Speed Record...Omund to CapeTown!

[Jeremy Dixon]

With no one else in the car i think it helped my time quite a bit! You know how woman are they always looking to do a little shopping!

[Bruce Davies]

Used to do that trip regularly in the 70's and early 80''s. Can't really remember how long it used to take, but do recall that "fuel" consumption was around 2 cans per 100 km..!! 

[Yvette Kroukamp (Biccard)]

I think I might take the cake on this one, met up with some old school mates (whose parents owned the steakhouse/rooms/petrol station opposite the Clanwilliam dam) joined a party and hit CT all of 48 hours later. Cool hey!

[SandyB]

well done  Yvette  in true O'mund style .. i recall I always used to do a good clip in my  Club  when travelling solo  .. minimal stops ...seeemd to be able to do it in about  8-9 hours .. till the one  night  I agreed to travel in convoy as one guy was  taking his nissan down for trade in and it was problematic  s o it was me in front and an  unnamed  passenger  who promised to keep me awake by keeping conversation incase  the journey got  long  .. did the usual leave town at  18 00  expecting  CT  at about 02:30  .. well little nissan was a nasty nissan .. it broke down .. fuel filter and other  troubles .. each time got it on the go including ditching the  fuel filter  ..  each time  we ate padkos  ( I would never eat  just stop for a smoke and a quick cooldring  stretch  and on my way again )  at some point we left  nasty nissan behind .. it  needed first aid so stopped at  some or other town ..  eventually we  were at picketburg or somewhere at sunrise  my " talkative passenger " now with seat rolled down and fast asleep ..  suddenly I remembered nothing  .. next thing i know  I'm doing some crazy speed  inexcess of 140 and heading for a  concrete road marker on the other side of the road  Haaqh !   yank steering  wheel .. now heading  for  road marker on other side of the road .. yank steering wheel again .. this  excercise repeated a few times  with car  bumping off side off road into gravel  and flying back onto road  tryes screeching , by now  sleeping  beauty passenger wide awake  and clinging to the dashboard .. ( could swear he left  finger claw marks in dashboard  and maybe  emptied his guts )  throughout this whole  episode I must take my hat off to the  handling capabilities of the little citroen club  .. I'm sure any othe car would have rolled  especially with the leaving of the road and flying back on again at high speed ..   got car under control after the  hectic manouvres ..  had a shitfit  with passenger and told  him to now  talk  talk  talk as I was tired ..   got to CT  with no more incident  dropped passenger off ..  next time .. no  convoy  ...  I want to do my own speed and time ...

[Michael Alexander]

I too hate convoys.... in fact if MR no Name brand stops to tail me for the next 100km... I would rather pull of the road...... hate tailgating.....

[Anthony]

  There are guys who claim to do it under 5 hrs. When you look at the cars they drive, it might be possible. Dangerous but possible. I was doing about 150 outside the Port one day when a certain rep from Springbok in a silver bullet came past me at the speed of white lightning. I probably was not even thinking about the pass yet when he must have been in Springbok.

[Michael Alexander]

It's not uncommon to hear of Alex Bay Border to Springbok.... in 90 minutes......   

[Clive Symes]

In Context, approx 250 km in 1.5 hours gives you an average speed of 167 Km  per hour.
Through Port Nolloth, through the twists in the Annenous pass,  Steinkopf, Think about it. From Steinkopf to Okiep & Springbok one has to look at 240 to 250  to make up for time lost on the pass & what about the trucks etc.

[Michael Alexander]

I also wondered about that,,,,,,,,?    Werner Reishauer did it in 90 minutes.... and I reckon Ol' Klonk Visser from CBS beat that.....

Strange but true......

[Alfred Boehme]

It's not uncommon to hear of Alex Bay Border to Springbok.... in 90 minutes......   

These guys are goooood

[SandyB]

We'll be taking it easy ...

[Michael Alexander]

With a car full of Yorkshire woman, I should hope so.........

[Bob Molloy]

Hi all,
          Way back in the early Sixties Roger (?) and I – being young, ten foot tall, bullet-proof and not overly blessed with brain – opted to have a go at the road speed record from Cape Town to Oranjemund which then stood at seven hours and 10 minutes.
I was driving a late model Ford Fairlaine V8 with a skimmed down head. I can\t remember the exact tolerances but they were tight. The car had a new set of steel belt radials with mud pattern treads. It had an 80-litre tank, brimful for the occasion. As I recall, we reached the bridge on the smell of the last litre.
Speed record attempts were taken seriously in those days. Stopwatch starts and finishes were monitored at each end and the report went to a committee which convened in Casey's Bar. A successful attempt could be expensive, depending on how many were drinking in the bar when it was announced.
The distance was set at 503 miles measured between Jimmy's Café in Long Street and the gate at the bridge. Jimmy, an ex-Oranjemunder, saw us off from Long Street at precisely 10am. The departure time was then posted on a card to one of the committee members. At the bridge the arrival time was taken by whoever was on security duty and phoned through to Casey's.
The times were then chalked up on a small blackboard behind the bar to await the next meeting of the committee. They would pronounce learnedly, and at length, while you kept their glasses filled. If you were a winner, it was announced to the bar at large which then joined in the celebration while you picked up the tab. As I said at the beginning, we were not overly blessed with brain.
Of the 503 mile distance, just over 100 was tarseal. The rest was dirt or gravel and, for much of Namaqualand, drifted sand. We chose a Friday because that meant the graders would have been working for five days and maybe, just maybe, have graded most of it. Otherwise you risked hitting a "middel-mannetjie" of debris heaped up by the action of massive six-wheel articulated trailers operated day and night by Jowells Transport.
We reached the bridge at 4.55pm, a total elapsed time of 6 hours and 55 minutes. The time was vital. The bridge closed at 5pm each night and there was no appeal. If you didn't make it you had the choice of either sleeping in your car to await the 6am opening time or go back to the Port Nolloth Hotel and brak water coffee.
We never saw a speed cop throughout the entire trip. If they spotted us it could only have been our dust cloud. We knew pursuit in Namaqualand conditions was suicide so we felt fairly confident. I had my own stopwatch on the dash and keep one eye on the time. I hate to think what speeds we were doing on the final stretch but on stopping at the bridge Roger was white-knuckled. My fingers had locked around the wheel and I had difficulty getting them to uncurl.
The car? It lost the full exhaust system (somewhere around Steinkopf I think – the security guard told us he could hear us coming from two kilometers away) and the sump had a hairline crack. The tyres were virtually shredded and had to be junked.
Sadly, our record stood for a bare two months until another ten minutes was slashed off it by an even less brain-endowed pair. Two subsequent attempts resulted in two guys writing themselves off, whereupon Stan Devlin, the general manager, stepped in and forbade all registration of road speed attempts on pain of dismissal.
Thereafter, without the official oversight any records set up were suspect and road speed attempts stopped. Intrigued to find they have come back into fashion. However, take it from a doddering oldie, the no-brain aspect still applies.
Regards,
Bob

[Leon Sumter]

very interesting account Bob. I would imagine that with today's tar roads and modern high performance pocket rockets, i.e Golf GTI's, Opel OPC's and the like that handle a far better than the old 3 ton yank tanks we drove in those early days, 7 hours 55minute could be bettered. Heaven help you if you get caught travelling at the high speeds to achieve or better 7hours 55minutes.

[SandyB]

My trip up   in november my little  Clio 3 passengers  up ..  finally left CT  at nine am  stopped for tea and snack at  clanwilliam ..  bitterfontein to fill up ..  springbok to  get sunglasses for bev and have another snack ..  then a stopover at mc dougals ... arrived at  bridge   borderpost at  5 pm .. considering all the stops  not too shabby ??