NEVER too old to rock ‘n roll – never too young to dice. This message was loud and clear during Saturdays race day sizzler at the Tony Rust Track, when 18-year old Mark Sternagel driving a BMW 1800 and 50-something Jan Gous in his Mazda RX2, battled it out in the during all three heats that sent sparks flying and smoke pouring off their tyres as they pushed their cars to limit.
Guilliaume Kruger, Francois Smith, Mark Sernagel and Michel Rust were also ahead of their game to win their respective categories. G0 Kart Racing set the pace for the action early in the day, and didn’t disappoint with drivers Francois Smith and Athi Mankonkwana leading their respective classes.
Whilst the spectator turnout was nothing to rave about – racing was. And the 20 entries that lined-up at the starting grid, were serious contenders to notch up that last minute championship point before the curtain closer on December, 7.
Unfortunately the newly re-surfaced race track costing over a half a million bucks, started breaking up, causing a lot of problems for the drivers and stone chip damage to the cars. The slippery surface was no joke for the guys who had a tough time keeping their cars on the track, and racing was nearly stopped in the last heat when Tommy Nasilowsky’s VW Golf did a headlong summersault into the nearby bushes, and fortunately escaped uninjured. And he wasn’t the only one who bit the dust.
By the end of the day, portions of the race track was showing signs of distress with loose stones, and potholes appearing in the high impact areas such the corners where hard driving was experienced. This, coupled with heat and an expected faulty compound did not lend itself too well to super charged racing cars tearing around at high speed, and everyone was feeling it.
According to a disappointed Christiaan Liebenberg , the contractors responsible for laying the new race track, were called in immediately after the race to come and “fix up their mess”.
“We didn’t pay this kind of money to re-surfaced our race track for the benefit of motorsport, to have a botched job,” he fumed.
Meanwhile the Open Drag races the Friday night, was a jolly affair with over 40 cars, bikes and quads entered, which completed a total of 300 runs. Richard Slamet proved to be the ‘King of the Track’ once more, and set the fastest time of the event on his ‘rocket.’
CIRCUIT RACING
Bantams
1st Michel Rust
2nd Marius Botha
3rd Ronald Slamet
Clubmans Class B
1st Mark Sternagel
2nd Jan Gous
3rd Charl Fourie
Clubmans Class C
1st Guilliaume Kruger
Clubmans Class D
1st Francois Smith
2nd Frans Smith
3rd Tommy Nasilowski
KARTING
Maxterino
1st Rhys Cragg
2nd Matthew Strydom
3rd Richie Slamet
Junior Max
1st Athi Mankonkwana
2nd Jay-Dee Kessler
3rd Michael Strydom
Senior Max
1st Gerhard Visser
OVALS
Quads
1st Marnus Byleveld
2nd Enrico Malan
3rd Hein Genis
By Donna Collins