This was the year I decided to be sensible.
The car had issues. The oil problem hadn’t been resolved. I collected it late, drove home, and made the adult decision to withdraw.
That lasted a few hours.
Watching the rest of the team preparing triggered something irrational but undeniable. Midnight decisions rarely come from logic. I left.
The drive to Knysna was exactly what you’d expect — stopping constantly, checking vitals, listening for noises that may or may not exist. Every town became a checkpoint. Every kilometre a question.
Arriving at sunrise after no sleep, doing documentation, scrutineering, and then driving flat-out up a hill is not a strategy. It’s a consequence of poor decisions stacked on top of commitment.
The run itself was secondary. The fact that it happened at all felt like the achievement.
1:05.5 — marginally faster than the year before.
Completely irrelevant to what the year actually represented.