rally of the tall pines

[Gerard]

> went to the rally of the tall pines saturday but alas the audis had bad luck

Speaking of rally-type things, I was nearly taken out by a full
race-spec Porsche GT2 yesterday at the Gyro Pass hillclimb (King of the
Mountain event here in Ceres in South Africa). I was on the outside of a
left-hand bend towards the top of the pass when the GT2 came up the
straight and seemed to have no apparent intention of turning. It slammed
into the crowd and missed me, my brother, my fiancee and her friend by a
meter. I've never experienced anything like it and we just got the heck
out of there and managed to go about 1km down the mountain where we had
to wait at a parking area on the outside of a hairpin bend. It's a
double hairpin, 1st is a right hander, then followed by a left-hander.
All went well until a old Mustang went backwards through the barrier on
the 2nd bend and was hanging off the rail. Needless to say the event was
cancelled immediately. Apparently a black 993 turbo also clipped 2
spectators when he lost it further up the mountain, about 500m from
where we stood and the mustang went off.

I discovered today that the people who were hit by the Porsche GT2 were
only "mildly" injured. It was good to know no-one was seriously injured
or killed, although I'd consider a fractured leg pretty bad as that is
what happened to a female spectator who wound up under the machine.
Honestly, from my vantage point there were just too many bodies flying
around, a couple onto the windshield and some against the rock wall.

So, my first time being a spectator at such and event and I wind up in
direct line of fire of a big GT2.

The event is over 2 days, with the 4 & 6 cylinder machines running on
the Saturday and the scared richboys running on the Sunday. The best
thing I saw on Sunday was the Mk1 VW Golf coming up that mountain with
both of its 2-litre 16v turbo engines blasting away. If only the other
kids could hold it like that we wouldn't have had 3 major incidents.

The event was apparently badly organised on Sunday.

My stomach churns thinking about it again.

Sorry about being off the topic. I just had this fresh in my mind.

G.