THE BRAVE ONES JUMP INTO 2010
author: Leon Botha
The Gauteng/Mpumalanga Sprint and Rally rally season “kicked off” on an Open-day at Rallystar this weekend.
This time we rightfully did not know what to expect and actually catered for a smallish crowd. The week leading to the Open-day we hardly had four calls from competitors confirming they were going to make use of the testing and practice session.
This suited us well as we are fully booked trying to catch up on our Self-drives and Hotseat experiences.
Still we had a good look around and decided that we would open the Traditional Super Special and then give the guys a chance to test both driving and navigation skills over a specially selected practise stage of about 5.8kms.
The weather forecast let us down for the 37th time this year and nothing came from the predicted rain over this area and we knew we were in for a dusty day.
We took our time to get to the track on Saturday and …by 9h00 the place was almost full – all the lapas were occupied, the service area filled with cars and vans and the fun and games started!
Needless to say the supposed “take it easy” practise quickly turned out in a private challenge and we saw some spectacular driving by everyone!
The teams made use of the Super Special to its fullest and we saw young guys such as Judd and then also Leon Marais in his latest acquisition looking great.
The Sahrah crowd did not dissappoint and young Lukas van der Merwe impressed with one of the quickest Datsuns I have seen in my life.
The jumps were tested thoroughly and I saw quite a number of drivers getting it just right! Not like me on Sunday when I missed the double jump and landed about 5 meters on other side of the Jump on the flat section! I am now about four feet three tall!
Then we introduced the Mother of Jumps to the sprint stars and …I have to admit it is intimidating. You look straight up through the Pearly gates for a second or so and then you look at the wall on the opposite bank and also while in the air at the road leading up the track! Scary – scary but great fun.
This is where you learn how to turn in the air and sing Psalm 23 without missing a beat to breath!
After Saturday we will obviously try and tone it down a bit just to make sure that you all participate in in ALL EIGHT HiQ Rallystar Sprints for the year.
Then of course managing to get over this jump intact you had the Camel Hump to negotiate before doing an acute hairpin right backtracking past the new jump before you crossed the road where inspector Solly made people wait for up to five minutes before he let them cross just after a rally car went by – just because I told him that his family will have a nice funeral where they can slaughter an Ox if I heard of any complaint or if anyone cross before a rally car! Luckily when the guys were finished practicing they managed to convince him that they could pass – because no more cars were coming!
The most enjoyable of the day was the fact that every single driver and navigator realised that the track was designed to give maximum practice for driver and if the navigator could stay with – he or she could navigate!
The whole track contained only four breathers and the rest were made up from continuous calls.
I left out a distance on purpose and must say that one navigator did come and tell me about it! Great stuff! I hope the rest picked that up?
Some of you must be as tired of reading this as I am of writing it – if the synchronising in the car is not perfect you can simply not drive to your full potential! Simple as that!
If this Open-day is an indication of what is to come in the Sprint series this year we are in for some really serious entertainment and fun. There will apparently be at least five new cars for the series and it was good to see Andre Stander and company already in with two cars.
This is a reminder that the first HiQ Rallystar Sprint will take place on Saturday 20th March 2010 – get ready for some great action.
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