Tales from my neck of the woods...

[porsche tech]

Can you write with an accent…love the South African accent! Looking forward to more stories.

[JackStand]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Umhlanga Rocks. I like it there. The cliff and the beautiful vista. Is the great swimming pool complex near Kings Park still there? The water slide was haha dangerous fun.

Speaking of dangerous, I was sitting in the pool and I could hear Nelson Mandela speaking to the Zulu people in Kings Park. That would have been about 1989/1990 I guess. Drove up as far north as Richard's Bay too.

The pool near Kingspark is still there, albeit dilapidated from what I hear. I think they took the slide down. Haven't been that way in a while. The country has gone through enormous changes since the ANC took power.

[JackStand]

Originally Posted by porsche tech

Can you write with an accent…love the South African accent! Looking forward to more stories.

LOL, I always thought the SA accent was a tad daft.

[JackStand]

Anyway, back to talking about my track days, as this might help someone thinking about doing something similar at a track near you. We started off with 10 to 15 super cars renting the track on Sundays about ten years ago. We ran it very bare bones, no ambulance, track marshals, nothing. Hell, we didn't even wear helmets, running the event along the model of a sedate advanced driving course, with little or no regard to safety. However, as with life in general, things started changing. The participants wanted something to eat at lunch time, the residents around the track complained about the noise from the track on Sundays, so we got moved to Saturdays at double the cost for renting the track and we got the Lions club who owns a little cafeteria at the track to open and cater for us selling cheap burgers and coffee. Financially it wasn't really making any sense to anyone, but everyone involved enjoyed the event so much, we kinda just continued our little events and turned a blind eye to the financial viability of such a small event.

The track owner, Uncle Dez, liked our little group of enthusiasts and the cars we were bringing to the track. We started introducing safety measures like making helmets compulsory, renting a medical response vehicle and employing professional track marshals, all small scale and on skeleton staff as we were growing. All throughout, we kept the event private and exclusive, by invitation only. Some people thought we were snobs, but it wasn't like that. We were playing with big $$$ cars and didn't want to risk running open track days with hotshot drivers in claptrap backyard jobbies taking unnecessary chances slicing up F12s, 488's and GT3's for bragging rights.

And so we grew our support structure. We increased the number of track marshals on duty, got a professional motorsport commentator, Len, with a fine playlist of good old school rock & roll music keeping the event pumping, a barista serving proper cappuccinos & espressos throughout the day and the Lions Cafe serving burgers and cold beverage. For lunch we have an authentic curry buffet, or a few lambs on the spit with salads and whatnot as side dishes. For our event this past weekend we also had official live timing with transponders.

At times when the budget allowed, we also included some lunch time side shows like the local Royal Caledonian Scottish Pipe Band, some drift car displays and a model F16 Jet Aircraft display doing some amazing tricks...

Our usual entries are around 50 cars, 2 drivers per car permitted. Our Dezzi track day this past weekend pulled 80 entries by invite and ran like clockwork and incident free, but I think it was a small fluke, we will probably level out around 60 entries per event from now on. For me it's a labour of love. This is not a club and at the risk of sounding condescending, I make all the rules and decisions. No Committee and no need to attend any meetings prior to the event. I have my entire support structure in place and they know how I want things done. Organising the whole event doesn't even take much time out of my daily routine, I set up the whole event with a few WhatsApp messages in the evenings leading up to each event.

And it's dirt cheap for the entries. ZAR 2000.00 per car. (that's about US$ 110.00 at today's rate). Not sure whether you could pull that off in your country, but right now over here, I can and do. Entry fee includes the car with 2 drivers permitted. A goodies bag with trinkets and vouchers, 2 x T event T shirts per entry, 2 x breakfast, coffee and lunch vouchers per entry.... We have a local tyre fitment company, TyreMart, on hand to alter tyre pressures and torque wheels. Also have our own event memeber supplying race fuel and topping up cars on demand.

We market the event as a "Family Track Day". Bring your car, bring your family, fun for everyone. Want your kid to sit in a Ferrari, no problem. Want to sit as a passenger for a few hot laps in a GT3, no problem as long as you sign an indemnity. The whole idea is not to take the man away from his family for a track day, but to include the whole family for the event. I also offer driver coaching to participants where possible, novice, intermediate and advanced, all the way up to mastering slip angle driving.

We run 20 minute sessions per group...

Class - A - Advanced. These are very experienced drivers used to racing against each other, so the marshals are instructed not to interfere with overtaking and passing manoeuvres.

Class - B & C - Intermediate. No dive-bombing into corners allowed. That, and a few other minor rules.

Class - D - Beginners, kids, lady drivers and first-timers. No overtaking allowed whatsoever. If you catch a slower car, you slow down, create a gap and start catching up again. This is intended as a class for the next generation track drivers to sample the sport in a safe manner, without being intimidated by fast drivers bombing around them. Driver coaching on hand. This class is really working like a charm.

So that's how I conduct my track events, I will follow up with some pics...

[JackStand]

[JackStand]

This car here, F12 Ferrari. I remember when it was brand new, my mate G just bought it and brought it to one of our Dezzi track days less than a month into ownership. He came from a 458 and he could drive the wheels off that thing, but the F12 was front engine and far more powerful, so he was having to get used to the F12 and unsure of the car's limits, so after drivers briefing he asked me to take him for a few laps to explore the car. Problem was, we partied hard the night before and I was nursing a hangover the size of Texas. Took my GT4 out for a few laps and really started feeling green. Back in the pit a greasy bacon & egg breakfast burger plus a Red Bull kinda got me orientated.

But the F12 was still parked off and G still nagging me. I kept putting him off waiting to gather myself up. The 4th time he came to ask me to come drive the F12 he lost patience and dragged me by the arm to the car. So, I got in. Adjusted the seat. Adjusted the steering wheel. On a F12 you can also adjust the pedal box, so I started doing that. Then I started synchronizing adjustments in increments with the seat, steering wheel and pedal box. G started getting edgy "Geesh man, I never knew you to be that anal about driving position?" - I'm not, I was buying time for my hangover, LOL.

Six laps later we had the thing dancing at the limit, what a hoot to drive. You'd expect understeer. Nope no understeer. You'd expect the thing to be really tail happy considering the power it makes, none of that either, no real deficiencies you can't drive around. Fantastic chassis.

[JackStand]

[KFC911]

The next time I'm in South Africa .... I insist upon a ride along in something .... your pick !

Awesome thread...

[astrochex]

Jack, super impressive event you have built. I hope it continues for many happy years.

Family inclusion is the genius element.

[JackStand]

Originally Posted by KC911

The next time I'm in South Africa .... I insist upon a ride along in something .... your pick !

Awesome thread...

You are most welcome sir.

[JackStand]

Originally Posted by astrochex

Jack, super impressive event you have built. I hope it continues for many happy years.

Family inclusion is the genius element.

Thank you, Paul. It's about giving back and paying forward to the next generation in my mind. I have been fortunate to drive many special cars in my life and I've raced for a long time. I don't believe in ballads and crappy attitudes in the pits. Whenever I see a guy with his kid peeking into a car I'm involved with, I encourage the kid to get in and sit in the car. The parent would look at me and say "really?" and I would say sure, get in. Out comes the phone for a great photo op with the kid in the car, sometimes they are so small they can't even see over the dash, but the look on their faces is priceless and I can just imagine how they discuss the experience with friends and family afterwards.

[JackStand]

We put out this digital poster on WhatsApp in the beginning of the year when we confirmed dates with the track...

[JackStand]

Durban has the largest Indian Community outside of India. It's a legacy of the British Imperial Empire, they were exported here to work in the sugar cane plantations. They even had Mahatma Gandhi here in South Africa, but he managed his way back to India to do great things for his nation. You probably know bits and pieces of this slice of history, even if you don't know all of it in detail.

Move ahead a few hundred years. I've always had Indian friends from an early age. Most of my friends are Indian and when we get together, I'm often the only white dude around. That doesn't bother me in the slightest bit. One thing I've learned though, these dudes love cars and have a few favourite cars they like to modify. They are specialists and VW / Audi are what they're good at it. They will modify anything from a Golf 1 to a Golf 7R to knock the socks of most Super Cars, so around here if your line up next to one of these things at a traffic light, make sure you have the latest 911 Turbo S underneath you with some software, or you gonna get your ass handed to you on a platter.

So I've always wanted to do one of these for the hell of it, but I know nothing about these cars. Recently one of my friends dumped one of these jobbies, a Golf 7.5R, in my lap with a generous budget to make it look nice and make it super quick for his son, I had to learn real quick. Currently it is still a work in progress with some suspension setup required. It's going to be a circuit / streetcar.

With current mods it absolutely murdered one of my other creations, a Porsche GT4 with headers and software. Performance of the 7R is kinda wow, but I need to figure out spring rates & coilovers.

So what you're witnessing here is an old tappet like me, 64 years old, doing a snot nose pocked rocket mods, with style. I slammed it, wrapped it, put splitters, side skirts and rear diffuser. Akkrapovic back box, down pipe with cat delete, kept the stock turbo for now but upgraded the charge pipes for future mods. Turbo Muffler delete & intake elbow, Modified intake with 100mm intake.

Front mounted Intercooler, Oil Cooler & Gearbox cooler. ECU tune & DSG software tune. And for the hell of it, a Methanol Injection Kit. Lol.

It's a hoot.

This is a fantastic little chassis. I will let you know how things go and post some more pics in due course.

[thingmon]

Sweet. All I know about SA is from Michener’s The Covenant and District 9. Also a lurker.

[JackStand]

Here's a 930 Turbo story for you…

One of my mates, Allan, had two 911s. A spectacularly good looking pale blue metallic 993 in RS trim (I believe the colour was Palette Green), beige interior, one of 16 of the last 993s ever produced. Jerry Seinfeld owned a blue one from this limited edition. Allan wanted me to take him around Zwartkops Raceway (Near Pretoria) in this car. I refused. The car was just too nice to track it. Besides, if anything had to go wrong, I'd go down in history as the idiot who crashed one of these special cars.

But Allan also had a pristine 930 Turbo, tuned by my long-time friend Mario in JHB. A 930 turbo at idle when warmed up will sound like it's playing the bongos through the exhaust note. You probably haven't heard that, because there ain't many properly tuned 930s around, but trust me, Allan's 930 could play the bongos to a crescendo that would fit perfectly into a Carlos Santana hit song...

So, I took Allan around Zwartkops in his 930 instead of his 993. Those days I was racing 250 Superkarts and the turbo kick from the 930 was similar to the 2-stroke 250 twin - rather violent - but if you timed the boost to hit under the ass as you hit the apex of a corner, you slingshot outta there like a bat outta hell. It's a freaking blast, trust me. By lap five I was in full swing and I really enjoyed the car, but Allan signalled me to return to the pits. He got out of the car, sat down on the ground and had a heart attack, right there. The aftermath was a mess. He had two no-good sons and a real money-grabbing B of a wife who climbed into his estate like vultures whilst he was fighting for his life in hospital. I was made out to be the villain who put him in hospital...

Anyway, Allan pulled through and passed away a few years later. And that was that. No moral of the story, just some memories.

[JackStand]

This is the only pic I have of Allan’s 993. I wish I had more. Perhaps the most beautiful 911 I have ever laid eyes on. It truly was a thing of beauty. Not sure what happened to the car after Allan passed away, chased after it, but info was very sparse. I suspect it went to a European collector.

[JackStand]

Originally Posted by thingmon

Sweet. All I know about SA is from Michener’s The Covenant and District 9. Also a lurker.

I hear you. Lurking is way less work, you don't risk getting into arguments and getting into trouble.