Inland Historic Tour melts winter cobwebs away at Zwartkops

Nostalgia ruled in many shapes, speeds and sizes at the Zwartkops Raceway near Pretoria on Saturday, when the venue hosted a round of this year’s Inland Historic Tour.

A huge entry in 12 disciplines entertained a large crowd in sunny conditions the entire day, to remind all why they love this crazy sport in the first place.

Production cars

Top billing belonged to the Marlboro Crane Hire Pre-1966 Production Car category, where veteran Ben Morgenrood took his Ford Mustang to a smooth victory in the opening race.

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He was chased to the line by Seef Fourie Jr (Ford Mustang), Jonathan du Toit (Chevrolet Nova), Mark du Toit (Ford Fairlane) and Paige Lindenberg (Ford Fairlane).

Morgenrood won race two as well, this time followed by Jonathan du Toit, Fourie, Mark du Toit and Paige Lindenberg.

Sports Prototypes

The best drive of the day belonged to Hennie Groenewald, who took his Chevrolet Camaro to victory in the first race for Pre-1974 Sports Racing Prototypes.

He finished narrowly ahead of Jonathan du Toit (Chevron B8), Mark du Toit (Lola T70), Warren Lombard (AC Cobra) and Marc Miller (Shelby Daytona Coupe).

Groenewald also set the day’s overall quickest lap time on one minute 4.28 seconds.

His brilliant charge was ended early in heat two, when the Camaro’s engine blew up in a spectacular ball of smoke, causing the race to be red-flagged.

Meanwhile, both Mark du Toit’s Lola and Jonathan du Toit’s Chevron succumbed to technical maladies.

After the restart, Larry Wilford, who did not start race one, led from start to finish with his Lola T70, leading home Lombard, Seef Fourie Snr (AC Cobra), Allen Meyer (Chevron B8) and Marc Miller (Shelby Daytona Coupe).

Clubmans

Pieter (Speads) won the first On Track Clubmans race ahead of Ishmael Peck (Lotus 7), Adriaan le Roux (Caterham 7), Dirk Lawrence (Honda Ballade) and Johan van Heerden (Volkswagen Golf).

Zeelie led race two until the final lap when his car’s engine cut out. That left le Roux to win from Peck, Lawrence and Rodney Kruis (Honda Ballade).

HRSA

Nicky Dicks (Porsche 911) won the opening Evapco HRSA race from Andre van der Merwe (Porsche 911 RSR), Groenewald (Ford Escort), Stuart Konig (Volkswagen Scirocco) and Andre ten Napel (Volkswagen Scirocco).

Dicks dropped out of race two, leaving van der Merwe to win ahead of Groenewald, Stuart Konig, Jonathan Konig (Volkswagen Scirocco) and Nigel Townshend (Ford Escort).

Silvercup

Marius Jacobs (Opel Tigra Spaceframe) won both the SPS Silvercup 2.0 races, followed on both occasions by Giulio Airaga (Opel Tigra Spaceframe) and Karel Stols (Mazda RX-7).

Single-seaters

The first single-seater race was won by Paul Gerber (Ray), ahead of Patrick Dunseith (Formula Ford) and Paul Richardson (Formula Ford).

Gerber won race two as well, this time ahead of Ben van der Westhuizen (Royale) and Richardson.

Renzo Ribeiro (Formula GTI) and JM Gerber (Formula M) swapped the first and second places in their respective two Formula Libre heats, with Louis van der Merwe (Formula GTI) third on both occasions.

Lotus Challenge

Rudi Barnard (Taylon) won the opening Lotus Challenge race from JP Nortje (Birkin) and David Jermy (Taylon). Race two went to Jermy, ahead of Barnard and Mackie Adlem (Tylon). 

Legends

Richard van Heerde won the first Liqui Moly Inex Legend race from Jayden Goosen and Gavin Botha.

Van Heerde won race two as well, this time followed by Goosen and Torben Roos.

Next race

The next event at the Zwartkops Raceway will be a round of the Regional Extreme Festival on Saturday, 14 September.

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