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Saturday, 13 December 2008

Enough is Enough

December 6th was the last race of the season to be held at the big K and the 'classic car' brigade was afforded an extra race which of course counted for no points as the championship had already finished. This therefore gave some of the old classic die-hards and thoroughbred racers another chance to 'do it one more time'.

Martin had already decided long prior to the race that he would be sitting out entirely as the minister of finance gave strict instructions to 'tighten our belts' and save where we could. This sounded like a good opportunity to do just that and instead he decided to sit in T3 and watch the clowns put on our show.

Qualifying was afforded to the classics unexpectedly and was most welcomed. The Datti was sounding as sweet as ever even although she now had a full and hard race season behind her. The track temperature was already good at 09h20 and the weather conditions near perfect. I thought to myself, do I or don't I. What the hell, just once more. I gave it my best and qualified the Datti in second place with a time of 1:33:2 and was actually quite chuffed I could still post such a time after all the racing the poor motor had already completed during the season.

Race 1 was off at 11h50 and as per usual the Datti performed effortlessly as she had always done throughout the season finishing second behind Jaco who had now decided to race dad's Anglia for a change. I returned to pit and did the necessary race prep for the next heat off at 16h20. I then was off to T3 and watched the rest of the days race precedings from there.

Having enjoyed and spent time out at T3 I returned to pit, put on my 'baby grower' and took the Datti to the pre-race paddock and parked in my start position. There I warmed the car to just on race temperature and cut the engine. While waiting for the race before us to finish I put on the rest of my race gear and as per norm entered 'focus' mode. We started up and proceeded on to the track and as per norm started scrubbing the tyres to warm them up and clear any previous cool down debris. Having not even reach turn 1 I suddenly heard a noise coming from the engine which I was not sure of but it did sound rather terminal and evidently it was. I slowly returned to pit while the rest passed me by on there rolling start lap. A quick inspection at the pit indicated that the problem was in the head but due to my limited knowledge of the internal combustion engine, I was unable to diagnose exactly the cause. I just went back to T3.

Sunday morning we returned to the track and by means of a fancy camera used in the motor industry we (Martin hello) determined that the inlet valve seat in No1 cylinder had disintegrated and was the cause of the problem. Well, I was somewhat relieved that it was not anything much worse and accepted the fact that after continuously revving the Datti in excess of 7000 RPM at each race something had to eventually give.

Evidence of the damage in No1 cylinder.









Having already achieved far more than was ever expected during the season I bid the ol' Datti farewell till next season. In the meantime the motor will be redone and some suspension work is definitely needed for competition in 2009.

Once again I bow my head with gratefulness for all that my 'boet' did and achieved with the 1400 Datti.

Thanks 'Boet'