Different moments for different pleasures
author: Leon Botha
Think back to a few of these occasions in life – if you are around fifty this is for you, if forty, leave out the first paragraph, if younger, don’t bother you guys missed all the good times, the good music, the good safe sex, the nice cars with no handling, the Valiants – cars that would stop once only per day from anything over 140 to 20 (it only stopped completely after hitting a solid object), the real Cooper S’s, the Gordini’s, the cops driving Larks, speed traps being manned by two guys hiding behind two different bushes armed with stopwatches, using a pre-calculated form that said: If customer does distance between stripes in 5 seconds he travelled at 30 miles an hour, if customer only took 4.8 seconds he contravened the law, write out ticket for R5. If person with dikwiel Phillips bicycle takes only 4.5 seconds catch him for the Springbok team that will be doing the 2004 Olympics when apartheid will only be blamed for what goes wrong.
A Philips dikwiel was an off road bicycle, very much like the present 4x4 that gets used on tar only. The wheels were designed for when the driver, that was the guy that sat in the saddle, not according to popular believe the other three occupants, had to travel in thick sand. Dikwiel means “broad wheel” and we later copied this concept when we cut our car rims in half and then welded a 2-inch strip of any metal we could find between the two off-cuts.
Nobody told us that we had to fit wider tyres on the new homemade wide-rims. This of course brings us to another of those moments. Remember when you stopped at a T-junction with these brand new rims, not knowing that the welding did not really make it airtight. It must just be said, that before the wide rims, we removed the air cleaner from the carburettor (that was a thing like a robotic jam tin fitted on top of the engine, sometimes it hung on the side, and if you were serious about Mini’s it was inside the car, sucking any loose object right into the engine), anyway the air cleaner was removed for sound effect, the exhaust cut off and re-rooted to come out under the passenger door. This also caused a moment, when the new girlfriend got out of the car and burned her leg against it. You could always easily spot girls who went out with me at varsity. Where was I? Oh yes, the T-junction moment! Not knowing that the wheels were slightly flat, you checked for the traffic, first left, then right, or if you knew the area and the local cops, you did not really check, you simply let fly. This was the first moment you made contact with the term under-steer and of course whatever stood in the road a bit after the end of the T-junction.
An earlier moment we normally had was the first time you forgot you replaced the free wheel cog on your bicycle with a 12 tooth “fixed cog”. This normally happened when you actually wanted to free wheel past the blonde you have been eying for a week, letting fly with the best smile you could manage with the set of standard seven (now grade 9)oversized teeth, then still in your mouth.
The pedals that, because of the fixed cog, would not stop turning simply lifts you out of the saddle and throws you about 10 meters through the air to land on the only rock lying around. The fall is not so bad as the fact that you had to pretend that this was all part of the act. You had to get back on that bike, never mind what was broken or out! You simply had to pretend that you are cool (although the term cool only popped up after everybody around started smoking a mixture of boom and kak).
Then there was the moment ……….. Well lets consider the under 40’s and rather tell you why I like this specific moment.
I like it, and it feels good, as we have eventually appointed people, and nogal nice people to boot, to assist us in what now is really becoming a massive task here at RallyStar®.
We want to bring you the best news, fresh from the motorsport time controls. We want to tell you about every South-African participating in motor sport and later all types of sport.
We are therefore proud to introduce Elaine Porter, Riaan Kruger, Mihai Pop, Alanie Botha and yours truly.
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Leon Botha
Elaine Porter - yes, she is family of the famous ones, but have not met them!
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Elaine has been appointed as RallyStar® relations and competitor liaison person. She will also write a few columns and you are welcome to phone her with news, or e-mail her. Faxing is not allowed but if you really need to, lets have it!
Riaan Kruger handles advertising, marketing, and promotion. You will be seeing a lot of him at events as well, as he will also gather the news we battle to get from you.
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Leon Botha
Riaan Kruger - December sales were not so good!
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Leon Botha
IT Executive and company whiz Mihai Pop
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Our computer whiz kid is Mihai Pop – like his name, he can program – short and sweet. Mihai will sort out the website to suit your and your sponsors needs.
Alanie Botha is responsible for all artwork and design. She has just finished designing the new RallyStar® stickers, T-shirts etc. She also freelances to well known companies and you are welcome to send her lots of work.
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Leon Botha
Alanie Botha - busy sorting out designs
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Yours truly, Leon Botha? Well who knows what the hell I am supposed to do. I have to write an article or two – every day or night and then I have to drive that lovely Subaru Impreza STi with which I won the Group N4 championship last year! Remember? Lets not go there again, certain people still have palpitations from the last event, but wait for this year. That Scooby is going to fly!
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Leon Botha
Your's truly - Leon Botha
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Then I am mainly responsible for the organisation of the RallyStar® competition where Elaine and Alanie plays a major role.
We sincerely hope you will support us, as we will without doubt try to give you the publicity you need to retain sponsors and advance in the sport.
We will soon be handling spectator and competitor hotel bookings etc which we may obtain at special rates. Watch the RallyStar® site.
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