Quote:
Originally Posted by metal manny
Welcome Geoff.
'Spent many happy youthful days at Kyalami - sadly it's not the same nowdays.
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Manny,
When I heard that the SCC had decimated the track by selling the ground from Leeukop to Barbeque I couldn't believe it.
My brother sent me details of the 'new' circuit, and I just thought Micky Mouse and the end of one of the fastest F1 circuits. Sacrilege
Two challenging corners gone, for me at least, namely Leeukop and Barbeque.
Leeukop - I wasn't the only driver to find this one difficult to conquer. Uphill right hander with the exit tightening onto that lovely long very very fast straight. I got this corner right about one in five. Frustrating but oh so rewarding when I did get it right, as the car flew out onto the straight and I would be 200-300 revs up along the straight!
Scrubbing off too much speed the other four attempts?!
Barbeque - TippyToe corner as it was the bumpiest one, relatively speaking, and fast having come out of Crowthorne and heading downhill. With stiff suspension the car used to behave like a bucking bronco, or that's how it felt.
My favourite corners where Sunset and The Esses.
Sunset - a slight downhill long sweeping blind right hander, cut into the side of a slope, with a concrete wall on the right a few feet from the track - get this corner wrong and you had a 90% chance of writing your car off either against that wall or rolling off down that slope, as I saw many times during my time as a TMA Flag Marshall at Clubhouse Corner.
That concrete wall on the inside acted like a magnet.
That wall nearly caught me during a Saturday afternoon open practice. Came round flat as usual and got the left wheels just kissing the Transvaal dirt and that *#%* wall saying 'come to me' as I went into a lurid slide, heading straight towards it!
Don't know if it's ever happened to you or anyone else on the Forum, but in situations like this everything sloooows dooown as the brain kicks into mega-drive, and to this day I remember the whole sequence:
"Oh s**t if I don't catch this slide I will have to spin the car to stop hitting that wall!" full opposite lock on by then of course.
During marshalling I saw one driver freeze in the same circumstance and T-bone the wall and another hit the wall and roll about six times, so I knew what would happen if I did nothing - one written of car!
Well the next thing I remember was the car coming to a rest facing the wrong way towards Sunset, I obviously caught it but not the return spin :-) Remember this is a blind exit to any driver coming through, and as I came to a rest a huge black Ford Capri V6 came barreling into sight! We saw each other at the same time, the Capri twitching as the driver decided if I was still spinning or not and which side to pass me, my car having stalled of course being on carbs.
A few seconds getting started and reverse off the track PDQ and back on, to the delight of the crowd in the SCC Clubhouse Enclosure!
The Esses - late entry into the first part, as the second corner was tighter than 90%.
Every time I went into the second corner I wondered what the result would be if the front left collapsed, the barrier a couple of feet away, as the exit of this nicely banked corner changed from level to heading skywards up the steep rise towards my bogey corner, so massive forces on the suspension.
I loved The Esses as I soon found that I could 'pitch' the car sideways into the first corner and have a really nice run at the second.
Good days indeed.
Geoff - no sun today