Smashcat's Phakisa Adventure - A Tale In Many Words 

The mountain folk decided to visit the rolling grasslands of the OFS for the annual GTi Challenge away race. Now, as you all know, from Cape Town to anywhere of any significance is always a round trip of at least 2000km which is why we are hardly ever seen out of our native habitat. But once a year a few brave and foolhardy VW drivers venture from our comfortable Killarney hunting grounds to seek a new challenge. A bit of extra cash in the kitty this year allowed us to help with the travel costs which meant 26 of our finest headed off to Phakisa. A few of the more affluent among us were able to get there in those new-fangled flying machines, the rest of us settling for more traditional four wheeled beasts of burden. In my case, a seat in an 18 seater Merc van for 13 hours there and 14 hours back. Not a highlight in my life.

We left Cape Town on Thursday evening after having been at work all day. The first few hours were very social with a few drinks to get the trip off to a good start but by midnight the novelty had well and truly worn off. Now I know why my kids always say “are we there yet” when we are only just past Bellville. If you are the driver, long distance is cool. If you are a passenger (on a seat as comfortable as “Old Sparky”) long distance is just a pain in the arse – literally.

Friday 8.00am, we arrive at Phakisa to find that the folks who managed to get there early for the first practice session at 8.00am can’t go out for practice until documentation has been completed. The documentation office opens at – yes, 8.00am. Good planning by Phakisa that. More fun was to be had when it turns out that a significant number of the drivers’ entry forms are nowhere to be found. At first we are told that they “obviously” haven’t sent them in. On producing the fax received from Phakisa showing the entries, they run around like headless chickens to no avail. The forms have been misplaced. Eventually that is all sorted out by getting the affected drivers to fill in new forms. Problem solved – or so we thought. It turns out that the time-keepers have not been given the correct entry lists either and have consequently not brought enough transponders. Side-bar for a moment: Is it a pre-requisite for timekeepers to be smug, self-important, miserable bastards? I don’t get it. If you are so unhappy doing it, why do it? I thought it was unique to Killarney, but clearly not. Anyway, after a bit of diplomatic discussion with the deity in his ivory tower we manage to sort that mess out by sharing transponders with some of the 2 hour entrants and now it’s on to the enjoyable bits.

OK, so the admin at Phakisa may not be brilliant, but the track certainly is. The first practice session is a jaw-dropping, wide eyed moment for most of us. We are used to 5 corners connected by a few long straights. This track is insane! Never ending corners that tighten up on you leading into more corners with even more corners after that. I spent that first session just learning the layout and trying to get some idea of when to brake and what gear to use. Session 2 is a lot quicker but the learning curve is still as steep as the side of Table Mountain. Session 3, the final one before qualifying, is now time to try for a bit of all-out speed. And that is when I discovered the limits of my personal car-driver combination in the famous sweep. Flat in 5th is fine for the first part, not the second part. A bumpy and lengthy off-track excursion follows with the track only being re-entered just before the hairpin right-hander. Other than that, the only other brown pants moment is a hairy, sideways entry into turn 2 after trying to brake too late. Qualifying is ok, but not as quick as I had hoped. Even though it is 900m longer than Killarney it still feels crowded for some reason, but that is just the unfamiliar track playing mind games with me I suppose. I qualified 25th out of 33 and 6th in class C which is not great but I can work with it. Finally its off to the B&B for a much needed shower and change of clothes and then off to the bright lights of Welkom for a meal and a few glasses of muscle relaxant before a reasonably early night in what felt like the most comfortable bed in the world.

Saturday is an early start as our first race is at 8.00am. A bit more running around sorting out the final grid with the ever morose timekeeper keeps me occupied until its time to race. I’m sitting on the grid and realize that I have forgotten to ask the crucial question, what is the start procedure here? I’m at the tail end of the field and cannot see what is going on at the front. Then I realize that I’m being an idiot. There is a huge bank of lights over the start grid. No doubt they will go on then off in Grand Prix style. Nothing happens. I am still sitting staring at the lights when the cars in front of me take off and I’m left sitting like a Christmas turkey on a plate, luckily in gear but with no revs. A few kangaroo style hops followed by smoking wheel spin and we’re off. I’m just about last after turn 1 but manage to grab back a few places under braking into turn 2. And after this it’s a bit of a blur. I remember cars flying off the track left right and centre but I somehow avoided all the track ballet and towards the end of the race found myself in battle with Andrea Bates, who came flying past me on the back straight but then was slow through the sweep so I dived inside at the hairpin to regain the place. But her car was obviously making quite a bit more power than mine so she blasted past again on the main straight. I gave it all I had to keep up with her planning to try the same trick after the sweep again but I didn’t have to as she was clearly aware of my dastardly plan and tried to keep it too tight on the exit of the sweep and lost the back of the car. I managed to avoid her and was mighty relieved when I saw the chequered flag and realized that it had been the last lap. The result was a very pleasing 3rd place in class C having beaten some of the more fancied opposition and having beaten my qualifying time by 1,5 seconds.

Our second race was at 11.00am so there was only time to do a quick car inspection, have a quick snack and drink and then sort out the grid for heat 2. At least this time I knew that I had to watch the cars further up the grid at the start. But I still fluffed it and was passed by a few cars into turn 1. I decided that this was the time to throw caution to the wind and give it all I had. If I went home with a bent car, so be it. I spent the first 3 laps chasing down a large pack of class C and slower class B cars. I eventually got onto the tail of this bunch of about 10 cars and proceeded to have the most awesome race of my life. Again, the details are a blur, but I remember we were three abreast through a few of the corners and you could have covered all ten cars with a blanket. I realized afterwards that racing isn’t really about lap times, its about balls-to-the-wall dicing with a bunch of other cars millimeters away and just a twitch away form losing it all. My final position was 5th in class but because of the small time differences between all of us, I still managed to get 3rd overall for the day. Never have I been so pleased to get a R2.99 piece of gold coloured plastic. A great end to a brilliant days racing. The car never missed a beat, the car and I were in 1 piece and I had given it horns!

Of course Saturday night was spent reliving and retelling our race tales over a good meal and plenty of Jack D. Some of the more intrepid (and younger) folk went off to chat up the local gals at the nearby teeny-bopper joint while the more mature (old farts) went off to club duvet. We had to be up at 5am for the long trek south and there is only one thing worse than a 14 hour trip in a Merc torture chamber and that is to do it with a hang-over.

©Rob Gillman