ON THE ROAD TO CAPE AND BACK AGAIN...
author: Leon Botha
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TOYOTA DEALER RALLY 26 & 27 MARCH 2010
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If you think you are tired of reading about our making of Route Notes, have a heart and think how tired I am of writing about the happenings during the make.
This time I decided to change the pattern a bit and take Jacques with me instead of Schalk in order to freshen the formers' skill regarding the making of notes again.
The car was hardly back from its trip to Natal and needless to say we only managed to fix a few crucial things on the suspension before it had to go for another hiding on rally roads and a round trip of 4000km.
You will be interested to know that this car has now completed around 225 000km of which about 180 000kms were to and from as well as on rally stages! Incredible - and although it did give us a fair amount of problems I do not believe anything else would have been able to do what this car did!
You must remember that it could have been made a lot stronger but on real rally suspension you will not have been able to watch the in-car-footage as easily as the camera tends to vibrate slightly more and the shocks from the road comes through much more directly through a real rally suspension.
We did some emergency repairs on the power steering before the trip and did our best to get the air-conditioner going as well. The power steering simply refused to work even after changing the pump and the air-conditioner started up - smoked the belt and burned it away after about 5kms.
So we were ready as can be when we left very early - about three hours later than we intended after Jacques changed the power-steer pump again! Still - no power steer!
So four hours later we broke free from the traffic jams and hit the road on the other side of Johannesburg at a steady 149km/h after Jacques asked me nicely to stay out of it - should he be stopped for speeding.
I normally scare the hell out of him when I get out from the passenger side to "defend" his case - there and then. It normally starts with me saying what nice moustache the cop has and if she is wearing a blow up step in around her bum?
These fraudsters normally (there must be a few out there who do this correctly - but I still have to find one) have nothing set up according to the rules. So I ask a few questions - normally quite aggressively when Jacques drove - to his great annoyance and fear - as he tweets like a bird and I roar like a lion - both trying to keep him out of jail!
He may not realise this - but he has so far never got a fine while I was around - it is always a hell of a fight - but no fine! That I believe is what makes me good to have in the car?
What I could so far not handle were the cases when they stopped us for a lack of at least two number plates on the car! That I still have to find a way around, but the rest is good. In the number plate case I usually get annoyed when I have to tell them what the Article number of the ordinance is to prevent us from losing an hour while they look up the article while concentrating on looking intelligent.
Trucks are losing wheels, they overtake on blind rises, they speed, they do whatever they like - but our force sits behind a lob-sided camera while enjoying sushi and caviar from all the bribe money - to catch the next white (mostly) victim.
I have not been a racist before 1994 but I am sure as hell grinding my teeth to stay a little left of what Eugene Terblanche was before he went to jail a few years ago. Carte Blanche on Sunday eve did not help at all and I will not be surprised if we have an outbreak of violence one of these days.
It is amazing to see how many cops they need to arrest a white woman for double parking when they block the whole road while assaulting her? Hey, general de la Rey - if you are hiding somewhere - do us a favour and pop over for coffee and tell us when we can expect someone to stand up and stop these absolute cowards from harassing women and killing old farmers?
Anyway - as we chewed up the kilometres between Pretoria and Cape Town we sat there tensed up waiting for something to break! Kroonstad - Bloemfontein - Springfontein - Colesberg - Beaufort-west ……all held together and we started to relax.
The GPS predicted we would land in Somerset west around 21h00. Just after giving Jacques that news for the tenth time - I started to fiddle with the said instrument. It was amazing to see that it was just as far to stage one than it was to Somerset-west.
Now if you know Jacques you will also know that he is excellent company when he feels like it - when he gets that far away look in his eyes behind a steering wheel you never know if he died with his eyes open or whether he went to sleep with them open?
I told him about the phenomenal discovery I made and tried to theorise why this was such and so? After a while not really getting any reaction I sat back and tried to get internet reception again.
Suddenly he turned off - I looked up and down again typing away on a piece I wrote to someone.
"Is this the right road?" - the Silent Wonder asked after a while. The fog was so dense that I could not see further than about ten metres and he drove so slow - I was convinced that he could not see to the end of the bonnet.
The right answer would have been - "wait let me make sure on GPS" - but instead, typical of the Botha self-assurance I said - pretending I could see well through the fog without my yellow spectacles - "yes I have driven here before!"
The yellow fuel reserve light went on and a little worried voice came though the fog - you see he opened his window filling the car with fog to try and look out of the side window like one those special effects cameras used by Ken Block in an attempt to see better - "we will need petrol soon - how far to the next refuel?"
"Find" click "fuel services" click - "Ha! Only about 13kms" I informed my driver like a true navigator and added "straight ahead!"
Then I counted down as be crawled along - every time we broke through the fog he went up to second gear and I counted quicker!
When the GPS hit 'zero' we saw a small very dark sinister looking building on our right and kept on going - now I hit the buttons of the GPS with a bit more vigour. Click find waypoint "Minicentre" or any bloody thing for that matter in Somerset!
Make U-turn when possible! What do you mean "make U-turn you stupid forking bastard?" I enquired.
Make U-turn! Make U-turn!
Click find fuel station!
Make U-turn! Oh my dear, dear fogging fore fathers!
We made a three pointer on a road too narrow to carry two cars let alone the Oskosh and us making the U-turn! Luckily for us - we were the only people crazy enough to use that road to nowhere and eventually Jacques managed to turn the power-steering without power enough to go back to where we came from back into a blanket of fog over a mountain.
"How far back to the N1?" he enquired without sounding as if this was all my fault. "Only 52kms" I said sounding as if I was about to get an injection with a 2mm thick needle.
By now my fairly decent IQ worked out that when I fiddled around with the GPS I left it to go to Stage One of the rally instead of resetting it back to Somerset-west.
"We will never make it with this fuel", the pilot told me something I could actually also work out without thinking!
I clicked the GPS and it informed me that the "Fuel Bowser" was only 4kms away.
A picture of the lone standing pitch dark little building with a solo pump in front of it jumped up in my mind. I surfed the GPS up and down - but it seemed if we landed in the Bermuda triangle! All it did was indicate a huge loop and if I asked for directions to anywhere it indicated a loop and brought us back to where we were - or were not? I was not sure!
We crawled past a guesthouse and I mentioned that we could come back to it if we did not find fuel.
We arrived at the little shop and its lone standing lights-out pump. BP nogal and a choice of 93 and 95!
It is in times like these where Jacques thinks better than I do and he simply got out - phoned the security company who was supposed to keep the place safe and asked them to phone the owner to find out if there was anyway we could get fuel.
They phone back telling us that the owner was on his way!
I leaned against the front door of the place waiting for the owner to pop out of the fog with his Landcruiser!
Suddenly someone opened the door behind me and I jumped right over the Outback - half off leg and all!
At first Piet du Plessis a big man - peeped through the opening while his Boerboel cross that stood at half his height also sniffed and peeped.
When he saw the Outback he really looked worried and closed the crack halfway - now peeping with only one eye. I smiled at him and he closed the door almost taking Piet se hond's nose off!
He slowly reopened the door and said "Goeie naand" which in English means "what the hell do you want?" and Jacques said in his nice tweety voice that a litre of two's fuel will be a good start!
Piet then said he could only handle cash at THAT TIME of the night and I quickly grabbled for my wallet to show him the last of the Botha fortune - since I started making route notes!
Piet and dog then came out and he firstly crushed my hand and I pissed myself when he took Jacques' offered hand - knowing that Jacques will not expect such a bone crusher! After Jacques got back onto flat feet from standing on his toes like a ballerina Piet started to put R400 worth of fuel in. I wondered whether it was really 95 but kept my big mouth shut!
Thanking Piet and patting his dog profusely we left wherever we were and Jacques was delighted to see that the wind blew most of the fog away and we made good progress over the 52kms back to the N1 - adding a nice 104kms to the already incredibly long distance between Pretoria and Jan van Riebeeck country!
I reset the GPS and Jacques gave me one of those looks older people get from people who forget that they are also on their way back to becoming as helpless as they were when they were born. I suspect that I will not be able to drive a rally car anymore at 125 but I will sure as hell not ask him to do it because at a 100 he will probably be even worse than me!
Zoooooeeyyyy, zooooeeyyyy - a strange sound came from under the floor board. I slipped a disk turning my head too quick to look for and answer from the driver.
"They clutch just slipped!" he informed me. "You mean the new clutch we fitted just before the Total rally?"
"No the clutch in the boot!" I would have replied - but like a good son who may be accused of buggering up the new clutch he said, 'yes but I think it might have leaked a bit of oil on the clutch while we waited for Piet to open the door to give us fuel."
"Nogal a big drop I must say" I said while another 'zooooeeyyyy' sounded up.
"The car is not going anymore!" he informed me of the obvious.
"Wait let me drive!" said David Copperfield!
Typical - not unlike my father who overhauled a car using only a bobbejaan (I hope we may still call the spanner that?) spanner, a hammer and a screwdriver - got in, fired up the car and let fly. "Zoooeeyy, grind, grasp" and as true as bob the clutch gripped and off we went. I turned in at a Guesthouse in the Hexriver valley and we slept until early morning.
Next morning we made it to Subaru in Somerset-west by driving with the clutch pedal slightly engaged and there unlike the case in Harrismith we were assisted in every possible manner by Danie, Mark and the boys.
After taking out the gearbox Jacques discovered that the flywheel actually caused the problem - the outer section stood still while the centrepiece revved like hell!
Parts? Only in Johannesburg and here Subaru South Africa kicked in and organised as quick as they could!
Schalk van Heerden junior played courier and by two the parts were en route to Cape Airport. At four I was there standing before the counter listening to the clerk behind the counter asking a guy from a courier service "wie is Corex?" or something to that effect while the guy on my side of the counter kept on saying that he will phone someone.
When they asked and told each other the 15th time - I asked if I may take a guess who this Corex was? They both gave me one look and decided to ignore me and carried on their conversation!
Eventually someone else asked if he could help and I said "yes thank you but only if you have nothing else to do!"
No real reaction - then I said that I came to collect a parcel from flight BA9064 and then all three looked at me - sort of "have you not heard the plane crashed over Welkom or Kimberley or something to that effect!" like.
Then they started to laugh. Eventually getting up from the floor they started telling me about the fact that the Argus was on and planes were filled with bicycles.
"Yes and your point is?"
"The plane only landed at about four (at this time he did not know the flight was delayed by almost an hour) and you want your stuff and twenty past?"
"Actually I wanted it at four if you guys were not too busy trying to find out who Corex was!" I replied sarcastically.
Then the cross questioner started to explain that the waybill were made out to Corex and Koos from Papenfus Deliveries wanted to pick it up. I then said but then they should both know who and what Corex was - why the same stupid question over and over again?
"That's the way we coloureds tell another person that if a waybill is not made out in your name - then you don’t get the parcel and anyway it will be an hour before you can collect your parcel", he said and then discovered that the courier guy slipped out with the Corex parcel.
Long story short I was back at Subaru Somerset and an impatient Jacques by about seven!
And just after eight we fired up and left Danie and his wife standing shaking their heads as we drove down the road - clutch screaming in protest!
Mr Expert assured me that that noise would go away once the slightly thicker setup settled in and needless to say it did!
He also fitted another power steering pump and it pumped out all the oil before we were out of Danie's clean workshop!
At least we were going again - but if there is something as "suspiciously driving" then we were suspiciously on our way to Caledon to the guesthouse we usually stay in on rallies.
Early next morning we were out checking and re-calling stages.
Read More about the stages and our escapades, tomorrow.
Allow me to thank Subaru South Africa and their friendly helpful dealer Danie Hefer in Somerset-west and a special thanks to all the cyclists who delayed our parts for two hours!
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The Schalk Burger/ Armand du Toit Toyota S2000
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p.s. Schalk Burger Junior is out of hospital and has to wear braces for a while - but further on he is in working condition!
We are all so pleased that he is OK after a hell of a scare he gave us all.
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