This is just an example of what we expect in here!
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Many years ago, just before the then traditional Castrol Rally, I heard a rumour that I would be inline for an Opel works drive, if we did well on that particular rally. I was at the time driving the ex-Piazza-Musso Toyota Corolla 1600. The car was well prepared, we had new tyres and of course we were determined to do well.
As usual we did not have time or money to test the car before the event, that was a luxury reserved for the van der Merwe's, Mortimers etc. and then I did believe that the five kilometers you feel short at the end of the rally, were the kilometers you wasted in practice.
Jacques, my son who was at that stage about seven or eight, used every opportunity to sit in the car, making noises, not zoom, bloody zoom, but more like a car that was revved about eleven thousand before being slapped three gears higher. Little did I know that he did spend a bit of time in the car before the even, making some adjustments to everything he could reach. One unfamiliar object was the brake equaliser. This is a knob that you turn clockwise to set the brake balance more forward. In other words, the front wheels would brake more than the rear wheels, and anti clockwise would meean more brakes to the back and less in front. He decided that it would work wonderful if teh eqiualiser was set to lock the reaar wheels at the slightest touch of the brakes.
Needless to say, when our turn came, away we went, fully commited, determined to win the bloody rally in the first stage and get it over and done with.
Andre de Kock, motoring editor of many years for the Citizen, was standing at ta ninety degree corner, with the usual audience surrounding him.
In his wisdom he looked at us coming down the straight, and true to form, I started to brake at the last possible moment!
Andre said: "Well guys here comes either the world's best driver, or the bloody fool is crazy"
After we rolled, he knew which option to choose!
Man, all I needed was a half a metre more road, and then the island in the road and I would have made it!
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