The evening before June 26 race meeting I was chatting with my son, aged 6. Ever since I made the mistake of getting myself promoted from class E into class D he’s been somewhat disappointed at the lack of “piston cups” coming into our home. I think he understands how class-based racing works, but he misses the (plastic) silverware. But he has solved everything for me. “I know Dad!” He exclaimed, in the manner of Baldrick about to unveil a sure-fire, dead cert Cunning Plan: “When you’re racing tomorrow, do what they don’t expect you to do! Isn’t that a great idea?” I promised to give it my best shot.
Timed quali was disappointing. I found the track quite slippery at first; after a foggy early morning the track was cold with patches of dew and – as I discovered in a very exciting way – the kerbs were particularly slippery. Coming out of turn 5 a little faster than usual, the car ran wide, put two wheels on the kerb and I found myself dealing with a fair sized tank slapper, destroying what had until then felt like a fairly tidy lap and equally tidy underwear. My best lap was a 1:30.2. Good enough to at least have all of class E behind me, but behind the next car by 0.8 seconds. I put the slightly poor lap times down to a lack of grip and resolved to make amends when the racing started.
Waiting in the pre-race paddock before the first heat I thought that Blossom had a bit of a stutter when revving up from low revs, but it seemed to disappear once the car was warmed up. When heat 1 got under way in earnest, after turn 1, I was behind Jean Fourie (GT40). I chased for a lap and then dived past under braking into turn 5. It was a very satisfying move, but not a lasting one, because Jean’s car has twice as many cylinders, more than three times the engine capacity and about a hectare more tyre rubber than my car, and he re-claimed the position en route to turn 1. In turn 2 I once again dived inside under braking and held the position until the back straight, where Jean once again drove away from me, and this time stayed away.
Towards the end of the heat, Hennie Trollip (Lotus 7 replica) reeled me in and proceeded to drive away from me. By the time the checkered flag fell, Paul Schwartz’s CAV GT40 was getting worryingly close. I was concerned to see Blossom’s water temperature reading less than normal on the cool down lap, and there was some ominous coughing and spluttering as I pulled into parc ferme, and reluctance to run smoothly at low revs.
Back at the pits everything looked normal. No clouds of steam, coolant level normal, fan belt in place and everything looking healthy. The alternator was still connected (at the previous week’s practice a disconnected alternator caused uneven running), water temperature appeared normal and I could not see anything untoward. The car seemed to be running normally. Feeling slightly uneasy I went off to get some lunch and think over what was wrong with the car. None the wiser, I decided to get back to the car and run it to check that it started easily, ran smoothly and reached and held normal operating temperature.
Very soon I head a knocking noise, which was being caused by the alternator doing a shimmy. The bracket which supports the alternator against the engine block had come away from the block. Of the three bolts which should support it, there was only sign of one, and it was not a good sign: a sheared bolt, flush with the block.
With a great deal of good natured help from Louis de Jager, chairman of the WPMC Sports and GT section, I fitted a bolt to hold the bracket in place. That little task necessitated removing the fan belt (very easy) and replacing it (not at all easy). With time very much against me, I re-fitted Blossom’s nose cone, topped up her tank, emptied mine and leapt into my race suit. In the panic to not miss the race I did not get my video camera in place. I roared off to the pre-race paddock, found my spot on the grid, or something very close to it, and did my best to calm down before the start of the race.
At the start, I made up a position or two, and managed to get ahead of Hennie Trollip (Lotus 7 replica), Andre Brink (Porsche 993 RS) and Jean Fourie (CAV GT40). Andre managed to get past me before the end of the first lap, with Jean close behind. The rest of the race was a mighty tussle between me and Jean. Every lap I would close the gap to Jean’s car to inches in turn 5 and turn 1. Twice I tried to drive around the outside of Jean’s car going through turn 2, and once I very nearly made it stick before Jean managed to get a nose ahead and close the door just before the kink between turns 2 and 3. I’m deeply disappointed that I did not get video footage from the race; although it would have been mostly 7 laps of the back of a GT40 getting alternately small and large.
The really good part of the second heat was the confirmation that the wobbly alternator had indeed been the cause of the slight lack of power. Lap times were better, even allowing for the fact that I was in a race-long dice, engine temperature was back where I expect it to be and the coughing and spluttering had disappeared.
“Hot snot, we’re back in business!”
Quali: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1PnTGjWg1k
Heat 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJVtIPl2kK4
(Photo credit Jason Weeks of the Cape Town Photographic Society, http://www.ctps.co.za)
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