School Fees

A frustrating day out in the polo where the down sides of racing play out. It’s never smooth sailing. This entire first year was always going to be dedicated towards paying school fees. Saturday was a reminder about that and also…the sweet isn’t so sweet without the bitter…

Qualifying

Nationals get the preferred slots on any day so a regional series like Clubmans championship plays second fiddle where qualifying got pushed onto the Friday evening. Tough for the majority of as we have work commitments. I personally scheduled some work calls to take in the car en route to the track which seemed to be an efficient use of the time. Wise move. But what I failed to factor in was gridlock Cape Town traffic worsened by closed roads owing to riots that were affecting the area. It would always be a hard press. At one point I thought it best that someone collect me on a scooter in order to make it there by 5:30. What would WAZE do? The handy navigational app took me through a maze of back streets before spitting me out on the main road to the track. I had 20 minutes to spare. Enough time to suit up and strap the car onto my back.

One hot lap is all it takes. If you get it right, fantastic. A slip down the straight, pinch perfect gear changes, hitting your braking markers and tight lines is the recipe for success. It’s a constant gamble with ever changing factors. Add a slower car in front of you and that’s where it gets interesting. Anyone and anything can disturb your lap. It happens. I found myself in that situation and addressed it by pressing on to make a pass, carrying too much speed into Rose foundation (turn 3)I missed the apex before embarking upon an unscheduled agricultural career of farming which lasted the entire duration of the back section of the track before returning to the asphalt straight into Malmsbury sweep. We had every religious leader on a group call to get me through that. My biggest off to date. Scrubbed the tires off before getting one decent lap in. The fruits? Leaving the grid in fourth position.

Race 1

Nothing like a red flag after two laps to diminish the hard work one puts in. It’s happened twice to me this year and in a momentum car like the polo, that is a problem. Further to that with only 20 liters of fuel, running extra laps will leave you quickly be finding yourself in fuel surge territory which happened to a few competitors. After the restart I got held up by a slower BMW not in my class. “Work hard around the corners then get passed by a rocket ship”. That is the annoying theme that plays out more often than not. Added to that, a rear brake binding issue caused by a faulty hand brake issue meant that all bets were on that the racing gods weren’t smiling in my favour. That’s life. We finished the race in fourth.

Race 2

Not happy with the power of the car, we decided to get the polo on the Dyno to see if we could change the mapping to improve power delivery. In the hope of just trying to extract maximum efficiency from the little 2.0-liter lump, anything would do. Happy with the theoretical situation, once the red lights went out, the practical side of things did however not pan out to what we had expected. There was just no power leaving me 2 seconds a down on pace. An incredibly frustrating position to find yourself in when you know you should be running much faster times. Added to that the grip on the track as at high with the touring cars laying down layers of rubber to play with. The car however did not perform well at all, and in fact, found it worse than before.

A reality about racing is that getting into dice with a competitor will, without fail, slow you down…added to that unevenly matched dicing where you’d work hard around the corners only to be overtaken by car with twice the amount of power effectively turns the event into a drag race versus circuit racing which I innitially signed up for. Grin, bear it and try to have fun…don’t forget that. A disapointing 5th place in class at the checkered flag. Spilt milk.

In my review mirror

Any race that you can walk away from after putting the car into the garage is a bonus. It means you can get out and do this again. Added to that experience gained is priceless and the lessons learnt to put into the next race meeting skills came straight out of the top drawer. On the plus side I had the a great deal of fun regardless of the results.

There’s a silver lining in everything that happens. Whether in life or racing and if you have a growth mindset, you’ll accept that disappointment comes and it goes. Shrug it off, focus on the positives that come out, learn and come back stronger.

The last and final round for the season is on the 19th October where we’ll continue the fight.