Facing East London’s curveball of speed and rain in Toyota GR Cup

Having gone a year without a wet race, it was only expected that, at some stage, a round of the Toyota GR Cup would be held in greasy conditions.

Facing the monster

The fact that it would happen at the East London Grand Prix Circuit added further concern to a track none of us wanted to think about or even recognise at the start of the year.

The reality was that round five of the GR Cup, which forms part of the National Extreme Festival, wasn’t going to change venue simply because of our fears of flying off the road at the fastest track in the country at over 200 km/h.

ALSO READ: From zero to almost podium hero in Toyota GR Cup stunner

Aside from the speed factor, the infamous complex section at the back of the track, still known by the older generation by its original name, the Prince George Circuit, presented another challenge as per its description.

Changing direction through the back straight sweep and then into the final corner, Beacon Bend, would be the final challenge before repeating the process for a further seven times.

Practice

Setting out for the perennial three practice sessions on Friday drove the message home hard; adapt or die.

Comparable to James Hunt’s famous “big balls” interview with Sterling Moss after the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix, going through Potter’s Pass and Rifle Range Bend requires exactly that.

Beforehand, there was the task of having to bleed the brakes as new discs were given to our GR Yaris DAT’s for the weekend.

In sunny but typically blustery coastal conditions, setting off on my first flying lap came with the conclusion that, despite the obvious danger factor of the corners in question, the rest of the track shouldn’t be seen as easy.

The tight and twisty complex section into the extremely bumpy sweep puts massive force on your neck to the point where my helmet was constantly bashing the roll cage.

What’s more, a section had been resurfaced, making it incredibly slippery and in need of carefully balancing the throttle with the brakes to avoid a snap oversteer moment onto the lawn on either side.

Early on, I had decided not to risk the temptation of taking Potter’s flat-out. Neither did my colleagues as only a subtle tap of the brake pedal was needed before letting the car run-out to the kerb on the outside.

Taking Rifle with a feather foot still came with an indicated speed of 213 km/h.

Hitting the brakes for the banked Cocobana hairpin was problematic as my decision to apply the anchors between the 150 m and 100 m marker boards didn’t leave sufficient time to scrub off enough speed.

As such, this resulted in the #16 GR Yaris going too deep and unable to get a fast enough exit onto the Beach straight and into the complex.

My initial time of 1.38 was satisfactory, but progress could still be made. With the onset of the second session, I decided to not only adjust my brake markers, but be a bit braver through Potter’s and Rifle.

Dabbing the brakes into the former, feathering through Rifle and stomping onto the middle pedal earlier did the trick. Along with improvements through the complex all the way through the sweep and into Beacon, I managed to shave nearly two seconds off my first run.

Hoping to break into the 1.35s didn’t materialise as leaving my braking into the complex too late nearly came with an excursion onto the outer karting circuit.

Along with my speed being too high into Beacon, and the back wanting to step out a few times, I finished my third run with a best time of 1.37, and not overly happy.

Qualifying chaos

Come qualifying, the status quo was turned upside down by the overnight rain that drenched the circuit, made worse by what was later discovered to be a broken feeder line to the city’s main reservoir that pumped litres of water onto the track.

Failed to be rectified in time, this led to three separate rivers flowing down the main straight where speeds still breached 160 km/h.

Worse still, our Dunlop Direzza rubber was of the semi-slick kind and not likely to excel in the wet and windy weather.

Having, however, been keen on a wet race, precision and no longer only speed was to be the key as I headed out for qualifying.

As had been the case at the last round at Zwartkops, the growth in the GR Cup again saw 25 cars on the grid, which, despite East London’s 3.9 km lap length, required us to be split into groups of two.

Being part of the first group, the first run at speed saw us hitting the trio of rivers head-on at over 160 km/h.

An experience anything but pleasant as the tyres momentarily lose grip, the shudder of hitting the standing water was beyond unnerving and anything but confidence-inspiring going into Potter’s and Rifle.

Still, I dared only lifting off a fractionally more before going into Cocobana. More of a challenge was the complex.

With the new surface, I had to get my wrestling gloves out to keep the speed up, but not fly off the circuit.

On more than a few occasions, the rear wanted to break loose, yet I managed to keep it steady and with the process on reply, crossed the line with a time of 1.48 – a full 12 seconds slower than my best lap in the dry.

While I had no idea where this was to place me, minutes later, it all became academic as after two laps of the second group starting their session, the CFAO Mobility GR Corolla of Riaan de Ru aquaplaned on the main straight and was catapulted into the outside tyre barrier.

Despite having landed upside down, de Ru emerged only shaken in another testament to modern race car safety and construction.

Needless to say, the session was red flagged and the entire programme thrown into disarray.

Race time

Already behind schedule, consultations with the Clerk of the Course resulted in the suspension of both SunBet Kawasaki ZX10 Masters races, a lap reduction for all categories to eight, and the cancellation of the second group’s qualifying.

By late afternoon, and after more discussions, a decision had been made to run the GR Cup over a single race, but over 12 laps instead of the usual eight, and with double points being given.

To make matters fairer, the best times from practice were to be used in setting-up the grid for the race.

This meant a fifth place start for me, directly behind fellow GR Yaris drivers Kyle Kock (CAR Magazine), Phuti Mpyane (TimesLive), Lawrence Minnie (AutoTrader) and in front of a slew of GR Corollas as well as the IOL/Independent GR Yaris of Willem van de Putte.

With the NMI Yaris of Werner Venter beside me, I managed to stay close to the yellow TimesLive Yaris in front as we headed off from the rolling start.

Having got off to a good start, and with the legs on the slightly less powerful, manual NMI Yaris, I kept an equal close eye on the green AutoTrader Yaris on my left.

Heading into Potter’s, the inevitable happened. Keeping tight to the right, I found myself paying too much attention to Minnie, who had, presumably, started moving over to take the racing line into getting a better entry into Rifle.

Contact was unavoidable as the rear right of the no. 17 came into contact with no. 16.

Spearing across onto the outside of Potter’s as I slammed on the brakes resulted in a typical concertina effect behind, but fortunately without any secondary repercussions.

Not happy at an incident I felt had been attributed to me not giving him enough space, I lost a further two places to Venter and the second NMI entered GR Corolla of Theo Brits before entering Cocobana.

With a sizeable gap behind, I decided to make the best of a pending bad situation and tried to get away as quickly as I could from the pack behind.

On a track still greasy but drying as the rain had stopped during the early afternoon, I managed to ease myself away from the chasing lot, but well out of reach of the pair of the “Pink Panther” NMI cars in front.

Despite a few lairy moments into the complex, again nearly causing a complete standstill after entering too fast, I did gain an overall place after passing the GR86 of debutant, Gabriel Fernandez, with two laps to go.

Crossing the line 13th overall and fourth among the media brigade behind race winner, SuperSport’s Nabil Abdool, second placed finisher Phuti and third place Kyle wasn’t the best feeling after what happened at the start.

Damage to both Lawrence and my cars was, however, light and having apologised, I felt a bit better knowing that I still had one of my strongest races to date.

Time for a break

As tricky, difficult and dangerous as East London had been, it had also been one of the most testing, thrilling and best of the season so far.

The series now goes on an extended six-week break before reconvening on 13 September for the penultimate round at Killarney in Cape Town.

ALSO READ: Return to home ground counts for little in Toyota GR Cup thriller