Female speedster lives her life one quarter-mile ride at a time

For more than eight years, local adrenaline junkie, Cathy de Beer has been on the race track, and her aim over the years is to go faster.

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On August 18, during Women’s Month, the first women-only drag racing event (Ladies Only) was held on the runway of Rhino Park Airfield near Bronkhorstspruit, and included a smorgasbord of cars from Porches to Audi, Volkswagen to Subaru.
They varied in engine size, cylinder count and transmission, and Cathy’s Opel Corsa was among them.
When the day started off, Cathy noted most of the women started out being very cautious, but as the day went on they became more competitive and started chasing down winning times.

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“Some women were inspired by the ones that did burnouts and started discussing how to do it and the importance of it. There were a lot of automatic all-wheel drive vehicles but I don’t think that is fun, just putting your foot down. It is much more challenging and fun playing with the clutch and changing gears,” Cathy said with a laugh.

At the end of the day, of the eight vehicles present in the four-cylinder turbo class, the driver of an Uno Turbo took first place while Cathy claimed second, posting a time of 13,7 seconds and a speed of 167 kilometres per hour on the quarter-mile (approximately 400 metres).
“What I find so amusing is that no one paid much attention to the little Opel Corsa bakkie, until I did my first run with screaming tyres and shooting off the line. Then people wanted to see what was under the hood and know what motor was in the vehicle,” she said.

Read the full story in this week’s Vryheid Herald.

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