ProCar Race 2...

Come Sunday morning, 15 minute warm-up and Sandy found the right set up for the Honda Jazz and bettered his time to a respectable 1:18:3. Then it was a long wait until the end of the afternoon for the race to start.

Sandy started the race from 7th overall and third in his class, he completed the race unscaved in 6th overall and 3rd in his class. Again he delivered a strong race, posting lap times down to 1:18:4 all the while thoroughly enjoying Bira Circuit and especially S1 and S2, his favorite set of corners. So, Sandy has now achieved his five required races for his FIA application and well so, with a double set of podiums in the last 2 races.

The team will now start planning ahead for Sandy's BMW scholarship application in September and further testing in Formula BMW soon.

Nothing like short notice to spice things up...

Friday evening and Team Manager Thomas calls up with the following command: "Sandy must be at Bira tomorrow morning, he is racing" ! No arguments here, so the following morning Sandy was at the race track and saw the car he was to race, an almost new Honda Jazz. Excellent car, but taking a stock standard Honda One Make Race car up against the tuned Pro Car series cars... ? Oh well, all in our dear managers philosophy that one needs an uphill battle to learn and improve....

One practice session, then qualifying, then one race Saturday and another race Sunday was the program. The main interest for the team was to compare Sandy's times with the Honda Jazz race a few weeks ago to see how he would compare. The qualifying time for P1 was then 1:18:6.

First practice Sandy got his time down to 1:19:2, so not too far off on his first outing in a Jazz and more importantly, Sandy did not look like he was slowing anyone down on track either, more the other way around... And Sandy loved the little Honda car, "it almost drives itself" was his first remark.

Then came qualifying and only Sandy's second session in the car. He dropped his fastest time to 1:18:6... Hey, that would have put him on the front row for the Honda race !! Here though he qualified 3rd in his class (Group C) and 6th overall on the 14 car grid !

The race started shortly after and Sandy charged hard to keep up with the cars in front of him, but the power deficit was just too much on the straight and up the hill, so Sandy started trailing the lead cars after a few laps. There were however no other C class cars close behind him by then, so he went into cruise control mode and took the car safely home to a 3rd place and his first podium in cars.

Tomorrow will see a second Pro Car race and then it will be back to Formula cars again for Sandy.

Sandy - the cover story...

Sandy in his racing quest found his way to the cover of ScandAsia Magazine and an article of his racing career, spanning from 4 years old and until now with 10 years of racing experience - and entering the world of Formula racing.

Thank you to ScandAsia for a very nice article. Check out Sandy's Media Gallery here.

Wow, what a weekend ! Finally, after much anticipation came Sandy's first weekend in a tin top. Thomas had organized the car, a well handling Honda Civic, fully set up in the Pizza Company Race Team livery. Honda gave permission for Sandy to enter the Honda Civic One Make Race series - or so the team thought...

Come Friday and qualifying time, the organizers had a change of mind and decided that Sandy could not join the Honda Civic class after all. Thanks to Team Manager Thomas’ quick thinking and considerable diplomatic skill’s, he instead got permission to enter Sandy into the ProCup – the fastest class! All well and done, a slight drawback maybe that Sandy’s car would be 140 kg overweight and approximately 180 BHP underpowered for this class…

Sandy set out on qualifying and managed to put himself into 19th out of 29 cars (9th in his class) with a time of 1:17:23, instantly gaining himself a lot of attention as the youngest driver on the ProCup grid.

Come Saturday morning and the track was still wet from heavy overnight rain and Sandy again showed how much he enjoys driving on a wet slippery racetrack, as he posted second fastest.

Then it was race time and if Sandy was nervous in front of his first race, he sure did not show any signs of it. Off the grid his 120 BHP Civic did not stand much of a chance against cars with up to 300 horses, but as soon as the track started twisting, he quickly caught up to others. On the second lap Sandy started overtaking, especially enjoying the slingshot technique out of S2, to get up on the inside in the Honda curve and then overtaking – just to be overtaken back again up the straight…

In the first race Sandy drove himself up from last to 8th in his class. Points earned. Then in race 2 he finished in 9th. Third race Sunday morning saw Sandy in 8th again and in the final race Sandy pulled out all the plugs and fought himself up to 6th in his class, with a best time of 1:16:60.

The funny thing though was that Sandy’s lap times was 1.2 seconds faster than the second placed car in the Honda Civic C class, where Sandy originally should have entered…

The objective for the weekend was to complete all 4 races unscaved and there was not even a scratch on the car after the weekend ! Sandy thoroughly enjoyed the races and can not wait to get himself into a race car again. A huge Thank You to The Pizza Company Race Team and especially Team Manager Thomas Raldorf for his untiring efforts for everyone in the team and our sponsors !

Sandy was back again in the race seat in one of the Pizza Company Race Team's Honda Civic cars, this last weekend at Bira Circuit. Coached this time by his mentor of many years Thomas, the pair went flying low around the circuit with Sandy clocking up almost 100 laps. Thomas in his 550 BHP freshly tuned Subaru SuperCar led the way with Sandy chasing his line.

The team expect to field both Thomas (in Group B) and Sandy (in Group C) for next weekend's Honda Racing Fest at Bira Circuit. Sandy needs to compete in 5 National races in his build up for the 2010 Formula BMW Championship entry. Although Sandy's lap times were dropping well into the "competitive" zone, both he and the team have as a clear primary objective to finish all 4 races unscaved, rather then at top.

Only 1 day of practice in the car before Friday's action (Practice and Qualifying) will have to do and Sandy is very happy to have Thomas in the race field as well. Saturday will then see 2 races, followed by another 2 races on Sunday. Sandy can't wait for the race day to come...