DIY SPEED:

Road- legal track cars made i n Masiphumelele.

MY HANDS ARE ALL but welded to the nine and three positions on the steering wheel. I dab the brakes purely as a courtesy and tip the car into the tricky double-apex right-hander fondly known as ‘Malmesbury’ at Killarney Raceway. At the second apex, a wall of fresh Southeaster hits me square in the chest, threatening to pull my helmet clean off my head with the updraft. I’ve driven hundreds of laps at the Cape circuit, but it’s only in this exposed sports racer that I’ve felt the infamous back-straight headwind quite so vigorously. The monster in question is the Harper Type 5 and everything about it is like entering a parallel universe of driving. The racing bucket seat is hard, the wind buffets viciously, and the way its turbocharged motor piles on speed to a whooshing Death Star soundtrack is quite simply out of this world. It is road legal, but the car is totally He-man, much like its creator, Bulawayo-born, Craig Harper.

Craig has generously invited me to drive his hand-built pride and joy at a private track sesh shared with a bunch of other Harper Sports Cars clients and enthusiasts. To say that I’m a little nervous would be an understatement. I’m driving the unfamiliar Type 5 in front of its creator and all its biggest admirers, so I have to carefully juggle my desire for outright speed with the sort of restraint that keeps me firmly on the black stuff, and out of the gravel trap, barrelling endover- end in a humiliating crash. Thankfully, there’s no chance of that, because with a sighting lap to warm the tyres and familiarise myself with the track conditions and the car’s