I live down at the bottom end of Africa and have a scratch-built roadster that has been an ongoing project for a couple of years.
There had been talk of establishing a Land Speed event over here for a good couple of years (initial plans were for Verneukpan) and an event finally got off the ground in 2012 at Hakskeenpan - same location as the Bloodhound, but on a totally separate part of the "Pan"
I've been attending since the first one - and went
twice in 2013 (about 6000km travelled
)
There website isn't updated regularly, but here you go:
http://speedweeksa.com/ There is also a FaceBook page for those on there:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=133699450102481It has been great fun, though there have been some issues and I feel the organizers have their work cut out to really put this event on the map. I'll start a separate thread about the event if there is any interest?
To my car: It started out as a quick buy when I didn't have anything close to running a few years back. Long story short, a slipping gearbox ended up as classic 'job creep' and the car is now about 80-90% new. I'll post more about that if anyone wants to hear, but there are some details over on the HAMB:
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-afterthought-special-my-28-29-inspired-lakes-roadster.834663/#post-10693485In 2013, with the car only having run the day before leaving, I managed 198km/h, but with a number of teething issues.
Last year we pushed that up to 206km/h
Most guys seem to have had some fairly major issues with stability and the track surface/prep, though I really haven't experienced that, either with my old brick of a '41 Ford P/U - best speed was also 198km/h (though some heavy crosswinds did make things 'interesting' on one of the days), or with the roadster.
In fact last year everything felt so stable that I got to thinking that I could aim a LOT higher....
To date the car has run a 307SBC (I fitted some 305 heads last year) and though I could get more out of it, the old adage about cubes seemed to make more sense. I happened to have a supposedly 'strong' 350 that I horse-traded a few years back and had never looked at again, lying in a corner. I sent it to a buddy of mine and on tearing it down it seems there are some $$$ bits inside. He believes it should be good for about 400hp or so
Which leads me to begin looking at all the other parts of the car that I would need to upgrade. Obviously I want to see some good speed out of this thing, but my first priority is safety. There are a couple of areas I will need to look at, mostly around proper driver protection, speed rated tyres etc, and maybe some I haven't even thought of yet (though I'm sure I'm at the right place to find the answers)
Given that the Kalahari event is wide open in terms of rules etc (a double edged sword: run-what-ya-brung is great for getting the numbers to make a viable event, but I feel they are going to have to get WAY stricter on safety) I don't have to worry much about classes, regs etc compared to most of you guys.
I'll add to the thread as I go with specific questions as I go.
Thanks for looking!