Friday 31st January
The Subaru club met at the Grasmere Toll Road Gate at around 4.00 pm. Some of the Audi Club members, Geoff (A3 1.8T) and Stephen (A3 1.8T), elected to drive to Welkom with them. Some others, Philip (S6), André (S6), Duncan (S3/165) and Leonard (A4 2.8 B5) met at the Grasmere Engen Petrol station and drove together to Welkom.
After an uneventful drive, we arrived in Welkom, we checked in at the Welkom Hotel. The easiest Hotel to find in that town. There we met some of the Scooby guys, however most of them were staying at the Capenero Hotel. The Welkom Hotel was indeed the better choice.
That evening the above mentioned quartet went for dinner at the Siéste restaurant in "downtown" Welkom. We had an excellent dinner.
Saturday 1st February
Christophe (S3/165), who could not make it on Friday, left Johannesburg around 5.00 am and arrived at the Welkom Hotel, sometime before 6.45 am.
After breakfast, the quartet which had become a quintet that early morning, went to the Phakisa track, which is some 10 km outside Welkom.
After finding space for our cars in the pits, we saw another member of the club, Chris (A4 3.0Q B6), who came for the day only. We also met Geoff and Stephen eventually. Other members of the club also came for the day, some put they cars on the track, but most didn't.
By 9.00 am there was the driver's briefing were we were reminded of some of the rules on a race track. For those interested, a black flag from the marshals mean; get out you're banned from the track (no one got black flagged though), Red flag: Track closed, Yellow Flag: Danger ahead and Blue flag: Move over someone faster than you wants to overtake you. They also had another rule whereby slower cars could only be overtaken if they indicated so, by putting their car's indicators to the side you should overtake them. It's an ok rule, but I think that after 3 blue flags the slower cars who do not let faster cars pass-by should be pulled off the track.
We were also given transponders, one per car, which sent to
the control tower all our lap times. These times were published every hour or so
and at the end of the session we were also given a detailed schedule of all our
lap times. Very impressive and certainly very useful, however you don't get your
laps times immediately, thus in order to know exactly what you are doing and if
you are progressing while you're on the track, you have to find someone who
times you, or your own transponder device with in-the-car display of your lap
time as you cross the start/finish line.
By 9.30 am the track was opened and stayed opened until 4.00 pm. Including the day participants, there were 38 cars/drivers for that day.
Phakisa was completely re-tarred a month or so ago, with what I understood to be some very fancy tar with a mixture of rubber. The track was indeed marvelous and despite the extremely warm weather 36 to 38º C, had very good grip and did not totally destroy tyres like at Zwartkops on a hot day. After 3.00 pm the track temperature cooled down just a tiny bit, which enabled some of the participants, who were not totally washed out, to improve their lap times
The course is excellent and we all had an absolute ball driving on that track, even with the heat.
By closing time, André's best lap time was 2:10.980, Philip 2:12.249, Ross (S3/154 - not a member) 2:12.756, Geoff 2:13.334, Christophe 2:15.325, Duncan 2:16.481, Chris 2:19.822, Barry (A3 1.8T - not a member) 2:21.067, Riaan (A3 1.8T - not a member) 2:22.000, Stephen 2:24.050 and Leonard 2:32.355.
It must be said that apart from Geoff, Stephen, Riaan and Barry, this was the very first time we have ever been on that track, furthermore for Chris, Christophe and Philip this was only their second time on a race track ever and for Leonard and Ross it was their first time, also the first time in an S3 for Ross.
You will note, if you look at the day's times (link below) that although the Scooby's were faster, the Audi's did very well, being amongst STi's and WRX's. For instance four STi's were less than a second faster than André's S6 and some slower. Considering the elevation of Phakisa and the fact that the S6 has a normally aspirated engine and weights some 1760 kg, Audi's did pretty well. The S3's were right amongst the WRX's and the GT's.
After the track was closed, there was a Gymkhana, but since it was so hot and we were tired, some of us decided to go to our hotel's pool rather than watching the Gymkhana.
In the evening, we all had dinner with the Subaru club members at the Capenero where we had a buffet. Shaun Potter who drove the STi 22B got the price for the fastest car of the day (in view of his name, his car was nicknamed by one of our members: the "Nimbus 2000", from the Harry Potter film), Darren got the second prize with his Lotus 7 and Craig third price with his Nissan Skyline GT-R.
André' also got a price for the fastest Audi, and it seemed that the Subaru Club was genuinely very happy that some of the Audi Club members participated to the week-end.
Link to the first day practice times.
Sunday 2nd February
Julian (S3/300 kW) eventually arrived around 6.00 am, even though his car was not totally finished by Chip-Logic, he made the effort of coming to Phakisa anyway.
After breakfast, we went to the track, it was raining.... at least it was much cooler than Saturday. Andrew came again for the day and this time put his car on the track, something maybe he shouldn't have done (read below/third session).
First Session
By 9.00 am the track was open and it rained quite hard until
about 10.00 am. That's were the Audi's performed very well, with Philip in his
S6 posting the fastest time in heavy rain conditions, 2:11.269 not just the
fastest Audi time but the all makes fastest time. However, once it started
raining less, Darren with his very fast hyper modified WRX took three seconds off Philip's
time. Short lived glory, but glory nonetheless 
.
So, our Audi Club Rain Master should now be called Sir "Wet and Wild"!
.
Christophe provided some entertainment to the spectators by loosing it at the corner before the pit straight (turn 11) and spinning is S3 360º not only once but three times in a row. He got cheers and applauses from the spectators and the second biggest fright of his life. Not content with that, he then also lost it at the first corner after pit straight (turn 1) where he went farming again, but did not spin it. The track was then red flagged to allow the marshals to clean the dirt that Christophe brought onto the track....
Julian, did also put is car on the track, but in view of the condition of his car not being absolutely right he did not push it hard, but still managed 2:17.588.
Link to Sunday's first practice times
Qualifying
A new Formula 1 rules style qualifying session took place after 11.00 am and that's when it mattered to achieve good lap times. Furthermore, to the discontent of the Audi participants, the rain stopped an hour before the qualifying session and the track had dried up.
Philip was the Audi with the fastest time; 2.10.721 (his
week-end best time), beating André's time of Saturday. Christophe was the
second fastest Audi: 2:11.594 (also his week-end best time) and André was only
the third Audi with 2:12.282. Having been beaten by his son and Philip, André
was not too happy with himself and his ego was shattered .
Again the "Nimbus 2000" posted the fastest lap for this qualifying session however, 3 seconds slower than his fastest lap on Saturday.
Link to the qualifying session lap times
Third Session
Fortunately for André's pride, there was a third session, were after trying hard for 11 laps he eventually managed to be the fastest Audi for the week-end with a time of 2:09.476. It must be said that much of his achievement was only possible with Elna (Philip's wife) timing André lap and letting him now by hands signs what his lap time were, allowing him to improve lap after lap. Elma stopwatch times were actually very close to the transponder times, with less than 0.3 seconds variance.
Elna took Philip's S6 on the track and got a very honorable 2:19.082. Little practice and no previous track time - well done.
Unfortunately for Andrew, this session, towards the closing minutes, proved to be detrimental to the front end of his A6 2.4 fwd, as he lost it on turn 10 and hit a barrier.
André got a very nice braai (BBQ) set, as a token of appreciation from the Subaru Club for the Audi Club's participation to this event, as well as another braai set to be given to one of the Audi Club's members, which André gave to Philip (a.k.a. Sir Wet and Wild) for his masterful driving in the rain.
Some of the members departed back to their homes during that session, however Philip, Julian Christophe and André stayed with Andrew waiting for the tow-truck for his A6, which took a few hours to show up. Andrew took a ride home with Christophe and we all went back.
Link to the third session lap times
Link to the best combined times for the whole week-end.
Epilogue
First and foremost I would like to thank John Brinkman, Chairman of the Subaru Club for inviting us, as well as Darren Ferraris for his and his wife Debbie, outstanding organisation of this event. The participating Audi Club members had an absolutely fantastic time.
We were also impressed by the friendliness of the Subaru Club members and the respect most of them had for Audi's.
The Scooby's were indeed the fastest. An Audi RS4 would have
been more on par, but then there are no Audi's in South Africa right now which
can actually compete with the faster road STi's. Maybe next time someone will
bring an RS6 along .
Nevertheless, we were not far off the pace, as the times of the S6's mingled
with those of some STi's and WRX's and the S3's mingled with WRX's and GT's.
Altogether there was 13 Audi's participating.
Personally I was very impressed with John Brinkman 2003 new face lift STi's which not only looks very nice, but, being one of the very few non-modified Subaru's, was nonetheless very fast around the track and in fact well amongst the fastest non-racing version Scooby's for this week-end. Also very impressive was that mighty STi 22B!
The first Audi member prize for the whole week-end must go to Philip, as not only did he managed the fastest time under heavy rain, but he was the fastest Audi at the qualifying session. Also Philip improved his best lap time from Saturday to Sunday by just under 2 seconds.
The second prize goes to Christophe, as he was the fastest S3 and improved his best lap time by 3.7 seconds between Saturday and Sunday. Furthermore he did entertained the spectators on Sunday with his triple spin!
The third prize must go to Andrew, as a consolation price for his accident.
That's all folks, another great Audi Club week-end, that you missed if you weren't there! If you wonder where the pictures are, check below.