Shut Up. I'm Talking.
I'm David Perel, co-Founder of Obox Design. I make things. Don’t expect anything of what I say to make sense. You can stalk me on twitter or be inspired on dribbble.
Pat Symonds once said that the attitude of the top engineers in F1 should be, “I don’t know how to do that, but I’ll find out and I’ll do it by next weekend.”Pay Symonds
I gave it my all.
I’ll try summarize Sundays racing (SA Champs) as quick as possible.
I started the first heat of the day in 2nd place but got eaten alive during the race. At this track if one person passes you you can lose so many places, I got stuck in this downward spiral and eventually finished 7th… definitely not one of my finest moments.
Heat 2 went even worse as I didn’t even start the race. I had a problem with my throttle which was stuck open due to a faulty cable. I was pretty frustrated because I wanted to prove my pace in that heat.
Heat 3 went much better, I started 7th and moved as high up as second before finishing 4th. I was lacking some pace up the steep hills and felt that our engine settings could have been better.
Onto heat 4, the final one of the day, and I had to start last due to my non-finish in heat 2. I moved up from 17th on the grid to 5th place but got pipped on the penultimate lap, eventually ending in 6th. All in all it was a good days testing and heat 1 was a wake up call in a big way.
I woke up on the ‘day of’ like a man possessed, I was very much in my own space barely uttering a word to anyone as all I was thinking about was finding a crucial 2/10ths of a second. In both morning warm up sessions I was quickest but it proved to be deceptive as my main opposition weren’t giving it their all.
Qualifying
The night before we had made some crucial changes to the kart and they were proving to be a big step in the right direction. That didn’t help much in qualifying though. I am probably one of the worst qualifiers ever. When I was younger I would have never said that but these days I’m so used to it that I’m not too fussed.
Despite being probably 3rd quickest – at worst – in practice I managed to qualify a lowly 7th. The format of qualifying (2 flying laps) just doesn’t seem to suit me at all and I struggled to switch on quickly enough.
Heat 1
I wasn’t too worried about starting heat 1 in 7th as I had experienced it the day before in the SA Champs. I knew I was fast so it was just a matter of staying out of trouble in the first few laps and then moving up the field. At the start I moved up to 3rd but dropped to 4th about half way through. The person I was up against, Mitchell Licen, was someone I had encounted a couple of times recently and both times he beat me.
This time around I was to have none of it as I caught him back up with 2 laps to go and immediately made a move for 3rd into the first corner. The move stuck and I defended like crazy in the final lap to maintain my position. It felt awesome to have some kind of pace and finally get one over Mitch in the races.
Disaster Strikes
With a good result in heat 1 I knew that I still had a lot of work to do if I was going to with this once-off championship. For heat 2 I would be starting in 3rd place and my main threat, Chad van Beurden, was in pole position. Since he was definitely faster than me on pure pace I knew that I had to attack early and aggressively in an attempt to slow him down to my pace. It was going to be my dress rehearsal for the all-or-nothing Final Heat.
Heat 2 was critical. Heat 2 was a disaster.
As soon as we set out on the warm up lap I picked up that there was something severely wrong with my kart. I was spluttering and misfiring up the steep hill and couldn’t work out the issue. Eventually I had to park the kart on the side of the track and watch in shock as the rest of the field started the race.
I have been in this position so many times in my racing career and I could not believe I was experiencing it on one of the most important race days of my life. I was absolutely devastated and had trouble containing my emotions. When I went back to the pits I just sat in the corner quietly and contemplated what had happened and how I was going to try and win this thing despite starting in last (17th) place.
While in the pits, Rose (the mother of the person who runs the team I raced for) came to try and cheer me up. Her words helped me immensely and eased the pain I was feeling. It’s difficult to explain the emotions you feel in those moments and when someone tries to make you feel better it often doesn’t work but Rose somehow managed to do it. She made me believe that I could still win it.
The Final
Just before the race I isolated myself from the world and tried to visualise the start. Luckily the day before I had experience something very similar in heat 4 so this wasn’t anything new to me. The problem was the day before I could ‘only’ get from last place to 6th. In this race I would have to get from last place to 1st… not easy.
The start went well as I stayed out of trouble and from there on all I could remember was overtaking people without even thinking twice about it, ducking and diving at every opportunity and making sure that I made every move stick.
By lap six I was in 3rd place and the leaders were not too far away. I couldn’t believe how quickly I had moved up the field and was on a huge mission to pull a gap on the pack behind and hopefully catch the two leaders.
Unfortunately it wasn’t to be as I didn’t quite have enough speed to get to them. With one lap to go Matthew Swanepoel had caught up to me after he had an altercation at the start, he was massivey faster than me at this point but I was so obsessed with keeping 3rd place that I defended with any means necessary. Going into the last corner I tried to keep the tightest line possible so that he couldn’t get through and it worked a charm.
I crossed the line 3rd, after starting 17th and last. Even though I didn’t win there was a huge sigh of relief because I dreaded not getting onto the podium after heat 2′s disaster.
Reflection time
After the race I was quite numb to the result but on reflection I now feel hugely satisfied. I haven’t raced for over three years but despite that I came back and mixed it with some of our continents finest drivers.
It was a month a massive ups-and-downs, having the belief and then the doubt and then the belief again. Being off the pace and then on the pace. Emotionally and mentally I am finished but I won’t ever forget this experience. I gave it everything I had and I walked away with a top 3 finish.
I want to thank Intrepid South Africa – Henry, Rose & Ralph Odendaal and Innocent – for their total dedication and help during this month of racing. It has been epic and I couldn’t recommend a better chassis & team to be part of. If you ever want to get into karting then let me know so that I can put you in touch with them.
I also want to say well done to Richard Upton, my team mate, who finished 5th in class. Congrats dude.
Thanks to everyone who read my blog and supported me, it’s hugely appreciated!
Till next time… ciao
Thank you for the pics Robs
What a day.
After yesterdays debacle with a dud engine and time wasted I woke up this morning with a new purpose. It felt like I was a lot more focussed compared to the last few days where some things (read: real life, work etc) have distracted me mentally.
The aim for today was to confirm our setup and then hope that I’d do OK in qualifying (never been a strong point for me). Rain had been threatening the whole day but we thought we would get away with it.
Morning warm up went incredibly well, I was well and truly on the pace from the get go and found a new sense of motivation. That all came to a halt when I put on new tires and didn’t go any faster. I was hoping to achieve 44.5 second lap times but the best I could was only a 44.9. Things seemed to have slipped back to the day before.
Rain…
Next up was qualifying and up to this point the rain seemed to have stayed away. Turns out that as we got to the grid it started to fall. Everyone panicked and stuck on Wet Weather tires but all I could do was watch as I didn’t have a set. I thought to myself “oh well, not much I can do except try.” The difference that wet tires give you over slick dry weather tires is huge but I had my hands tied.
As we went out to start the session, those on wets flew off into the distance while I slid around the track trying to find a reasonable racing line. By lap 3 I was getting comfortable and felt like I could maybe pull out a miracle and get into the top 10.
As the session progressed the track started to dry out slightly and from being on the wrong tires I was suddenly on the right ones! By the end of the session I had actually managed to qualify in 2nd place! Even though it was kind of lucky it’s way above expectations and an excellent place to start the first heat tomorrow.
Sunday’s racing doesn’t count for me it will definitely boost my confidence if I do well in the SA Champs. This kind of situation is perfect preparation for Monday’s big race.
Bring it on.
So I am now half way through this mammoth week of karting and so far it’s been up and down to say the least.
At best we have been on the pace and most of the time 0.2secs off. However today was the pinnacle of WTF.
This morning we decided to get a brand new motor in the hope that it would give us the 2/10ths of a second we’er missing. The trade off from this is that a) it costs money and b) we would spend half a day running it in.
Running in an engine involves going slow, fast, slow, fast, slow, fast etc for 30mins. Since each practice session is 10mins it would mean I would waste 3 sessions just bedding in the motor. By lunch time the engine was run in and I was super keen to see how it would go.
While I was running in my competition were packing on the miles at pace, doing some good testing and generally lapping quite quick. With that in mind I wanted to get going but the worst of our fears proved true when it turned out that the new engine was a complete dud. From being 0.2 off the pace we were now 1second off the pace!
To top things off we kept getting a flat right rear tyre. We tried to find the problem and eventually discovered that it was a faulty valve. This was only discovered at about 4pm and the track was getting cold as a chilly breeze set upon us. I was starting to get pissed off so we decided to stick on the motor I raced with 2weeks ago to see where we were in terms of genuine pace.
Luckily it went A LOT better and we landed up 0.1 off the top guys.
I am still not satisfied though as I feel that we are lacking pace in some vital parts of the track. I have watched some onboard footage of the day and it seems that I can find a bit of time in my driving but there is definitely something missing in our setup.
Hopefully tomorrow runs more smoothly.
Tomorrow I get back onto a plane (yet again) and travel to Durban for the final race of my ‘come back’.
This is the race the counts. The big one. The only one.
Last Wednesday I took a trip to our local kart track at Killarney to do as many laps as possible to get fit for this weekends race. The day went excellently, I got to work with my old mentor and 2002 World Champion, Claudio Piazza-Musso. We worked on setup and fine tuning some elements of my driving which seemed to have gone missing since I got back into a kart.
Since then I keep running the last few laps of the final race through my head. The pressure that I am feeling is immense. Not only because I want to do well but because I realize how much this actually means to me. If I come back and win it will be a fairy-tale, if I come back and do well it will be good going but my desire to win is outweighing any commonsense and rationale.
Reading through the entry list is quite a daunting experience. To name a few competitors off the top of my head:
Suffice to say that no-one here is fucking around. Luckily I have experience competing and beating the current crop of guys but the thought of leading a train of 5 or more die-hard competitors is quite intimidating.
That doesn’t deter me though as I believe that pressure in this case can actually be helpful because it increases your adrenaline which focusses the mind.
The African Championship is on Monday, the benefit of this is that the SA Championship is on Saturday and Sunday. Those two days mean nothing to me but everything to my competition. This gives me the ideal opportunity to fine tune my setup in race conditions. It’s a big advantage and one I don’t want to waste. Even if I don’t finish one heat in the SA Champs it will have no bearing on the African Champs. Boom.
I have recorded some onboard footage of the track while in Durban last week and have been watching it before bed every night. The subconscious is a magical thing, so the best time to watch those vids is just before sleep so your mind can process it.
This race will be about a perfect setup and perfect driving but also a lot of luck. I only need to lead one lap, the final one, but to leave things that late is quite intense. I don’t want to predict what will happen because the opposite is usually true but if I am on pace then I will be gunning for that win like a man possessed.
Deep breath. Here we go.
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