Thought I'd better blog about it while I'm still a bit high and get it out of my system.
After doing tens of thousands of rands of damage to 2 of their cars on the first Fantastic Racing customer event we ran in 2006, Storm agreed to sign up for another 3 events this year. Today was the last one. Kerryn-Leigh, our marketing manager, did not have to apply much pressure to my rubber arm to sign up. After all, I'm unlikely to be offered the chance again soon.
This is not me here in the yellow peril, but it is the car I drove. These are Reynard 98's, with a V6 Dodge engines (that are specially governed so that they are safe for novices) that pull 450 BHP/per tonne.
I'm told they're at something like 20% of the power they would be ungoverned? Well, 20% was just fine for me! Flying down the back straight at Killarney where you've barely got to 5th gear and you're needing to brake and a sneaky little cross wind catches you unawares, I'm not sure giving me more power would have been wise.
There were a few boy racers among us (no names mentioned! ;) which resulted in a number of black flags for breaking the track rules and generally irritating the marshalls, but all in all I think everyone had a great afternoon.
If you're looking for something a little different to a booze cruise to entertain a few of your top clients, you can't go wrong for thrill here.
The guys from Fantastic Racing are very professional. From safety briefing, to marshaling, to looking after your every food and beverage need, they've got a slick operation running.
In the end, the black flags took some of the more reckless out of the running and Bruce, our resident bean counter, took the Best Driver Award - not exactly your epitome of a risk averse accountant is our Bruce! Here he is checking out the cars before we'd even been briefed:
YT was awarded the Most Consistent Driver award (not sure if that was consistently average, or consistently bad?) which means I got to spray champagne over the crowd (all 20 of them). I really must teach Bruce how to open a shaken champagne bottle without it going off in his face... :)
And Deon of course thought it was hysterically funny that they were fixing my car with duct tape seconds before I left the pit lane.
First he breaks laptops... now it's racecars! What next?
Monday was a little crazy. Tuesday is going to be very tame.
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