WE ARE ALIVE AND WELL
Thank you to all the readers who are a bit worried about the fact that we did not do much writing and publishing on the Rallystar.net website this weekend. It is truly nice to know that so many people read what we publish and I suppose also appreciate our work.
When I received the 12th call this morning I decided to quickly write something before the “select few” get excited, thinking that their eventual Nemesis has disappeared into the blue!
We are here and doing well thanks.
Andries is busy moving home in the Cape and as he is old and over the wall, it will take the best part of today for him to settle in and get his computer going again!
I am currently under such pressure that I start feeling guilty just writing this “excuse” – busy with serious negotiation regarding development at Rallystar and also of course the new exciting website that will generate sponsorship for more people than any other (not that there were any other) before.
On the other side the negotiations with government regarding the Rallystar development have been ongoing for three years but suddenly there is a light in the tunnel (I have established that it is not the Gautrain) and we hope to make an announcement later this year.
The “sponsorship website” will be going online by the end of the month and will be open to all sponsorship seekers, fundraisers, special causes, schools and many more, definitely not only to motorsport people.
Talking about that – the test facility at Rallystar has been decreased on the fast back side where drivers actually have tested their top speed instead of driving skills. This happened after an off-road vehicle cut through the planted mealie-fields of my neighbour and he decided that he had enough.
We paid him a substantial amount monthly for rental over a period of ten years, money we never made back on testing despite the rumour that I was coining it.
So – it is a pity but a financial blessing in disguise.
I almost fainted when I realised that at R3K per month I could have had R360K extra in my bank if I did not make that section of the track available to the few who used it.
The picture becomes even darker for me when I add the three cars I “wrote off” without having an accident over the nine years I did the Route Notes, then add the maintenance to keep the cars going and the cost to run the Rallystar website promoting the sport over 12 years and you may get an idea of what we have put into the sport. That boils down to a frightening R1.024m – which I never really thought about!
I have a feeling that not even “high-lighting” what I have put into the sport over the years will impress many of you and the two notes of thanks I got after it became clear that I have served my purpose, said it all!
Then to crown this and to please Leeke and a certain sponsor we and PMC “lost” our traditional rally without a single line of correspondence. Placing me and PMC in a position where we could not try to recuperate the substantial loss we had in 2014 – you remember the Dunlop Rally?
So, I am sure it will also not bother anyone of you when I start recovering some of the losses I incurred due to the malicious actions of certain money-grabbers and blast a bit of what is really going on into the open.
For all these reasons I will not pay for any extra tracks anymore and the test track will be changed to include tight sections and also very fast ones.
We will anyway not get the full track back – ever, which is not my fault.
If I see that the rally fraternity does not need this anymore – no worries as I have plenty of paying customers who will use the tracks for MX and 4X4 – something I should have done long ago.
The RallyX track will be ready for practice and training soon as the first event will take place in April – latest May with five more events for the year.
Keep on reading Rallystar and do us all a favour – “like” the Rallystar website if you have not before, we need to determine our true readership and popularity.
If the figures are not what we need it to be, the website will like the rally test section also be cut from the equation. Then thank goodness the sport will probably thrive with me really completely out of the picture.
We have given rallying and you more publicity than you got anywhere else, over the years, despite not getting any acknowledgement from most of you and least of all from your controlling body.
Maybe Francois Pretorius was right when he said that “even if he had to break down the sport right to the last two bricks and then rebuild it” he would do that. Luckily or was it, he disappeared at window level.
But the beat goes on – nothing positive happened over the past few years – except if you look at the cost that spiraled out of control – which was positive for the main supplier – and the fact that we brought down the accident rate and got the speeds going up.
That will now also change – not the supplier – the accident rate – mark my words.
Thanks for reading Rallystar – its future is on your hands. Use it or lose it.