Friends – and mortal enemies
Midas Three-Hour Endurance champs to race for Border 100 title
Friends Philip Weise and Dean Ball drove their way to victory in the Midas Three-Hour Endurance title race last weekend.
However, the pair will be racing against each other as they go in search of the Border 100 title next month.
The duo stunned some of the biggest competitors in the endurance race as they took the overall win and Index of Performance crowns, among others, at the event which featured more than 40 cars from across the country.
Now the pair will go head-to-head for competing teams when they take to the East London Grand Prix track in pursuit of the next title on December 15.
Weise will team up with Garth de Villiers from ROV Durrant Engineering for the Border race.
Ball will race in his Champion Motors BMW E46 Compact.
“Garth has had no time in the car as yet, so we will leave on Thursday because we need to try to get Garth into the car, doing some laps in the car and just getting the feel of it,” Weise said.
Weise said he had bought the car at the end of 2016, and shortly thereafter made contact with Ball, who transformed it into a race-winning beast.
“I met Dean during a race in 2017.
“He had been running behind me in the race and said, ‘your car is handling terribly’, and that is kind of how Dean and I became friends,” Weise said.
Before Ball worked his magic on the car, Weise said he had often struggled to hit the 1 minute 17 second barrier.
However, he now managed to achieve lap times in the region of 1:12, which he said was a massive improvement and bore testament to Ball’s incredible genius.
Speaking about their performance, Weise, who is the owner of the “Giant-Killing” Solid Pave E36 BMW 328, said they had had no expectations of winning the race, as there were other competitors whose vehicles were stronger.
“Every year the best of the best cars come down for this race.
“We had decided to go for either the overall win or winning the index of performance, so for us to bag this crown is something quite special,” Weise told Weekend Post on Thursday.
“We would have been ecstatic with a top 10 finish.
“I was supposed to race my own car, but due to some mechanical issues the night before, and at the last minute, Philip and I decided that I would ride with him.
“We didn’t have any strategy going into the race, we just wanted to run a smooth race and most importantly finish,” Ball said.
Despite suffering some mechanical issues during the final stages of the race, Ball, who drove the second stint of the race, managed to nurse the car home for the win.
Ball, who is originally from Zimbabwe, but moved to East London during his late teens, first got a taste for speed when racing go karts.
He then moved to oval track racing, where he got involved in stock car racing and was crowned stock car champion in 1991.
He also raced on the national circuit, competing in the Formula GTI single seater and was crowned Class B champion in 1999, before a stint in the Polo Cup, where he also won a championship.
Port Elizabeth’s Weise started his career in quad biking in his younger years, before moving over to dirt bikes at the age of 21, doing fairly well on a regional level during the mid2000s.
He also raced rubber duck boats as a hobby, but his career was later blighted by numerous injuries which started to take a toll on his body.
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