Back to Events Month-end Run - Sunday 27 August, 2006
ANNUAL KARTING CHALLENGEReportback by Gerhard Vorster
We arrived at Constantia in the most beautiful weather, with sunshine and more sunshine all over. GP and I made our way to the Mugg & Bean for a hearty breakfast and were soon joined by Geoff and Jill, Gian and Gerda, Tim, Neil and Genevieve. There were 3 Triumphs in all that started the journey to Kenilworth, namely GT6 (Tim), Spitfire (GP and me) and TR4 (Geoff) and a (plastic) diesel bakkie. All went well until the TR4 broke down on route. We tried to fix it, but to no avail and left Geoff next to the road to wait for Jill and the AA to help. We arrived at the track to find some more drivers - Mike and Nerina, Sean and William and Ronan - already eager and wanting to race. In all there were 10 racers and 2 spectators. Racers were Mike, Nerina, Sean, William, Ronan, Gerhard, GP, Neil, Tim and Gian.
The racing works like this; each person gets two heats of ten laps each, and although you might not "win" you get through to the finals if you have set up one of the best lap times. The real pity and one of the gripes we had was that all the karts were not up to scratch and you were quite severely handicapped when you get into the kart and it's steering doesn't function properly, or when you start the race with the others and see them disappear around the first bend before your kart decides that it also needs to start moving in a forward position and not just sit around with revolutions high, but not moving anywhere!!
Tim, Sean, William, Ronan and Gian made it through to the final 5. These drivers had to draw lots for their karts and in the end it was a closely contested race. Lots of close racing and booing went on throughout the 20-lap race. There were cheers when Gian overtook Ronan, but Ronan, having watched too much of Schumi over the years decided that he was not having any of this and pushed Gian into the tyres. Gian then came back and two laps later overtook Ronan again, and same story again. It was as if Ronan decided that he didn't do a proper job last time and made sure that Gian was going to need marshals to get him out of the tyres this time. Also another dice went on between William and Tim, with William pipping Tim by about 6 inches over the start/finish line.
The final result was as follows: 1st Sean Cameron, 2nd William Cameron, 3rd Tim Cruise, 4th Ronan Sanderson and 5th Gian Mani. Well done guys and watch this space next year as I believe that we will take on the other car clubs as well.