Club Track Day!
Story by Rupert Giessing, Photography by RacePics.co.za
The BMW Car Club Gauteng had its second Bridgestone Track Day for 2016 at Zwartkops on Sunday 10 July 2016, hosted by Club Motors Fountains . With the previous round at Red Star Raceway being almost 3 months ago, It was clear that everyone was craving some track time, with the queue for coffee being the only thing busier than the pits just after 7 in the morning already.
Registrations got under way at 8:00 am, and with 76 entries on the day, things got quite busy. With the scrutineering and other formalities taken care of, and Bridgestone window stickers in place, engines cranked into life and eager track school participants reported for duty. The first of the track sessions started, kicking proceedings off with session 2 due to noise restrictionso on a Sunday. There was a good mix of race and road cars on the entry list for the day, ensuring that spectators had plenty of action on track to enjoy and cheer about.
It looked like Monday morning peak hour traffic with cars heading out on track one after the other at the start of the first track session. Luckily the weather didn’t disappoint, and drivers started settling in with lap times improving as the day progressed, ending the day with an exciting one lap shootout of the Top 10 fastest cars.
There was an overwhelming response for hot laps too, and the 335i’s doing duty worked overtime. Passengers pay R100 and go for two flying laps with a BMW Driving Experience instructor, a very memorable experience indeed if you’ve never been around a racetrack! People couldn’t get enough of the on track action and were still queuing up to go in the last session of the day, showing once again what exciting events our track days are.
Fastest BMW, and also fastest car of the day, was Leon Loubser in his beautifully prepared E92 335i with a lap time of 1:05.250. Fastest non-BMW of the day was Ricard Schuhardt in his Porsche with a time of 1:10.591.
The pictures of the day can be viewed and ordered from: http://www.racepics.co.za/bridgestone-bmw-track-day-hosted-club-motors-fountains-2016-07-10-photographs/
CLICK HERE for the Results - Overall by Class