Mama Warned Me There’d Be Days Like This! Our Racing Jetta Bares its Teeth.

Couple of Mistakes and a Pile of Bad Luck Stem the $5,000 Jetta’s Racing Charge

They say that in racing, the first thing you need is a little luck. Some people are born with it. Witness Lewis Hamilton. Others, like Amon and Moss, had to fight for it. Now following  a run with the former sort of fate, after our last two races, it seems our Jetta luck has shifted nearer to the latter. You will remember that we have been pretty on point since we first introduced you to our campaign to run our $5,000 old faithful ’86 Bullion IT Banhoek Chilli Oil Jetta GLi at a grand a race, against some far more contemporary competition.

A Fifty Percent Win Rate

In fact, until two races back we had won half the races we’d started. But as they also say in the classics, that’s where the trouble started. You will remember that a fault in the tower saw the power go down and our previous race grid was drawn from best laps of the race weekend prior. Well, the next race in August never proved much better. Thick fog at Killarney in Cape Town, once again caused cheapercars GTi Challenge qualifying to be cancelled.

And yet again, our man behind the wheel, Giordano Lupini was on pole position by dint of his previous race quickest lap. But that vital point that comes with earning a real pole position was denied. Two vital points lost in two races. And that after we’d lost two races to lockdown, so our fight back was limited to seven, not eight races, after we’d missed the first two.

The fog still failed to lift, so the first race was canned. Unusual high cloud above prevented the sun from burning through as it mostly does. And when the remaining race finally started, our old Jetta just proved evil. “That was one of those days we will put down to learning,” Giordano admitted. “We sat around all morning after qualifying and the first race were both cancelled as we waited for the fog to lift before we eventually raced one twelve lapper.”

The Jetta Became Wayward

“Jaco Lambert once again made a great start and I got it all wrong off that pole position inherited from our last race best lap. “I was basically last by the time we got to turn 1. “So, I had to fight back hard to third by the end of the second lap. “To make it worse, there were yellow flags in two of my favorite passing places and my title rival Eden Thompson had already passed Jaco for the class lead when I caught him.

“I eventually found my way past Jaco, but I’d worked my tires too hard and Jaco was driving brilliantly, and he fought back. “Eden had got away, leaving us in a splendid dice for second. “I pushed too hard in defense, lost the rear and Jaco managed to pass me on the final lap and do what I may, he pipped me at the post. “I’m not complaining about third, but it’s not what we wanted!”

We had more tough news when the organizers decided to allocate double points for that single race. Effectively doubling our third-place deficit, and doubling our rival’s well deserved fastest lap bonuses too. “Days like this make me stronger,” Gio rued. “But the Jetta wasn’t its usual agile self.” Fortunately, we had a long gap between that August date and the to the next race mid-October. That gave us a gap to try root out the car’s wayward handling habits of late.