RACEWEB 2016 INTERCLUB KART BATTLE
Event date: 9 October 2016 | Words: Junaid Hamid | Photos: Zunaid Baba & Nish | Venue: Kenilworth Karting, Cape Town

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After last year’s successful inaugural Raceweb Interclub Battle, it dawned upon me that a year has gone by already and it was time for yet another event. I quickly booked a date with Kenilworth Karting and set off to get things going. The clubs who took part in last year’s challenge were given first option to participate once again. Some quickly grabbed the opportunity while others had to convince their members. But it was not long after I sent out the invitations that the event was fully booked.


It couldn’t be the same thing though. I like change, so I had to mix things up a little. Firstly, after organizing last year’s event, I was standing on the sidelines watching everyone thinking, man I should be racing. So this year I decided to put together my own little team. But it needed to be a “special” team.


Thinking about some of the great car guys I’ve met over the years I thought, let me get some of them together and make up a team. The list included Jason Webb, 2 times national drift champion and who also drifted at the insane Gatebil event in Norway. Then it was Jon Williams who was a national rally driver for Sasol Ford and DC Shoes. Jon also competed in the World Rally Championship. How crazy is that!?

Next up it was Antony Ashley who was an instructor at the most dangerous race track in the world, the Nurburgring. He also raced a good few VLN races there as well. Also on the list was local car manufacturer Craig Harper. Craig is not only an engineer and father of the Harper Type 5 Sports Car, but also a part time endurance racer.


Then it was David Perel, ex Lamborghini Super Trofeo racer and currently races in the Blancpain GT Series all over Europe in a Ferrari 458 GT3. Lastly finishing off the team was me, a “fat” dude. Interesting combination indeed!


Mind you, I do have a few thousand laps under my belt not only at Kenilworth Karting, but around Killarney too! Not that Killarney matters here. So, my team, The Raceweb All Stars were set. I then decided to make the race in the anti-clockwise format or reverse track layout. Also, I had 7 teams in total as opposed to the usual 6. I also introduced qualifying and a rolling start just to make things more interesting.


The teams that took part in this year’s challenge were the Cape ST Owners Club, Subaru Fun Crew, BMW Owners Club Cape, Toyota 86 Owners Club, D-Evo RC Drift Club, Fix-a-Smash Team and finally us, the Raceweb All Stars. The point of having the All Star team was not to “clean up” as most people told me.


The guys in my team are all personal heroes of mine, pioneers in their own motorsport class. It was an honour to share a seat with them in the same team. Now I wanted to give the average petrol head a chance to say they took on some pro drivers when they would never usually be able to race someone like that.


After testing and set up by the Kenilworth Karting team it was time to qualify. Everyone got a chance to qualify in the same kart to make things fair. We didn’t start off very well. Unfortunately there was a miscommunication and we only did 1 flying lap as opposed to the3 we supposed to get. The result was that we ended up 4th on the starting grid.


To make things worse, because some people said it was going to be an All Star white wash, I imposed a black flag penalty on my own team to give everyone else a fighting chance. After the race started though, it was us who were doing all the fighting.


Things weren’t going according to plan, we were a second off the pace from the leaders and were slowly getting left behind. To make things worse, we took our penalty in the early stages of the race and then ended up dead last.


It was a 2 hour race, endurance, stamina, strategy, consistency and staying out of trouble was the game plan. Anything could happen. With time and a few other mishaps we pushed hard and worked our way through the field and managed to catch the leaders.


It was a tough battle between the top 3 teams, Ford ST, Subaru Fun Crew and then us. Fortunately for us, my whole team was very consistent in terms of lap times. While other teams had some quick drivers and others not so quick, we kept the same pace throughout the race and it was that pace that managed to get us on the top spot of the podium 2 hours later.


Once again it was a hard fought battle that could have gone any way. We managed to finish only 1 lap ahead of 2nd place. I think it showed the rest of the teams that there is a chance to win even if they’re going up against pro drivers, and that’s exactly the spirit I wanted to instill into the teams.


For some of the teams who were not on the pace, better luck next time guys, it takes a lot of practice and hard work and I hope to see you back again next year. In the end the final results were as follows…
1. Raceweb All Stars (333 laps)
2. Cape ST Owners Club (332 laps)
3. Subaru Fun Crew (329 laps)
4. BMW Owners Club Cape (326 laps)
5. D-Evo RC Drift Club (321 laps)
6. Toyota 86 Owners Club (317 laps)
7. Fix-A-Smash Team (312 laps)


The fastest lap time of the race was set by the BMW Owners Club with a time of 19.560 in lap 317 – well done guys!


I would like to thank all the teams and drivers who participated, it was great racing against you guys! Thank you to Kenilworth Karting for the venue and hard work you guys put into preparing for this event. Thank you to Ernest Page my amazing MC on the day. Thank you to my sound man, Khalil Amod.


Thank you to all my sponsors, Project D Clothing and Apparel, SpeedStar Advanced Driver Coaching, Century Karting and Wash My Ride Car Wash and Mobile Auto Detailing. Thanks to all the spectators, fans and friends who came to watch. Thanks to everyone else that assisted me in any way or form and lastly thanks to my team mates, you guys rock! Till next year…

RaceMasteR J
Junaid Hamid