Can anyone take Scribante’s crown?

KING of the Hill is the feature event for the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb, which takes place in Knysna from 4 to 7 May.

For this year’s eighth edition, the organisers have added a new level of intrigue and excitement with the introduction of three separate King of the Hill categories with equal status for standard road and supercars, modified saloon cars, and single- seater or sports racing cars.

“It was clear from the 2016 King of the Hill that the single- seaters and sports racing cars are in a class of their own due to their light weight, exceptional power-toweight ratio and superior aerodynamics,” explains Geoff Goddard, the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb sporting director.

“Even with extreme levels of power, the saloon- based racing cars weigh considerably more and are simply not able to compete on an equal footing.

“Accordingly, for the 2017 Jaguar Simola Hillclimb we introduced three individual classes in King of the Hill, each of which carries equal status with the winners to be awarded their own titles and ‘Jody’ trophies,” Goddard explains.

Reigning champion Franco Scribante dominated the 2016 event in his Chevron B26 and, in the process, set a new record time of 38.646 sec.

Second was 2015 winner Des Gutzeit in his mighty 1 100kW Nissan Skyline GT-R, 1.678 sec adrift. However, throughout last year’s event, the pure-bred single- seater and sports racing cars were largely untouchable.

Other than Scribante, the only competitors that dropped below the 40 sec mark were André Bezuidenhout in his Dallara Formula 1 car before dropping out with mechanical problems, and Robert Wolk in the impressive Formula Renault V6 who crashed out in the class finals.

As a two-time winner, Scribante will undoubtedly be the man to beat in this fiercely competitive new category, and he remains as determined as ever. “I’m going out to set the fastest overall time and win again,” the Johannesburg businessman says. “The Chevron B26 is very much as we ran it last year, although we have done some work on its V8 engine to gain some extra power.

“I think a time of 37 sec is achievable, as I could have gone quicker last year”.

Indeed, after making his much- anticipated debut in 2016, Bezuidenhout has his sights set on the 2017 title in the screaming Cosworth V8-powered Dallara F189.

This car was originally driven by Andrea de Cesaris in the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix as part of the BMS Scuderia Italia team, and currently holds the lap record of 58.839 sec at Zwartkops Raceway.

● Spectator tickets to the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb are available on www.iTickets.co.za.