Summarize

Port Elizabeth racer Chassen Bright endured a bittersweet weekend at Zwartkops’s Sasol Race Day Investchem Formula 1600 races. Bright enjoyed good speed in Friday practice, but his Fantastic Racing Mygale was one of several cars to suffer from its throttle sticking wide open, causing Chassen to go off and bend the car, which was rebuilt overnight, but a component issue rendered the car undrivable in qualifying and he started from the back of the grid.

The races went better though as Chassen delivered a great drive through the field to end up eighth and in the points in the first race, before enjoying a monumental scrap to ninth in the second heat, with the sixth to ninth placed cars split by just half a second. “Phew — that was a difficult weekend,” Chassen admitted. “I had to start at the back of grid due to car damage from a crash after a scary moment when my throttle stuck wide open on Friday, which meant I had to drive through the pack in both races.

I was happy to finish eighth in race 1 and ninth in race 2 — especially considering both races had laps behind the safety car where I was not allowed to make up places, so in all an encouraging weekend! “I’m working to get to the next races at Kyalami in 2 weeks and Cape Town later in September — I’ve had my fair share of bad luck now and I’m confident of a good result should we have a clean weekend — thanks so much to Mark Lauth and Fantastic Racing for the chance to race so far!”