This past weekend saw the S.A. Shelby Can-Am championship head to the fastest track in South Africa, the East London Grand Prix circuit. After securing a hard fought win at the last round at Zwartkops, debuting for new sponsor Hollard Insurance, reigning champion Darryn Lobb was aiming for nothing less than the top step of the podium.
After struggling for pace at the previous round, the Kyalami based resident, elected to run the car of Sean Grieve who was unable to make the event. It was a car with which Lobb had previously won both events at Zwartkops in 2010. New body work, and a slightly modified design, meant that the Hollard backed car was not only going to be fast, but also eye-catching.
In summary though, East London proved that’s its not easy to join a championship mid way through, regardless of the amount of experience.
Friday Free Practice 1 started slowly as Lobb round out the top 3, all be it, 2 seconds off the ultimate pace. A worrying sign was the lack of top speed, which was expected to be in the region of 240km/h, with the Hollard Insurance car only topping 228km/h.
It is with much excitement that we can announce a new sponsorship initiative for the Zwartkops
Round of the Shelby Can-Am series next weekend. In a deal concluded late last night, Darryn
Lobb will be pairing up with current Shelby Can-Am TV sponsor, the Hollard Insurance Company.
Hollard were previously involved with the Shelby Can-Am series in 2007, when Darryn won his
first championship, as the official series sponsor. Since then, Hollard have remained involved
with the series through TV sponsorship, as well as one or 2 other initiatives. The deal to back the
2010 champion for this event is the first opportunity for Hollard to put their support behind a
specific car in the series, in addition to the TV sponsorship already in place for the series.
“I think its an exciting teaming, especially considering the current TV sponsorship that Hollard
have with our series. I believe the branding on my car will no doubt, magnify the already
attractive returns associated with being a TV sponsor of South African premier sports car
category.” Said Darryn when asked for his thoughts on the announcement.
Round five of the Shelby Can-Am championship will be remembered for its stunning racing and the arrival of a new star.
Qualifying saw championship leader Rui Campos put the Q8 Oils car on pole ahead of Alan Eve in the Metal Used Spares version.
Armed with a freshly rebuilt engine, former kart star Justin Alison set tongues wagging by ending up third fastest to head the second row from Brian algar (Etana). Darryn Lobb returned to the fray with support from Hollard and lined up fifth ahead of Greg Walker (Indy Oil/Sunoco Race Fuel) as the top six were blanketed by less than 8/10ths of a second..
The opening race could be described as a high-speed chess game as the top order didn’t change but the pace of the top four was blisteringly fast and one little mistake would have been severely punished. Campos lead with Eve glued to his rear wing and then it was young Allison holding off Algar.
Shortly after half distance Algar began working out where he could pass Allison, but the youngster was driving superbly and resisted Algar’s attempts. Eventually Algar snuck through at the hairpin, but Allison had learnt a lot and gained respect from Algar. The final order was Campos taking the flag from Eve with Algar third ahead of Allison while Lobb was a safe fifth ahead of Walker.
Race two started with the grid based on the usual inverted fastest lap order, but it didn’t take long before the top dogs established themselves at the head of the field.
On paper, 2010 was yet another successful season as I successfully defended my #1 plate, having elected not to do so in 2008. But what the results don’t show, is how the season nearly fell apart half way through.
2010 started off as one of my most promising years to date, with the signing of a new sponsor, both new to the South African market, but also new to the motorsport market.
We arrived at Round one in East London with a fairly new car. Only once we arrived at the ultra fast circuit, did we realize that we were going to be fighting off the back-foot. Unfortunately all the pre season preparation couldn’t make up for a motor being down on power. Nevertheless, we got on with things and still aimed to score as many points as possible, and despite a very distant 3rd place in heat 1, the motto “to finish first, you must first finish” paid dividends in heat 2 with a victory as my 2 closest rivals fell by the wayside.
Round 2 was reasonably solid with a win and a 3rd place with a newly rebuilt motor, all of which helped to cement my position at the top of the standings.
Round 3 in Cape Town would throw things wide open again. By this stage we understood the car better, and that showed with a new qualifying record around the Killarney circuit, which was then followed up by a lights to flag victory. But things changed with a DNF in heat 2 after an accident on the opening lap.
Ever since I can remember, motorsport has been a significant factor in my own life, and also the lives of the rest of my family. My father Neil raced motor cycles since I was born, and so, I spent a lot of my childhood at race tracks providing him with moral support, and whatever other help I could. It was not until the age of 10 that l finally got my own chance to try my hand at motorsports competition. It was a tough development for my mother to accept, but eventually she succumbed to the pressure and allowed my dad to buy me my first motocross bike, a PW80. Motocross became my game for the next four years until, at the age of 14 and a bit, I was denied a competition license for National motor cross because I was “too young.”
Fast forward seven years, and I returned from a year of “exploring” the UK and my two-wheel ambitions had by this stage, changed to four-wheel ambitions. My father had since moved across to sports car racing, and although not quite as exciting and adrenaline filled, it was far safer than his two-wheel exploits in the past.
In January 2002, the time came to enter my first car race at the David Piper International at Zwartkops Raceway, Pretoria, in a Fiat Abarth 131. As the story goes, the rest is history. Eight years later, I look back proudly over my three South African Sports Car Championships, and look forward to whatever 2011 might bring.
Last weekend saw Darryn Lobb, 2009 South African Shelby Can-Am champion head to Cape Town for Round 3 of the South African Shelby can-Am championship. Darryn is currently leading the point’s championship by 23 points after 2 wins in the first 4 heats.
With added motivation after the blown motor in the Cape Town round last year, Darryn headed out aggressively by posting the quickest times in all 3 of the official practice sessions, lapping comfortably under the 2009 pole position times in 2 of the 3 sessions.
Final qualifying took place on a slightly cooler track in the late afternoon. Lobb left nothing behind as he posted the fastest lap of the session, as well as the fastest lap ever recorded in a Shelby Can-Am around the beautiful Killarney Race Way. His lap time of 1m13.3 was 0.9s under the existing lap record, and put him on pole by no less than 0.4s. Also worth mentioning was fellow iRacers, Bertil Hoffman and Hanno Pengilly, in positions 7 and 8 respectively.
Race day started off bright and early with morning warm up. For only the second time all weekend, Lobb was beaten to the fastest lap by 0.04s. “Warm up is time for us to shake the car down and make sure everything is running according to plan from the day before. The car felt strong and there was plenty more time in it.” Commented Lobb after the session.
Round 2 of the South African Shelby Can-am Championship, saw the series make their first appearance of 2010 at the short and tricky Zwartkops Raceway in Pretoria, where iRacer Darryn Lobb, put in a dominant performance, taking a firm hold of the 2010 South African Championship. After a tough weekend in East London, where Darryn Lobb battled with a car being down on power, things were expected to go much better this time round.
A rebuilt motor, and lighter body work, meant that there would be no excuses this time round. Friday’s practice sessions confirmed this, as Darryn, in his NJOY backed Shelby, headed the field in all 3 free practice sessions. In 2 instances, lapping under the 1m3sec barrier for the first time since the series changed body work in 2007.
Due to tyre restrictions of 24 tyres for the 9 rounds of the championship, a new tyre (rears), old tyre (fronts) approach was adopted. Things didn’t go according to plan however. A strong wind picked up just before qualifying, changing track conditions dramatically. Darryn set out aiming for nothing less than the pole position at this “tight and twisty” race track.
In short, and on paper, we had a great weekend in the NJOY.CO.ZA Shelby Can-Am, with a 3rd and a 1st, overall victory, and the points lead, but things weren’t nearly that easy. Some last minute sponsorship deals meant we didn’t have enough time to get a new car ready, and as a result, elected to go for the best of the “available” cars. A slightly damp track welcomed us for first practice, and initial feelings from the car were pretty good. But after some brief data analysis, we discovered that the car was in fact, underpowered and we were losing nearly 300RPM. This would become a thorn in the side of our weekend as it was the fastest track in South Africa with a flat stretch of over 1.5km’s!
Darryn elected to remain in the Shelby Can-Am series for the 2010 season with the hope of finally being able to defend his national championship. At the final round of the championship at Kyalami in November, Darryn was once again crowned South African champion for the 3rd time in a championship that went down to the wire. Interestingly, Darryn once again, managed to win 10 out of the 14 races in which he competed.
© 2010 Darryn Lobb. Site Design/Management by Henry v Arem.