Fantastic Finale to a Fantastic year.
- 29 November 2005

A win in the final race of the season certainly rounded of a winning season for Neil Lobb in the Caltex Havoline Shelby Can-Am at Kyalami on Saturday. After qualifying in ‘only’ 4^th position in the 19 car field Neil wasn’t too happy as this was his worst qualifying position of the year, except for the season opener at Kyalami in January. “The car was working great but with the partly wet track I wasn’t prepared to take any chances and reluctantly settled for a comfortable fourth. The race is always unpredictable and I was hoping for rain which would certainly turn everything upside down.” Qualifying was a close affair with Donovan Roscoe (Stanley Tools) eventually edging out Alan Eve for pole with 22 year old Ruan Pretorius (Castrol Edge) in 3^rd.

Peter Bailey hadn’t managed to get his Fuchs Shelby to the track in time for qualifying but had requested permission to start at the back of the grid. This car has been fitted with a Porsche G5 gearbox and its appearance has been eagerly anticipated. The other development with regards gearboxes is the paddle shift modification developed by Richard Wood but this version was not ready in time and Richard (Almar Packaging) qualified with the standard gearbox in place.

Saturday morning warm-up was run in the rain with the track very wet and as Neil expected a wet race he immediately took to the circuit to find the best wet weather set up. After a few spins he proceeded to set fastest time in this session with son, Darryn (DK Woodcraft), close behind. Surprise of the warm-up was Clare Vale (The Truckman) who had never driven in the wet before and recorded 5^th fastest time behind Rui Campos (Boltt/Grindrod). “I could have gone quicker but was held up by Rui who thought it was a race,” said Clare afterwards!

Alan Eve is known to have the “widest” Shelby in the field so it was always going to be a close affair behind him. Neil carried the TV camera on his car and as Alan, Ruan and Neil jockeyed for position some close action was captured on film. While the battle continued between these three Donovan was quietly pulling away up front trying to secure his 2^nd position in the championship.  After setting the fastest race lap of 1min 48.635 seconds on lap 2 Donovan proceeded to hold the advantage to the flag. Behind him Ruan eventually found a way past Alan and pulled out a few car lengths on Neil until he also got past and set chase. It was not to be as Ruan held the advantage over the Caltex Havoline car to the flag. Ruan’s fastest lap of 1min 48.747 was only fractionally slower than Neil’s fastest of 1min 48.721 which he set on the 3^rd lap. Rui managed to catch Alan on the last lap and virtually resorted to armed combat through the last few turns trying to force his way past. Alan remained calm in spite of the wheel banging and as Rui held a tight line into Bungee, Alan cut to his inside to beat him to the line by a fraction of a second. The 'team mates' were left with some repairs after their close encounters of the Boltt kind. Darryn Lobb had only managed to complete the formation lap when the car cut out and he was relegated to the role of spectator.

Race 2 was a different affair with Neil hungry for victory and determined to beat the Stanley Tools car of Donovan Roscoe. Neil forced the Caltex Havoline car ahead of Ruan at the start and passed Alan Eve a few turns later but already Donovan had pulled a gap of a few car lengths and the battle began. Lap after lap Neil and Donovan swopped fastest laps but the gap remained and then a front brake failure sent Donovan flying off the circuit at the bowl and the black Caltex Havoline car was where it belongs – in the lead yet again. Neil controlled the pace to the end finishing 7 seconds ahead of Alan Eve and a further 1.3 seconds ahead of Ruan Pretorius. What had happened behind was that Ruan and Rui had got caught up in a frantic battle with Rui getting the jump on Ruan at the start. In his desperation to get past Ruan had tried to go up the inside of Rui into Nashua 1 but at an almost impossible speed. The result saw both the Castrol and Boltt cars disappear in a cloud of dust with Ruan emerging near the back of the field. Rui had managed to get sand into his clutch and his race was over. When Ruan was latter asked if he braked for Nashua he replied, " Of course not, I wanted to get there first! ". The drive this young student put in to eventually finish in 3rd position was amazing.

Young Ruan Pretorius managed to snatch 2^nd place in the national Championship from Donovan Roscoe by just 2 points while Darryn Lobb clinched 4^th position, in only his first year of National competition, from Rui Campos by 1 point. What a year and what a championship with 6 different winners during the year but in the end victory for Caltex Havoline and Neil Lobb. The Bailey development car managed to finish both heats putting up respectable lap times in the process in spite of weighing in at 65 kilos over the weight limit. Many people will be watching the progress of this car in the future and with newly designed bodywork a possibility in the near future this category just continues to improve their game. What will 2006 bring? See you at Kyalami on the 18th February 2006.