BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW??
author: Leon Botha
One has got to realise that we are supposed to be part of a rainbow nation and I suppose at the same time be content to accept that certain things are more "normal" in South Africa that anywhere else in the world!
At the same time it is also true that many people have lost huge sums of money be saying "I will bet you a million Rand this or that will nevva evva happen!"
I think - especially if you know the parties involved you will agree that you may have been willing to bet a few Rand on the fact that the following would never, ever happen?
After knowing each other for only a short while a certain person and I had an argument about who was in motorsport the longest - probably after I told him that he did not know his ankle from his elbow as far as that was concerned? I won the argument and proved my point not only on paper! What else did you expect?
The controversial characters on both sides ensured some serious action for as long as I could remember and notwithstanding me beating the hell out of some of "his" drivers he stuck to his guns and served as a 'handicap' in my career. Nothing new - at least I knew where I stood - and he showed incredible loyalty to those in his team.
We worked together on many aspects, even while both played the man instead of the ball more often than not - and together we organised a very nice sponsorship deal for a professional soccer team - something that they screwed up themselves later on. Thinking back about this and looking at the World Cup currently - this was where I should have stayed and I would have driven a Merc S723 GtB FLT with bullet proof petrol cap and tinted windows and all?
Then we had about ten thousand arguments and fights behind the scenes and some on stage for the whole world to see - but when the chips were really down we always decided to forget all else in the interest of rallying - he assisted me all the way to get the then "Total Rally" that was that year called "Rally of the Great North" or something like that - together again.
Huge fights - donner und blitzen but we got the whole thing sorted out and the rally proved a success.
We have been at loggerheads about many things and only a deaf, blind psychopath will believe that we have had our last argument - but if you bet your money on that he would never be appointed as scribe for Rallystar - you are in a bit of trouble.
You will from now on see regular contributions by Andries van der Walt on the Rallystar website and we trust that his many years of experience in and around motorsport, also as manager of one of the biggest motorsport sponsorship budgets, even longer years in journalism and in general - his overall experience will help us to get the word to more and more people.
Andries has started with Rallystar today and we will in future let you know more about the various aspects we will include in our portfolio in order to assist you and promote the sport.
It has been impossible for me to keep up with the load over the past year or so and I feel that I have neglected the popular Rallystar website more often than not. This was also the reason why we did actually lose readers sporadically and why I sometimes had to concentrate on producing a number of articles over two or three weeks before I got the reader numbers back to where they should have been.
So, here we go - let us see where the new development will take us and I truly hope that you will enjoy Rallystar even more as we will now extend our reporting to more facets of motorsport?
Andries will publish regular motorsport updates - combinations of news from various disciplines of the sport and I have no doubt that he will bring you some news right from the horses mouth?
Welcome Andries and goodness helps us all…
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