Thrills and spills at Zwartkops
MEMORABLE: BIG GRIDS, FIERCE RIVALRY, TWO CRASHES
Alarge crowd and brilliant racing by the huge number of entries made the opening round of this year’s Extreme Festival series at the Zwartkops Raceway on Saturday memorable.
More than 200 drivers took to the tarmac in eight competition disciplines.
Heading up proceedings were two races for 111 Saloon and Sports Cars.
The first was red-flagged after six laps when the BMW of Jaco Storm crashed into the tyre barrier on the inside of Turn One at over 140 kilometres per hour. He was unhurt, but the same could not be said of his car.
Louis Scholtz (Car Care Clinic Golf GTI) beat Bob Neil (Delmon Honda Type R) and Adrian Dalton (Xtra Clothing Golf Turbo).
Scholtz took race two from Neil and Dalton, this time chased to the line by Phillip Meyer (PPLE Group Porsche 924) and Wouter Roos (Car Care Clinic Golf GTI).
The first Car Care Clinic Super-Hatch race went to Karel Stoltz (Pta North Toyota Etios), followed by Jonathan du Toit (Motul Honda Civic) and Andrè Dannhauser (PAR Opel Corsa).
Dannhauser won the next race, ahead of Du Toit and Stoltz.
The opening Pabar VW Challenge race went to reigning champion Rory Atkinson (BHIT Polo), leading home Wayne Masters (Performance Masters Polo) and Waldie Meintjies (AllWagen Polo).
Atkinson won race two as well, from Wayne Masters and Bevin Masters (CPS Warehouse Polo).
Defending champion Gert van den Berg (DOE Rhema) won the first DOE Formula Vee race, leading home Lendl Jansen (Bull Security Rhema) and Lushen Ramchander (Liqui Moly Forza).
Race two was red-flagged after a crash between Marcel Blignaut (NMS Lantis) and Kyle Watt (Rhone Rhema).
After the restart, Greg Wilson (Rhema) won from Van den Berg and Ramchander.
Jeffrey Kruger (Design Hut Birkin) won both the Lotus Challenge races from Thomas Falkiner (Adaptive Resources Taylon) and Mackie Adlem (Adlem Auto Birkin), while Paul Verios (Acrotek Golf GTI) won the first On the Track Clubmans heat from Fred Kruger (JDM Honda CRX) and Dirk Lawrence (JDM Honda Ballade).
Louis Cloete (Performance Parts Beetle) took race two from Lawrence.
Both Sports Car races went to Deon du Plessis (TAR KTM X-Bow) ahead of Mark du Toit (TAR Lola T70) and Klippies Krige (Lotus 7).
Marius Jacobs (AAA Tigra Nissan) won both Silvercup 2.0 heats, the first from Ismail Peck (Tigra Opel) and the second from Dewald Brummer (MAD Polo).
The next Extreme Festival event at Zwartkops will be a round of the National series on Saturday, 23 April.