Harsh lessons being learnt
Last week I was on about of how not finishing the Ermelo Rally was not up for debate after the disappointment of retiring from the GR Legends Rally.
And how important this would be for our season heading into to Round 6 and 7 at the Algoa Rally in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth).
Well sometimes despite all the positivity and faith in the world, life still hands you lemons. And in our case our lemons was a small, but vital, piece of equipment called a drive shaft.
After a great day one, we started day two with every intention of doing well and finishing the Ermelo Rally. Surely, we can’t bomb out of two rallies in a row?
But on the eleventh stage on day two. Coming out of a tight corner, the front left side shaft on our little TGRSA Toyota GR Yaris broke leaving us with no drive.
Just like that we were done. We were out of another round of the South African Rally Championship.
Now if you think that was hard to accept, you would be wrong. It took the TGRSA mechanics only a few minutes to fit a new side shaft and have the car rally ready.
But as we were out of time and this meant we had to sit there in our now perfectly fine car, and watch the other competitors come home to some much-deserved points and trophies.
It’s hard to make peace with the fact that we would have finished second at the GR Legends Rally and third at the Ermelo Rally if things didn’t happen as they did. Instead, we have nothing to show for our efforts at these rounds.
After the first three rounds of the championship where we finished each time and collected a bunch of points, I must admit to thinking that this thing called rally is easier than everybody makes it out to be.
“I was so wrong. No matter how much you prepare, anything can happen in rally, and it inevitably does.”
Coming to terms with this little fact has been such a lesson in humility. But we will pick ourselves and give it our all for the remaining three rounds of this year.
