We won't skate around the morbid reality that it wasn't the best of weekends to kick this review off. But the quality of your life is determined by your choices, and I'd rather choose, lose and learn than not decide and wonder what it could be like. On face value…the weekend was a calamity of cascading misfortune that kept me on the ropes, and despite anyone's best efforts, we were up the proverbial shit creak without a paddle. But behind all the failure, there were silver linings.

Explaining the rationality behind everything over a coffee with a friend and why we keep coming back is a cathartic exercise. Writing this out is essential in understanding the disappointment and cutting to the source of it all, Motorsport. It's one of the most purist ways of ripping every fibre of your existence out and forcing you to be alive. It comes with the territory of living a passion lead life, especially in a series as intense as GTI Challenge. Many will not understand, but they will go to their graves, not living out their ambitions. That is a fact.

Aldo Scribante is a magical place. It is stuck on the outskirts of the city of Qgbergha, which is wild and locked in some sort of a time capsule. The old-school coin-operated parking meters are just one sign when you drive into the city centre. It looks like an unlocked map in Grand Theft Auto, along with its motorway of confusing offramps. My first outing was in 2020 for the 3-hour endurance race racing with a friend, Mike. It was an enjoyable first time on a tricky and unforgiving track, if you get it wrong. To get context, many drivers have put cars on roofs around the esses and at the top of Hanger, a mini version of Spa's Eu Rouge.

Race preparation and race day support is the most critical piece of the puzzle. I've always known that, but the exact scope of that piece of the puzzle had yet to be tested. That is until this past weekend. A weekend that may, at the face of it, seem like a failure, but now that I tear down the details in some wine-sipping retro analysis, I'm left with way more experience than I had before I left, and that can't be taken away. Sound the trumpets.

Car preparation had let us down somewhat. Disc brakes and pads should have been changed before leaving. I should have forced the issue. I should have insisted on a more thorough nut and bolt check which could have helped locate the selector mounting bracket missing bolt-through-the-bulkhead issue, which could have contributed to the gearbox failure. I would have, could have, didn't. No excuses. Just hard lessons. Referring back to Jocko Willink's extreme ownership, I'll take full accountability for not ensuring this. I know better now. That's an experience for you.

Thanks to its big braking points, the track itself is hard on brakes and equally brutal on gearboxes thanks to the elevation changes, which cause big forces going through the drive train each lap. Then again, it had survived a 3-hour endurance race before, so it was the luck of the draw. But here's the crazy part. Even if you prepare more and ensure everything I mentioned is ready, something else could go wrong. At the end of the day, money buys reliability, but a balance needs to be found.

Come Friday practice, and I had to chase around Qgbergha, hunting for the right parts between numerous suppliers and new discs for both sides. About 15 calls later, we had what we needed but lost precious time. The time that could've been used for testing could have led to the gearbox breaking on Friday, which could have given us enough time to diagnose and fix it for race day. Do you see the chain reaction? Spilt milk. Again we ended up missing out on valuable time sitting down with Claudio from Race Driver SA to analyse lap data was missed. The last session of the day had to be used to bed in brakes, so no pushing at all. It all felt a little ominous, but at least I had a car for the next day. Race day.

Waking up after an early dinner with Nic and the crew and early to bed, I felt we had done enough and could attack from there. Little did I know. Last minute checks, and I was heading out on track to qualify. The car felt good for the two warm-up laps before my first push lap. A 15.2-second time was all that I could manage. It was the quickest I had done, but I knew there was more to it. A lot more. Unfortunately, I was not to find out. On the last lap, the car would not find gears. Thinking that it could be a gearbox linkage issue, I held hope of returning to our pits.

It was then time to call on Craig Du Toit to diagnose what could have been wrong. We found a linkage mounting bracket loose. We fitted a new bolt and tested shifting, but the problem wouldn't disappear. On the Friday practice, I knew something was off when the gearbox would pop out of fourth gear on a slight lift of the accelerator pedal. Usually, a sign that Synchro's were worn. After Craig's second assessment, It was quickly dawning on us that this was a more significant issue—time to remove the gearbox. Even with the right tools and a lift, a job is a challenge. The challenge is compounded when you don't have the right tools exponentially. Although we were fairly equipped, we needed to prepare more. Thanks to the help from Eugene from Rico Barlow Racing and my friend Myles, we eventually removed the box, finding a number of other issues along the way. Loose CV joints, and a gearbox mounting rubber that looked past its sell-by date, topped the list. Eugene's energy and passion for mechanics are pretty reassuring. It was great having him there.

Now the GTi challenge group is a helpful group on the whole. That sentence has a caveat, but I'll share it in a more confined space. The walls have ears, my friends. But honourable mention goes to Craig, helping diagnosing issues, and Daniel, who selflessly offered his spare gearbox so that I could make heat two along with Greg and Andrew from GAP Motorsport. Take a bow, boys. There were more gestures. Unfortunately, the gearbox on loan was not the correct type, thanks to an input spline difference between mine and Daniels—28 teeth to 24. I was shit out of luck. I was to miss heat two as well. The trip, the money, and the excitement all came to none.

Motorsport, I'm reminded, remains a cruel mistress. There's so much that needs to be done behind the scenes to make this work properly—the complete package. Driving is just one part of many. Going into the weekend, I was sitting in third place in the championship, which I've now lost, but we'll get on with it and push hard to ensure we can fight in the remaining two rounds. I knew that this weekend would have tough. I just didn't think it would be that tough. Character building, right?

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The Isuzu D-Max LSE - Our trusty steed.

What can be said is that this was my first proper test towing across the country in a test vehicle and I can genuinely say that this vehicle impressed me. Towing capacity was loaded, a fairly heavy double axel trailer weighing at around 1 ton with car’s weight of another 920 KG, along with spare tyres, tools and luggage along with three adults. On our 1500km round trip to Qgbergha and back from Cape Town, with all that weight, we managed 12.6litres/100km averaging a cruising speed of 110km/h.

I’ve always backed Isuzu as a value for money option and this past weekend reaffirmed it. Rugged and ready for the job, not skipping a beat. The comfort of the seats and spacious cabin made more easy living and forcing road side stops were only because we wanted to and not because we had to. Quick the perfect work horse offering relentless value, consistently.