Sports cars come out to play at Red Star Raceway

Sports car racing will return to the Red Star Raceway this Saturday, when the Delmas venue will host round two of the 2023 Southern African Endurance Series.

The Autumn Motorsport Festival will see 47 cars and 75 drivers tackle Saturday’s Toys-R-Us Three Hour race, and spectators can attend free of charge.

Red Star action

The Endurance championship is being led by Charl Arangies and Clint Weston who will field a Stradale Porsche 997 GT3 Cup. They will face off against people like Xolile Letlaka/Stuart White (Into Africa McLaren 650S), Hein Lategan/Verissimo Tavares (BBR Porsche 911 GT3 Cup), Byron Mitchell/Peter van der Spuy (Dolphin Engineering Juno SS3-Nissan V6), Mike McLoughlin/Steve Clark (Backdraft Chevvie) and Joseph Ellerine/Leyton Fourie (MJR Audi R8 LMS GT4).

Volkswagen Motorsport’s Daniel Rowe/Greame Nathan (VW Motorsport SupaPolo) lead Class D, challenged by Karah Hill/ Jurie Swart (Kalex VW SupaPolo).

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Class E is the domain of the Backdraft-Lexus roadsters, with the lone exception of Andrew Horne/Gerald Buys (Xena Chemicals Nash-VW). Leading the class are Harm and Barend Pretorius in their Team Pesty Backdraft, chased by CJ Blackman/ Anthony Hoare/ Jean-Paul Briner (Tradecor Steel Backdraft), Brian Martin/ Trevor Graham (Backdraft), Fikile Holomisa/ Baphumze Rubuluza (Qhubani Backdraft), Benjamin/ Crisjan/ Ben Morgenrood Sr (Morgenrood Group Backdraft) and Phillip Meyer/ Mark Harvey/Dean Wolson (PPLE/Adapt Backdraft).

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One-hour shootout

The One-Hour Dash Interprovincial Championship at Red Star will run in conjunction with the SA Endurance series where teams run the first hour before pitting.

The combination to beat at Red Star must be Michael Stephen (Ultimate Outlaws McLaren MP4-12C), challenged by Roelf du Plessis (Ultimate Outlaws Holden V8), Marius Jackson (MJR MegaFibre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2), Paul Hill (V12 Kalex Aston Martin Vantage GT3) and Izak Spies’(Ultimate Outlaws Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo).

Michael Stephen (Ultimate Outlaws Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo) leads the SA GT Championship, chased by Andrew Culbert (Bigfoot Express Mercedes-AMG GT3), Aldo Scribante (Scribante Concrete Lamborghini Huracan GT3), Silvio Scribante (Cemza Cement Lamborghini Huracan GT3) and Marius Jackson, (MJR MegaFibre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2).

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Silvercup action

Supporting the sports car programme will be races for16 top-tier Silvercup teams, with top runners like Marius Jacobs (AAA Recovery Nissan Tigra), Karel Stols (Rotrix Mazda RX7), Nic Martin (Car Care Clinic Peugeot 207 GTi), Giulio Airaga (Desco Tigra-Mazda) and Chris Cronje (Dozer Toyota spaceframe).

Saturday’s first one-hour SA GT race at Red Star will start at 8.55am followed by the first Silvercup race at 10.15am

An hour later, the lights go out for the start of the three-hour SA Endurance race at 11.15am.

The second Silvercup race will starts at 3.05pm with the final race of the day, the second SA GT race scheduled to start at 4pm