2007 PMCC NOSTALGIC 9 HOUR

PMCC your Premier Model Car Club has been staging a Nine Hour Endurance Race for the last five years. The race is in honour of the cars and driver that raced in the Kyalami Nine Hour held in the 60’s and 70’s. The cars used have always been 1/32nd scale models of cars raced in the era.

The company Fly has always been a good source of cars. For 2007 a new class of racing has been introduced in South Africa, promoted by Allan Patterson of Cape Town and adopted by the South African Model Car Association. The cars are 1/24th scale and all have Classic Style Bodies. All the chassis are identical as are the motors and tyres. As for the Nine Hour the cars had to be cars that could have raced at Kyalami.

This year the 6 entries were:

PMCC A (Ferrari 350 P4 CanAm)
Gustav Heymann
Dawie Van Rooyen
Anthony Bithrey

PMCC B (Porsche 917)
Gert Be Beer
George Pirie Gray
Arie Thoenes

TWR (Ford Mirage)
Tiny Wright
Ian Templeman
Peter Cavanagh
Deon Pirie Gray

Wolfies A (Porsche 908/3)
Andre Venter
Allan White
Johan Van Der Merwe
Andre Stander

Wolfies B (Ferrari 512S)
Eddie Pereira
Carel Buitendag
Carel Buitendag Jnr
Jan Fritz

Cheetahs (Porsche 917)
Philip Hardy
Louis Smit
Lionel Van Manen
Graham Thiele
Thom Byron

The day started with practice from 8:00 to 9:30 followed by Scrutineering and Concourse judging. Gustav Heymann of PMCC A’s Ferrari won Concourse.

The race started at 10:15 with PMCC A going into an immediate lead completing 734 laps in the first 90 minutes, they were followed by PMCC B 705 laps, Wolfies A 666 laps, TWR 634, Wolfies B 633 laps and Cheetahs 587 laps. The second 90 minutes saw PMCC B run into a bit of trouble and slide down the leader board, PMCC A stayed in front and finished the second stint on 1464 laps ahead of Wolfies A 1311 laps, PMCC B1305 laps, TWR 1246 laps Wolfies B 1230 laps and Cheetahs 1222 laps. The third 90 minutes brings us to the half way mark with PMCC A stretching their lead ever further ending the first Four and a half hours on 2145 laps followed by Wolfies A 1992 laps, PMCC B 1944 laps, TWR 1900 laps, Wolfies B 1865 laps and Cheetahs 1858 laps.
The fourth segment of 90 minutes saw a few more gremlins creep in but our lead car although requiring minor repairs maintained first place on 2833 laps followed by Wolfies A 2689 laps, PMCC B 2598 laps, TWR 2570 laps, Wolfies B 2478 laps and Cheetahs 2460 laps.

The last three hours was to be quite exciting with the pace taking its toll. The leading car raced on unhindered after it’s earlier problems to get to the seven and a half hour mark on 3440 laps, PMCC B 3281laps and back in front of Wolfies A 3278 laps slowing and changing a motor, TWR 3241 laps, Cheetahs 3088 laps and Wolfies B 3082 Laps after a brief repair. The last segment of 90 minutes saw perhaps the hardest driving of the lot with positions 2nd to 4th all closing each other down.

PMCC A ran out the easy winners on 4256 laps, PMCC B second on 3944 laps only 4 laps ahead of Wolfies A on 3940 laps who were only 2 laps ahead of TWR on 3938 laps. Wolfies B was fifth on 3704 ahead of Cheetahs on 3635 laps.

Index of performance was won by TWR on 103.5%, second was Cheetahs on 103.2%, and third was Wolfies A on 98.6%.

At the end of the day the host club thanked all competitors for the spirit in which the race was run and their participation.



Tiny Wright

Ecurie's Erlo Paul off to the IMCA worlds

All best to "Sideways" Erlo for the current 2007 ICA worlds, having achieved an invite after the Ecurie qualification event in April this year:

http://www.imca-slotracing.com/2007-WORLDSM.htm

Erlo, along with Ecurie's Craig and Tyrone Strydom, have also cracked the nod for the 2008 IMCA worlds:

http://www.imca-slotracing.com/WORLDS%202008DISON.htm

Quite a read (and download) but most interesting. It has been sobering to see just how much work Erlo has put in to prepping for the event.

Ecurie Supporting The Boks On Sat Night

Tyrone and I took some family members to the track on Saturday evening. From the video you can see that the "gees" was already starting to build. The flag idea was of course the brainchild of Junior. Sometimes I wonder if he was not swapped at birth. :-)

Touring Magnet - Friday Night Review

Well I arrived on Friday at the Touring Magnet class full of high hopes (and attitude) confident that I was going to defend my previous win with ease. That was unfortunately not going to happen. The boys have got their A's into gear and we had some ammazing racing. Even in the qualifying, Greer and I were neck and neck for all but the last 15 seconds of session with me bowing to the pressure and overdoing it in the corners. Hats off to marvelous drives by Erlo who took the win closely followed by Greer and a surprise 3rd by Tyrone (racing a Greer prepped car). I came in fourth and was lucky not to be beaten by Phil as well.

One of the surprises of the meeting was the first heat to race which comprises of two of the clubs top dogs competing against Rachel... who we were all rooting for incidently.

So what have we learnt... with age come consistency and that sometimes makes up for raw speed.

1/24th Scale Worlds Pre-Selection Event

In order to ensure that the drivers for the 2009 IMCA World Championship races are better prepared, Al Paterson and I are proposing a True Scale Pre-Selection event using hard bodies.

We are planning to hold the event at Ecurie on the weekend of the 25th-27th April 2008. This will coincide with the planned True Scale Historic Challenge as held earlier this year. Entrants will be required to select and build a car from the predetermined list, so book your car early to avoid disappointment.

Full details of the proposed event can be found at http://www.slotcars.co.za/2009worlds/selection.htm

Friday night's racing at Ecurie

Friday night saw a rusty return to 1/24 production metal for this plastic driver. So rusty, in fact, that the first race touring fell victim to the dreaded bent axle bop-ittyi-bop syndrome, something we were aware of already in the nineties but forgotten many times over. Rather than using the now norm of two pins to ornamentally hold the tiny little rubber front wheels, a piece of piano wire was tacked in and bent by a bang during warm up practice.

The wheels were pushed up for the second race and the car kept up for the first five lanes but unfortunately returned to dangle mode on the final black lane, making the donut tedious. Anyway, the Turboflex held on for an enjoyable third place, just ahead of the hard charging Phil, Tony and Erlo.

What was of interest was the first serious run of the newly SAMCA homologated JK Cheetah 11 chassis, with Craig turning in an excellent 152.47 laps in touring, exactly equal to the same winning 152.47 achieved by Ashwin in Sports!

The chassis has a "fast standing still" serious look about it (top left), Craig reporting that the only downside being the soft centre rail. I suspect a harder version will come out later, ala the Mossetti. Probably not an ideal choice for newbies at this stage and yours truly had reverted to the trusty Turboflex after dabbling with other brand chassis, 2006 Nats time.

Whilst quite impressed with the JK, it is quite mystifying that sprint race performance has never quite attained the staggering performance from an Ecurie team built Turboflex that scorched a Natals 6 hour enduro at lap times tween 4.2 and 4.4 seconds for a solid six hours, some years back. One gets the odd spike down in to 4.3 and 4.4 second lap times during sprint races but nothing like that same consistency of that magic enduro car. So here is once last post race look (top right) at that amazing team Sharks (Craig/Lance/Ashwin/Dave) enduro car, which was then used by Craig to TQ for the sprint races, straight after the 6 hour enduro.

It was also magic on Friday evening to have newbie Gordon having a good battle with Costa in their heats. Gordon is Tony Ball's pit mechanic for Tony's rally car and here are some race pics of Tony in action. Click on the right pic for a mini of the poster of his Bulwer Park rally car returning to earth, which he showed us Friday evening. Some more will be posted when time permits.

Hopefully this is the start of some club evening reports for the future.

THE PMCC NOSTALGIC NINE HOUR

The PMCC Nostalgic Nine Hour will be run on Saturday the 3rd November 2007.

Cars
The cars to be raced will be TRUE SCALE cars in accordance with the SAMCA rules hereto attached.
Cars are to be supplied by the teams.
The cars must be replicas of cars that competed in the 60’s and 70’s. Preferably in a livery that competed at Kyalami in an actual event. Photographic evidence of the actual car must accompany your entry.

Race Entry Fee
The race entry fee for the event will be R 300.00 per team

Teams
Teams must consist of four drivers.

Race Format
Each driver must drive for 30 minutes on each lane.
The track will be switched off for a driver/lane change at 20, 40, 60 and 90 minutes.

General
Lights will be not be a necessity but may be fitted.
No working on cars during lane and driver changes.
No magnets allowed in cars.

Practice
Practice will be on Friday evening 2nd November 2007 from 19H30 to 23H00.

The Race
As a possibility exists that more than 6 teams will be entered we tentatively plan to start the race at 9H00. The track will be opened at 8H00. This will be confirmed on receipt of entries.
Closing Date
The closing date for entries is 19th October 2007 by return mail indicating:
1) Confirmation of entry.
2) Team Name/s.
3) Driver names.
4) Body to be used.
5) Livery to be painted.


NOTE! IN THE EVENT OF MORE THAN SIX TEAMS BEING ENTERED, THE FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE TEAMS RESTS WITH THE ORGANISER.

Looking forward to seeing every body at the NEW AND IMPROVED PMCC track in November.