Historic Racing Kyalami Race report / videos 9/5/2015

[4agedub]

On Saturday we had the 3rd round of the Historic Tour at the legendary Kyalami Grand Prix circuit. What made this event even more nostalgic is that this was the last time we would race on the track in it's current format. Kyalami was bought by Porsche last year and they have some big plans, some of which are to change the circuit layout. (I think to accommodate factory testing)

We arrived at the track around 5:30am, quickly sorted the paperwork and then went off to scruiteneering. It's always funny that every track's technical inspector will look at different items of concern... at the last event it was safety harness clips, this time the dry sump tank inside the car.... but anyway passed inspection and the car was ready for Quali.

Qualifying at 7am 12'c (54'f) track temperature.

I went out for quali on a relatively cold track. I knew getting temperature into the tires quickly will not be easy. Did one sighting lap and then went for it. First flying lap 2:09.71, 2nd flying lap better with a 2:06.74 and the 3rd flying lap 2:04.69 which I felt was good enough. This got us 8th on the grid and 5th in class for Race 1.

Race 1




Race 1. Two of the front runners did not make it to the grid, so we started in 6th on the grid. We got a pretty good start, but slowly got picked off by the faster cars that did not have a good quali. The race was pretty un event full until the end. The black escort spun and I managed to gain that position back. We had a super dice with a Pinto engined Ford Escort. His car had seem to loose power towards the end. On the last lap four corners from the finish line I made my move. Kudos to the other driver... he gave me more than enough space and I managed to stick the pass and finish 3rd in class and 6th overall. This is what racing is all about. Good clean racing!!! (Engine max oil temp 194'f, fastest lap time 2:04,32)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Z0BZoD1EE


Race 2


Race 2. Not so good start. I was so focused on the cars around me that the car just touched the RPM limiter... 8000rpm!! The race started off un event full and again I got picked off by the faster cars. I managed to stay with the more power full guys until we got stuck behind a Datsun 280Z. The black and the red escort managed to pass the Datsun fairly quick which left me hanging behind it for a couple of laps. I tried several times to pass the Datsun only for him to get on the power on the straight and regain the position. FRUSTRATING!!!! We are not even in the same class. The red escort made a mistake which let the beetle and the datsun through. Going down the mineshaft with only two laps to go I made my move again, first on the right hand side which got blocked off (and I almost spun the beetle) and then on the left. The datsun lost so much speed trying to defend the inside line that I managed to make the pass around the outside. The red escort on my tail trying to make the same move. We all went through the right hand corner clean and then carnage behind me. The datsun moved over to the right hand side with the red escort next to him and they collided. I backed off my racing speed as there was no one close and finished 4th on the track and 2nd in class.
(Engine max oil temp 200'f, fastest lap time 2:05,88)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mFdjXWylcw


Incident footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7YY0nKA82A


2nd overall in class for the two races. The result was way better than what we expected.... and we went home with a car that it still in one piece.

[yodogg]

Congratulations! Glad you managed to keep her clean too!

[FJCamper]

Hi 4AgeDub,

I love your videos, and envy your oil temps. We finally got our rectangular oil tank properly baffled, and our oil temps went down, but not
as much as I'd like. I am adding a 2nd cooler (finned tube type) to our system on the return side which doesn't create the pressure drop a
MESA-type cooler would cause.

The photo above shows that our endurance drivers think they are in sprints. The two inside wheels are actually just off the pavement. With
a faster and better lens you would not see the faint shadowing linking the tires and road.

FJC

[4agedub]

It's been a long road to get to those oil temps. I simply could not come right with the setrab coolers. Have you tried spraying water on the coolers to aid in cooling?

Your endurance car is simply awesome!!! We only run two sprint races on a race weekend, totaling at around 55 miles. And even at that kind of race distance we have had plenty reliability issues. This year has been good to us... it seems like the smaller engine is more tolerant to the abuse.