DAY3
Tuesday, 30 October, Saldanha Airfield
There’s always a certain melancholy to Saldanha Airfield. The control tower’s grimy panes and a sparsely furnished clubhouse with time-faded prints of happier times in aviation look out over the runway. A bleached skeleton of a pleasure cruiser, miles from the sea, lies next to scattered metal hangars.
From the eye of a buzzing, gnat-like drone, our cars stand out in a splash of colour against the weathered surroundings. But we’re not here for the scenery; it’s the performance cars with revving engines on the starting line of our makeshift drag strip that’s the real spectacle.
You can read about the results of our braking and acceleration tests on this grippy stretch of runway elsewhere in the feature. As impressive as the figures are, they’re taking a back seat to the series of drag races we’ve lined up for the day. Two of these really stand out.
The 911 T’s opportunity to quash our suspicions of the Cayman’s supremacy is put to the test as we line them up in a dash for pride. The drop of the race master’s arms marking take-off meets with surprisingly little tyre scrabble and an eyebrow-raising result. Our earlier musings are confirmed; the smaller car rockets off the line, opening a somewhat ignominious initial gap between it and its bigger brother, more than once. Awkward kicking of gravel and whistling done, we decide to pit an unusually dissimilar German trio against one another: the GLC63, RS5 and M5. We’ve become accustomed to the tendency of Audi’s RS models to rocket off the line and hoover up test strips with impunity, but in a race with V8 rivals, we witness the bizarre spectacle of the RS5 surging ahead of its rivals before being reeled in as though stationary.
We collect cones and two-way radios and charitably distribute leftovers of our hangarside braai to the hungrier looking members of the team. The Shootout road trip reaches its oddly halting conclusion. The seemingly apologetic dispersal of the cars is hard to define. It’s possibly a combination of longing for home and a tinge of sadness the road trip has ended. With the open road firmly behind us, the Killarney racetrack beckons in the morning and, with it, great expectations of this year’s Performance Shootout stars.