Engen's Mandela Bay team prepare for showdown in Buffalo City

Monday, 24 August 2009

The Engen Xtreme Team from PE have furiously been preparing for their next outing in East London on 6 June. East London is known to be a testing and fast track that proved to be highly successful for Michael Stephen and less so for Shaun Watson-Smith last year.

After a frustrating Killarney outing in May, the Engen Xtreme Team will hope to improve on their performance of last year. In Cape Town the Xtreme team both suffered had their fair share of mishaps with Shaun's car struggling to finish Heat 1 due to engine mapping malfunction and Michael being nudged by Marco Da Cunha in his 350Z in Heat 2, relegating him to last place. Terry Moss, Engen Xtreme Principal commented, "The Audi's were performing better at Killarney than at any track thus far, and we were positive that we would have clocked up maximum points. Unfortunately, it has taken us this long to get the gremlins out of the cars' systems and of course no can predict what is going to happen in a race. That's motorsport for you".

East London last year proved to be a lucky track for Miguel who picked up maximum points in the second heat. At Killarney, and for the Engen VW Polo Cup races, things were not any better than their Audi teammates. In practice the Friday, both drivers suffered their very own share of mishaps, reminiscent of Kyalami. Miguel and his crew toyed with a different rear suspension setting which eventually backfired on them, and Kosie just blatantly ignored the warning lights, resulting in the fuel pump packing up. This no doubt placed even more strain on the team to get the set ups right for qualifying and racing the next day. Unfortunately, this did not bode well for race day when the Xtreme Polo's fared disappointingly, with the boys in blue and yellow (Miguel and Kosie) finishing 15th and 8th respectively.

The Engen Xtreme Team will be hoping that in East London the motorsport gods look favourably on them and take to the track, hassle free and get back to their wining ways of old.