Xolile Letlaka and Stuart White dominated the fourth spherical of the SA Endurance National Championship held in sweltering circumstances at Zwartkops Raceway in Pretoria to take a seven-point lead within the championship with 100 extra accessible from the ultimate spherical at Kyalami in December.
SA Endurance 4-hour evaluate
Stuart White planted the Into Africa Lamborghini Huracan GT3 onto pole with a 57.547 second lap, 1.5 seconds sooner than their nearest title challenger Charl Arangies who needed to withdraw citing a household emergency. It was later confirmed by a group consultant on the circuit on Saturday that as a result of the final spherical is a double header, it was determined to hold the present 2nd place drop factors in the direction of the championship desk and drop the Zwartkops spherical.
White took the lead from the inexperienced gentle and cranked out constant laps within the 59 second bracket as he constructed an unassailable lead, despite quite a few security automobile interventions early on within the race.
Once Letlaka obtained behind the wheel, he maintained the tempo till with minutes remaining, he was pressured to pit for a splash and sprint gas cease. He made it out of the pits with seconds to spare earlier than the pit lane crimson gentle got here on, however agonizingly the Lamborghini slowed and nearly stopped on the finish of the primary straight with simply two minutes remaining on the clock.
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Letlaka frantically tried to get the Lambo again to life and managed to coax his machine right into a semblance of life and crawled across the observe, yet one more time to take the chequered flag in an agonizing time of three minutes 37 seconds!
“My heart was in my mouth for the last two laps”, mentioned the delighted race winner. “It was a close call getting out of the pits in time and then the car gave me a low fuel warning. I’m looking forward to ending the championship at Kyalami. I’m grateful to Stuart and the guys in the workshop.”
Stuart White was additionally ecstatic to take the championship lead: “I’m over the moon with our win this weekend, keeping our championship dreams alive! Nerve rackingly, a wire caused an electrical fault five minutes before the end that nearly ended our race! Thank you to the incredible Into Africa Racing team and Xolile for the trust and great drive over the weekend. On to the season finale at Kyalami on the 15th – 16th of December!”
Second general was the Backdraft Slingshot of Steve Clark and Mike McLoughlin who drove a strong race after McLoughlin spun into the gravel on lap 68, nearly taking out the Bucketlist Racing VW of Christopher and Anthony Pretorius who was following intently behind. The VW simply clipped the Backdraft’s proper rear wheel however didn’t trigger any lasting harm. The 7-litre-Chevvy-powered monster additionally delivered a 3rd place within the Index of Performance.
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A spectacular third general and sophistication D win went to the manufacturing facility Volkswagen Motorsport Polo GTi of Daniel Rowe and Mobil 1 Porsche Cup racer Keagan Masters. Their solely problem was a delaminated tyre late within the race with simply over half an hour to go.
Fourth general, second in school D and second within the Index of Performance was the reward for a trouble-free run for the Pretorius brothers and their well-prepared VW Polo GTi.
Fifth general was Franco di Matteo and newly topped Mobil V8 Champion Julian Familiaris gained Class E and the general Index of Performance of their di Matteo Racing Backdraft-Lexus after a clear run, main residence the Team Pesty Backdraft of Harm and Barend Pretorius. The Pesty automobile had gearbox and clutch grasp cylinder points within the first 20 minutes of the race, so jammed the automobile in fourth gear and accomplished the following three hours and forty minutes with solely that gear at their disposal.
There was a heart-stopping second for the reigning Class E and Index Champions when Barend spun exiting flip eight because the group additionally had no rear brakes over the ultimate hour, however sixth general gave the group the lead within the Class E Championship by a single level over Jean-Paul Briner and Anthony Hoare.
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The Tradecor Steel Backdraft pair, who had been with out their third driver introduced their automobile residence seventh general and retain their lead within the general Index of Performance National Championship.
Fikile Holomisa and Bapi Rubuluza introduced their Team Qhubani Backdraft residence in eighth place general, placing apart their troubled season to get pleasure from a clear run.
Not having fun with a clear run was the Morgenrood trio of Ben Sr, Benjamin and Crisjan, who all had turns at spinning into the gravel. The first occurred within the open two dozen laps which pressured the intently following Tradecor automobile to hit the gravel in avoidance.
Crisjan had a spin on lap 80 and one other on lap 134 which was later traced to a cracked rim. Ben Senior had a spin in flip two and pitted with 28 minutes remaining to prime up his automobile with water which leaked out of a cracked radiator. The ever-ingenious group used a curry powder combine to dam the leak, crammed it up with water and nursed the automobile to the end.
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Gavin Rooke and Mark Owens misplaced a great deal of time within the pits conducting CV repairs ending their race in tenth general.
11th after operating constantly within the prime 5, was the Dolphin Racing entry of Byron Mitchell and Peter van der Spuy, who had an incident-filled race not of their very own doing. At their first routine pitstop, the automobile refused to fireplace up so was wheeled into the pits to hint the difficulty.
Worse was to come back for when Barend Pretorius spun his Backdraft, it was proper in entrance of Mitchell, who spun in avoidance and clipped the pit wall onerous sufficient to bend the left rear suspension. With smoke pouring off the automobile, Mitchell headed to the pits and after operating repairs, managed to limp residence for priceless championship factors.
The Angolan pairing of Marcos Rodrigues and Bruno Campos began the weekend on the again foot after their automobile was late arriving on the circuit, lacking many of the Friday free apply classes. Once on observe, the Korridas Racing VW Golf confirmed good tempo however was affected by quite a lot of technical points.
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Another welcome entry from SA’s norther border was the Stylin Auto Racing Volkswagen Polo GTi of Darren Winterboer and his 17-year previous teammate Dylan Pragji from Zimbabwe. The group had a strong race till a hearth broke out on the rear of the automobile on account of gas leaking by a breather pipe and correctly retired their automobile.
Fabienne Lanz and Reghardt van Zyl retired their VW Golf after a troubled weekend plagued with technical points, whereas Philip Meyer and Mark Harvey retired their PPLE/Adapt Backdraft in a cloud of steam brought on by a suspected blown head gasket.
The Kalex VW Polo entry of Karah Hill and Jurie Swart additionally endured a troublesome weekend on Friday and had been pressured to retire their automobile with electrical points.
SAGT National Championship
Zwartkops delivered one of the vital thrilling SAGT Races of the season when the championship chief Michael Stephen got here below huge stress from the defending champion Silvio Scribante and his vibrant yellow Cemza Cement Lamborghini Huracan GT3.
While Stephen, chasing his 19th National Championship blasted his Ultimate Outlaws Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo across the 2.4km circuit in a time of 59.16 seconds to assert pole place, the writing was on the wall for he was confirmed each inch of the best way by Scribante who was a shade slower with a time of 59.342 seconds or 0.18 seconds behind the champion designate.
Aldo Scribante slotted his sister Scribante Concrete Lamborghini Huracan GT3 into third forward of Sun Moodley’s Bigfoot Express Mercedes-AMG GT3, operating within the ProAm class.
With one race cancelled attributable to drive majeure, the only SA GT race began and ran with the primary hour of the SA Endurance race, making for a really busy observe for the leaders to select their well beyond the slower equipment.
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Silvio muscled his well beyond Stephen who had the opening shot off the road and held off the Audi driver till the wily a number of champion discovered his well beyond. An early security automobile allowed Silvio to shut proper up on Stephen and it was sport on because the combating pair went door-to-door as they fought for the lead. The two dueling automobiles used all of the street and extra with the hole at 0.6 seconds with 15 laps remaining.
Silvio obtained his elbows out and barged previous Stephen in a daring transfer below braking into flip two and led the Audi however three corners later, because the Silvio exited flip six, Stephen tagged the Lamborghini and spun Silvio round, settling the duel in a single fell swoop. The incident was deemed a racing incident so Stephen took most factors from Silvio, with Aldo Scribante trailing residence in third (however was entered within the SAE One-Hour Dash, giving Moodley the Pro-Am win and third general.
Support races
SAES was proud to host the all-new Volkswagen Rookie Cup and Silvercup 2.0 as a part of their entertaining race programme.
Dhivyen Naidoo took the primary race in his Polo Vivo Gt from seasoned manufacturing facility driver Jonathan Mogotsi and Brad Liebenberg, the latter two first and second within the GTC SupaCup Championship.
Kyle Visser took line honours in race two from Naidoo and Mogotsi with Visser repeating his win within the third race from Naidoo and Bjorn Bertholdt.
In the Silvercup 2.0 races, Marius Jacobs took the primary win in his Opel Tigra from Karen Stols’ ear-splitting Mazda RX7. Jacobs made it two wins within the second race adopted by Giulio Airaga and Shaun Lamprecht.
The last spherical of the SA Endurance National Championship is the SAES: Nine Hours of Kyalami takes place at Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit on 15 and 16 December. The last two rounds of the SA GT National Champion will settle the title on the identical occasion, whereas a number of help courses have been confirmed for the SAES’ season-ending grand finale.
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Published by MotorPress
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