Eglington and Zietsman win

Bike SA - June 1985

"We had heard about this Silkolene stuff," the winners said. "Now everyone knows about it around here." OK, OK, enough free advertising for your sponsors; here's the story:-

Endurance road races are not generally regarded as good spectator sports. They outlast the attention span of most race goers and are usually further aggravated by slow or inadequate feedback on lap scores and positions from one hour to the next.

This, however, was not the case at the first race in the Transvaal short circuit 6-hour series held at Zwartkops track on April 20th.

Half-hourly computer print-outs were posted promptly as the race progressed and resulted in a spectator awareness and participation in what was going on, which has seldom been equalled at Kyalami, Welkom or Killarney.

The Yamaha RD350 of Mike Eglington and Koos Zietsman took the lead at the outset after qualifying in pole position and maintained that position until the hardware was theirs. The story does not start and end that simply, however.

Eglington and Zietsman suspected there might be an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in the closing stages, with either the Mean Machine Kawasaki of Coetzee/van Aswegen or the Els/Boshoff Friend/Spencer teams.

Their strategy was to treat the first 2 hours of racing almost as a sprint and build up a commanding lead on a machine which was tuned to perfection and which was patently faster than anything else on the track. Eglington took the first stint and held it for 2 hours - a very tall order requiring some 13 gear changes, 5 corners and 4 brake applications every 57 seconds or so.

Considering the high track, machine and ambient temperatures plus being wrapped in a skin tight leather suit, Eglington did a superb job and lapped the entire field in his first session. When he pulled into the pits, he was unable to stand or walk without help.

At the 4-hour mark, the Silkolene Yamaha was four laps ahead but it was becoming increasingly difficult to control on the right handers. Talk of a possible tyre change was underway when the lead was reduced to 3 laps by the hard charging Yamahas of Spencer and Jooste.

Pressure was slightly relieved when Spencer crashed heavily after tangling with a discarded exhaust pipe and spent some 35 minutes in the pits effecting repairs.

The rear tyre on the Els/Boshoff RD350 was showing signs of traction loss, which later culminated in an excursion into the bush and resulted in expensive repair time when it was least wanted.

The raced moved into the last hour, and no one was quite sure about the status of lap scoring due to lap penalties being imposed for various regulation infringements during pit stops.

But the 560 laps covered by Eglington/Zietsman resulted in a new record for Eglington and some interesting statistics arise which are eye openers and serve to confirm that short circuit endurance racing is as tough as any long track's.

Laps covered by winner: 560
Laps per hour: 93
Corners per lap: 5
Corners per hour: 466
Brake applications per hour: 372
Gear changes per hour: 1213
Corners over 6 hours: 2796
Gear changes over 6 hours: 7280
Brake applications over 6 hours: 2232
 

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