Hot, close racing despite cold weather
Icy cold weather did not prevent hot, close racing at the Zwartkops Raceway near Pretoria on Saturday, during round two of this year’s Inland Historic Car championship.
Top billing belonged to the Marlboro Crane Hire Pre-1990 Sports car racing brigade.
In race one, early leader Jonathan du Toit spun his Chevron B8 into the Turn 1 kitty litter, while the Lola T70 of Larry Wilford retired with electronic bothers.
That left Peter Jenkins (Chevron B19) to win ahead of Mark du Toit (Lola T70 Spyder), James Temple (Shelby Daytona), Peter Baily (Ford GT40) and André van der Merwe (Porsche RSR).
Starting from the back of the grid, a recovered Jonathan du Toit scythed through the field in race two, catching the leaders two laps from the end.
He provided one of the supreme moments of the day when he passed the Jenkins Chevron at around 170km/h on the outside of the Zwartkops Raceway’s fearsome Turn 4.
Du Toit went on to win from Jenkins, Temple, Bailey and Van der Merwe.
Lady racer Paige Lindenberg (Ford Fairlane) won the first race for Marlboro Crane Hire Pre-1966 Saloon Cars, leading home Jonathan du Toit (BMW 2002i) and Warren Lombard (Ford Mustang).
Lindenberg won the next race as well, this time with Lombard taking second place from Du Toit.
The first Ben Morgenrood Pre-1980 Saloon Car race went to Andre van der Merwe (Porsche RSR), followed by Peter Bailey (Porsche (911) and Rudolf de Vos (Chev CanAm).
Bailey won race two, ahead of Van der Merwe and Stuart Konig (VW Scirocco).
Both the Silvercup 2,0 races were won by Marius Jacobs (Tigra Nissan) from Gerhard Henning (VW Golf 5), with Karel Stoltz (Toyota Etios) and Giulio Airaga (Tigra Mazda) taking turns in the third places, respectively.
The first Roofsure Midvaal Historics outing belonged to Rudolf de Vos (Chev CanAm) from the Jensen brothers Travis and Franz, in their Datsun GX entries.
Travis Jensen won race two from Wesley Rautenbach (Datsun GX) and Franz Jensen.
Dee-Jay Booysen (Reynard VW) won both the Monoposto races, with Louis van der Merwe (Swift VW) and Corrie le Roux (Formula M) swapping the respective second and third places.
Kola de Klerk (Nissan 350Z) won the opening Ben Morgenrood Pursuit heat, chased to the line by Rob Clark (Citroen Cub) and Jensen Evart (Alfetta).
Race two went to Ewart, from WF du Plessis (Porsche 944) and John Bronner (Alfa Giulia Junior).
Ben van der Westhuizen (Royale RP24) won both the Historic Single Seater races from Shaun Cabrita (Titan Mk5), with Paul Richardson (Dulon LD9) and Des Hillary (Dulon MP15B) taking turns in the respective third places.