EL Grand Prix track in Extreme gear

THE 2017 South African Extreme Festival National Circuit Racing Championship roadshow heads to East London next week.

This third round will be run on the East London Grand Prix Circuit – South Africa’s oldest and perhaps most prestigious race circuit – next Saturday.

While the meeting offers a great day of racing for local and visiting race fans, there’s always an element of greatness about racing or spectating at this great Border track.

Races will see National Championship showdowns between the likes of the on-form Gennaro Bonafede’s Sasol BMW and EP heroes, champion Michael Stephen and Simon Moss in the Engen Audis, as well as the GTC2 Golfs, Minis and Hondas in Sasol Global Touring Cars, the best of South Africa’s future superstars in Engen Volkswagen Cup and Investec Formula 1600.

There are also National Challenge races for the G&H Transport Extreme Supercars, Bridgestone Thunderbikes and Red Square Kawasaki ZX10 R Masters, along with an away race for the Gauteng Comsol VW Challenge, all of which will happen on hallowed ground.

The classic East London Grand Prix Circuit still runs on regular public roads and remains South Africa’s fastest racetrack with its long, flat out run, down through the imposing Potters Pass and Rifle Range bends and into the beachside Copabana corner, before heading back along through a twisty section along the coast road.

It is a legend in the world of motorsport stretching back to the 1930s.

Initially run on a circular road on the West Bank of East London, playing host to the classic Border Hundred, the circuit hosted the first South African Grand Prix over six laps of a 23km course won by US millionaire Whitney Straight’s Maserati in front of 65 000 spectators in 1934.

The pre-war South African Grand Prix attracted the world’s finest racers to East London, including the legendary Auto Union Silver Arrows, but World War 2 saw a stop to that.

It took a while for grand prix racing to return to the current, shorter circuit on New Year’s Day 1960, with the ’64, ’65 and final 1966 East London SA Grand Prix counting toward the world championship and fought out by the likes of Jim Clark, Graham Hill, John Surtees and Jack Brabham.