Visiting British racecar driver Steve Morris will be in full fighting mode at AA Kyalami this Saturday, during Rounds 9 and 10 of this year’s South African Production Car Championship. –
– Morris, who drives one of the Kaye-Eddie Racing equipe’s BMW 330i models in Class A of the tin-top title chase, has reason to be optimistic at the halfway point of the 2003 Vodacom Power Tour. Since the previous rounds of the Production Car Championship at the end of last month, both his BMW and that of Kaye-Eddie teammate Reghardt Roets have undergone a variety of changes. –
– “It mostly concerns our cars’ roll cages, which differ vastly from those in the works-assisted Castrol BMW entries of Etienne van der Linde and Anthony Taylor,” Morris said this week. “Their cars were purpose-built for racing, with the roll cages stiffening the vehicles’ chassis and bodies. Meanwhile our race cars started life as ordinary road-going BMWs, with the roll cages built in for safety purposes afterwards. We figured that our cars were less rigid than those of the Castrol BMW team, with a corresponding penalty in the handling department. Thus, we strengthened the rear of our cars’ roll cages by adding various struts to the main structures. This will hopefully endow the two Kaye-Eddie BMWs with better handling, and help us to close the gap between ourselves and the factory-assisted cars,” Morris said. –
– The team has not managed to test their cars with the new cages fitted, apart from a short blast around the East Rand Meadowdale Mall last Saturday, during a promotional show for this weekend’s Vodacom Power Tour happenings at Kyalami. –
– “Even at low speeds, the car feels steadier than before through corners, and I feel confident about our chances at Kyalami,” Morris said. The British youngster will be hoping for two incident-free races. Last month, during Round 8 of the Championship at East London, his BMW was punted off the circuit and out of the race. The meeting’s stewards later labelled the collision as a “racing incident”. –
– “That upset me – before the Kyalami races, I think that the Production Car drivers and controlling officials should sit down and exactly define the term “racing incident”. If we are allowed to bump and barge when unable to pass other competitors on merit, they should tell us beforehand, so that we all work from the same script,” Morris concluded. –
– Saturday’s two Production Car races at Kyalami will form part of an action-packed raceday, with South Africa’s six premier formulas acting as a united show under the Vodacom Power Tour banner.
