Endurance Karting Event
The Volkswagen Club of South Africa have some sweet events, like this last one held at Zwartkops Raceway dubbed ‘Gymkarting’. It’s not an incorrect spelling of gymkhana and it’s also not a bunch of gym bunnies playing with shopping trolleys. It’s two events in one – racing karts on a kart track followed by racing cars on a kart track. Actually, come to think of it, I have no clue where the ‘gym’ part comes in. When the big cars get to play on the track it’s more along the line of an autocross event. But that’s all semantics, the main point of the event is to have fun and that’s exactly what was had. The karting section happened first with 11 teams entered into an endurance kart race lasting a few hours. The teams went by some strange names but if you’ve ever interacted with these guys online or seen these guys in person, you’d understand where the weirdness comes in. The teams were Team Yahsus, Team Stop Dit, Grumpy Catt & Grant, Team GW Delarey, Team Revo, Team Wulfpups, Team TWS, Team #TTS, Team Cabbage, Team Moving Chicane and Team HI-Ace.
Some teams were bigger in size than others, that goes for amount of members and also size of the members. As with most forms of motorsport, power to weight is the key ingredient in going fast but for some reason when it comes to karts that’s not always the case. Sometimes the skinny guys get themselves a slow kart and no matter what, catching up becomes a bit of a mission. I mention that because it did happen on the day and a kart needed to be swapped out – again, that’s the nature of this game we call racing. The guys were on track for 15-minute sessions at a time and the object was to get in as many laps as possible. It’s a lot harder than it sounds though. These karts are kidney killers and the way you end up holding onto the steering wheel so tight your forearms can cramp up worse than a pubescent teen that’s just discovered internet porn and the bathroom door key.
There were no real incidents on track bar a spin out or two, which could either be because the guys are all pros or they’re like me and scared of pain, something that tends to keep me in line when that little voice inside tells me to try and do silly things. The race kicked off at 09:55 and ran until 12:41, which was a long enough stint to see the winning team in Kart 1 rack up 110 laps of the one kilometer course. Actually, the 2nd place team in Kart 7 also racked up a total of 110 laps, but clocked in just 28.943-seconds later, narrowly missing victory. Grumpy Catt & Grant (Neuk and Brotiform on the VW Club forum) took the win. Well done guys!
Gymkhana-ish Heads-Up-ish Cars on Track Event
The kart track is pretty tight when you’re in a kart, and even tighter when you’re in a car. There have been a few car-related incidents over the years on the track and from there legend seems to have grown making this an event for the brave. This may explain why there weren’t as many entries as expected but at the same time, the field of cars that did enter was more than enough to keep the spectators and cameramen (that’s me!) entertained for the duration of this section of the event.
The field of cars was great and spanned not only the VAG stuff but there were also a bunch of other marques seen giving it their all on the hot, hot tarmac. BMW, Suzuki, Toyota, Daihatsu, Nissan and Subaru mixed it up with the Volkswagens, Audis and SEATS. The guys were giving it horns, like properly, because that’s what happens when a bunch of machines that are propelled forwards at a rapid rate all get together, someone wants to be the fastest of the lot. Club chairman Ian Foat summed it up perfectly when he addressed the competitors: “Remember guys, this is all in the name of fun” closely followed by “We’ll have committee members keeping times at the top and there will be a prize for the fastest of the day…”
The cars were given the chance to have two runs on the track starting from the same spot and sort of running heads up, except the layout of the track allows the guys to launch next to each other in the same direction like a normal rally cross start, except they’re actually driving on the same track at the same time in the same direction – yeah, that’s a little confusing and I only managed to understand how it would work it when I saw it start because the explanation beforehand was slightly higher grade. The two runs were timed and added together and this gave a list of results (that you’ll find after the next set of pics).
The fastest car of the day was the black Subaru driven by Anton Wannenberg with a total of 1:55.37, the fastest non-club member of the day was Marco Van Der Schyff in an E36 328i BMW and top honours for a VW Club member went to VAG Technik’s Jody Ponnusami in his Mk5 GTi.
A word from the VW Club Chairman, Ian Foat (lifted from the VWCSA Forum):
“First off, thank you to everyone that came through to Zwartkops to enjoy the karting and gymkhana with us! A great turnout! The karting session in the morning was really fun to watch, and the competitive nature of our club was really apparent – some great wheel to wheel racing! There were more passes made than the entire season of F1 a couple of years back. I watched a few battles, Nic vs Sugen, Jody vs everybody and a few other I couldn’t place who the drivers were. Well done to Nic and Grant for taking the overall win, they walked away with a 2014 DubRun hamper.
With the karting out the way, it was on to gymkhana. We decided to change things up a bit, and with the help of Anton from GymkhanaSA, we set up some head to head racing, I must say, it was great to watch! Anton’s Scooby really set the tone, and the time. We only had one incident, with Corne’s Golf 7R locking up through the last corner, however, the only thing damaged was the grass and some safety tyres needed some re-arranging. He’s fine and so is the car, thank goodness.
A real special thanks to the following people:
1. The Comm SOs – Tash & Terisha for helping out all day – Thanks for sticking it out and helping us keep things going.
2. My Comm team, you guys rocked! All day in the sun until the bitter end. Where some might have packed up and gone home, you guys stuck it out and made sure we had another epic event. I’m forever grateful!
3. Some of the older faces; Navern, Stu, Ryan, Nic… Thanks for pulling through (if I missed you and didn’t get a chance to say hi – Hi!)
4. To the weather – THANK YOU FOR NOT RAINING!
Finally to Jody, Sugen and Shaun from VAG Technik, thank you for sponsoring the day and being part of the racing. Thank you for your continued support of our club. The fastest Club Driver wins themselves a GREAT Speed & Sound hamper sponsored by Speed & Sound Magazine – Thanks to Stefan and SnS for that.”
Tasty Rides
The full gallery can be found at:
