Blue Crane Benefit Rally 2011

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I’ve always been a rally fan, pro rally driver would be my dream job, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. In any case I’ve often seen local rally events on TV but never known anything about them, their organisation or just how one goes about spectating one.

Earlier this year I finallygot round to doing some searching and discovered rallyworld.net, a website dedicated to keeping track of the local rally scene. I had made note of some of the events happening this year, but nothing really managed to fit in with my schedule. Until a couple recently when I saw a rally coming up this weekend, and it was in Caledon!

So I drove through to Caledon this morning, camera in hand and not really sure what to expect. The organising centre was at the Caledon Spa & Casino. Pitched up there and was quite happy to see some vehicles parked outside that fitted the bill, got myself a spectators guide and set in for some spectating.

I was mildly surprised at how many spectators there were, at the one point there were easily 100 people, not sure how many of them were friends/family of drivers, but still itneresting. I think this event was fairly small, with 20 vehicles participating. It seems like quite a regulars’ club, but I still enjoyed myself and I’m definitely going to keep my eyes open for another event.

I think it was top gear that made a comment about rally spectators going to different parts of the country and standing in the rain to watch a car go by for a few minutes

I took a bunch of photos which I will sort through tomorrow and put some up here (Edit: done, see below). Cars at the event included VW Citi Golfs, Subaru Imprezas, old BMW 3 series, VW Polos and a several other single entry cars.

I was at spectator points for stages 2, 4 and 6, before I decided to head off to Hermanus.

I’m not a big fan of WordPress’ photo gallery, so you can see more photos here.

 

Justice in South Africa

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Today was my first day in court. As a witness fortunately, and not a defendant. Last year my bike was stolen, and then recovered thanks to some quick work by the campus police (aka USBD, Universiteit Stellenbosch Beskermings Diensteerm, or erm.. whatever the English title is (apparently University of Stellenbosch Risk Management Services)). In any case, I received a phone call about 2 months ago out of the blue asking me to come down to the police station. No explanation or anything, just to please come down. So I pitch up there and hang around for 10min, the Sergeant who was supposed to meet me there was out, but eventually another plain clothes cop sorted me out, serving me with my first Subpoena.

So I pitched up at the Magistrate’s Office this morning at 08:30, as instructed. Hung around a while and my old roommate (who was also called as a witness) pitched up shortly before 9. 9:10 and we were all asked to rise (just like on TV :) ).

I had gone into the day assuming I’d be there all day, but I was rather happy when the first 5 cases were all immediately postponed due to the fact that the defendants were absent. On one side this was rather worrying, on the other I wasn’t keen to sit their all day. Half an hour later and my optimism was all but up.

At about 10:45 the judge finished a case, got up and walked out. In a more formal manner than that, but didn’t really say what was happening, everyone else kinda got up and left the room too. So I sat there for the next 40min, with my roommate, not quite sure what was going to happen. Fortunately the cases resumed and at about 12:15 the case was called.

We went up, with the USBD guard who caught the kid, and I got to see the kid for the first time, to be told that there wasn’t enough time left tothet though this case and have it postponed till the 20th of October. Apparently this was the fourth time the case has been postponed, and we were promised that it would have priority on the next day. All 4 of us were “Warned” to be there again from 09:00.

I was slightly disappointed at the way things were handled in general, and sightly annoyed that I skripsiereturn in October, the day before I hand in my skripsie. But I guess it’s not the end of the world.

We were allowed to leave then, and so we went outside and chatted with the USBD guy for a while. He called a vehicle to come pick us all up and take us back to campus. Those 10min were probably the most interesting of the day. He chatted to us about how often he has to come to court, and how he gets frustrated, because majority of the time the students don’t press charges or don’t come witness, so people just get let free.

It was also very interesting to hear him talking with the USBD guy who came to pick us up, chatting about some of the characters that were in court that day, how they recognise certain people, repeat offenders and how they’ve profiled certain people. He explained the way cars were getting stolen and some of the strategies the guys uses. Also how the holidays are actually worse, because there are no students around reporting suspicious people. thousands of students have thousands of eyes, which makes their job easier. It’s great to see guys like that who really want to make a difference, who know what’s going on and take their jobs seriously. It’s good to know they’re looking after us.

So I actually typed half of this last week, after my court appearance, but only got around to posting this now. Also my blog was hacked yesterday. Haven’t figured out how yet, but fortunately just some script kiddie called “Herculephp(but in a more 1337 way) edited my template’s index.php. Fortunately no lasting damage and it was quick to get running again.

Die Burger Mountain Bike Challenge

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Just a quick congratulations to the organisers of this year’s Die Burger Mountain Bike Challenge Stellenbsoch. It was such a nice ride, well marked out and only one or two short sections of congestion.

There were quite a few distances on offer, and I went with the moderate 42km ride. Starting at Eikestad Primary School, we made our way up through Coetzenberg and road around the base of Stellenboschberg before cutting down by the hangbrug and across the Jonkershoek road and up Botmaskop. Quite a bit of a climb here as we road across towards the Helshoogte Pass. This was the first congestion point, as everyone had to walk along a small single track section before getting off their bikes to cross the Helshoogte Road.

Our route then followed the old Helshoogte Pass and we road around a bit on the farms below Simonsberg. Riding out towards Welgevonden we crossed the R44 and made our way up towards Pappegaiberg with our second long climb. At the top we road along and down the other side into Stellenbosch. This is where I was unlucky enough to suffer a “snakebite” puncture, going straight through both the tubes in my back wheel, forcing me to stop, take the spare tube from the front wheel and put it in the back. Once I got going again on the down hill, I quickly noticed my lack of brakes, which I had failed to reconnect. No worries though, some careful shoe-tyre action resulted in me coming to a stop before I picked up too much speed.

photos from actionphoto.net

Anyway, through the town a bit on some odd “offroad”/pavement sections and we were once again back at Eikestad Primary.

It was one of the nicest rides I’ve ever done, beautiful scenery and kudos also to all the cops/marshals sitting at the road crossings, they meant we never had to stop, or worry about crossing the roads. Will definitely be doing this one again next year.

Face of Squash in SA

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This has nothing to do with squash as such, just the way it is managed, and the way I want it to be managed, mainly with regards to access to information.

squashracketinfo.com

I happen to be in East London at the moment, and coincidentally the 2011 Jarvis & Kaplan tournaments were being held here too. These are basically the men’s and women’s inter-provincial tournaments. It’s a fairly large event as far as squash tournaments go, but do you think I could find any information about it?

Searching the internet found a very nice article on Gauteng Squash’s website that gave a brief history and explained a bit about the tournament in general but nothing specific to this year’s tournament.

Going to Squash SA’s website also provided some information but not much. It had two letters sent out by Border’s organising committee, but again no fixtures or locations. I did then decide to try Border Squash’s website.

A quick search revealed that they did in fact have one, and there was a nice link for the Jarvis/Kaplan cups. Clicking on it gave a page with a list of fixtures, exactly what I had been looking for, apart from one thing. These were dates and results for 2004.

Today I went to one of the clubs and managed to catch the last of the WP vs Border match. There were no boards up with results or fixtures. I eventually found an office where a lady was kind enough to photo copy me some of the fixtures, but this is all information that should be readily available.

How can they have had daily scores available on their website in 2004, and now they don’t even have extra fixture books to give spectators. I e-mailed an address for Border Squash that was on one of the information letter’s they sent out earlier this year asking for information or fixtures relating to the tournament but have still not received any reply. (update: received an email today from Border telling me they don’t have anything to email me but that fixtures are available at the courts, I visited Buffalo Park’s courts but couldn’t locate any fixture lists)

I don’t think I’m unfounded in my disappointment. Sure we’ve been spoilt in the last years, the internet making information available to us whenever we want, but that’s the norm, that’s the way it should be. If people want to build up a sport or event, the internet is where to do it. Everyone has access to it, and it’s easy.