Regional Extreme Festival melts away the winter cold at Zwartkops

Warm weather and hot racing prevailed at the Zwartkops Raceway near Pretoria on Saturday, when the circuit hosted round five of this year’s Regional Extreme Festival.

Endurance showpiece

Heading up proceedings was the annual ATS Zwartkops 200, at 83 laps the Extreme Festival’s only long distance race.

It was contested by the Ferro Energia 111 Sports and Saloon Cars, plus SuperHatches with 37 competitors facing the starter.

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In the end, telling the story became easy, when Dawie Olivier (BMW 325i), took the lead at the start and proceeded to drive faultlessly to a four-lap victory.

He led home Wayne Robb (Ford Focus ST), Michael Grobler (Volkswagen CitiGolf Turbo), Melanie Spurr/Elna Croeser (Volkswagen Golf GTI), and Luigi Ferro/Wayne Masters (Volkswagen Polo).

Rob Clark ( Honda Ballade) took the sixth place while Ishmael Baloyi took his Honda Civic to the SuperHatch category win.

Just 13 of the original 22 starters made it to the finish.

111 Sports/Saloon Cars

Earlier in the day, George Economodes took the category’s sprint race in his ultra-fast Volkswagen CitiGolf Turbo, leading home Olivier, Mark du Toit (BMW Z4) and Lucas Bezuidenhout (Lexus IS 200).

Class C went to Wouter Roos (Volkswagen Polo), ahead of Elke van Vledder (Volkswagen Golf), Keagan Nathan (Volkswagen Polo) and Clark’s Honda.

BMW action

Ryan Naiker (M3 Turbo) won the first BMW M Performance Parts race from Leon Loubser (335i), Bob Neal (M3 Turbo), Renier Smith (M3 Turbo) and Reinhardt Miller (328i Turbo).

Naicker retired his Beemer with a blown engine in race two. That left Smith to win ahead of Nek Makris (335i), Miller and Devin Robertson (M3).

Volkswagen carnage

The opening PABAR VW Challenge heat belonged to Wayne Masters, chased to the line by Bevin Masters, Bjorn Bertholdt and Luigi Ferro.

Race two saw Phillip Croeser go off in the first corner, resulting in a massive rollover. The ensuing red flag came out a full lap later and most of the field did not see it.

Chaos ensued when the front runners stopped on the startline as per regulations, and a Gillooly’s Farm type of pile-up developed behind them.

Luckily, race car drivers are good and most managed to go sideways, off track or spin, leaving just the cars of Berholdt, Dean Ross and Mike Barbaglia to crash into one another.

After the restart, Bevan Masters snatched the lead, only to chuck his car into the Zwartkops scenery at the top of the hill.

That left Wayne Masters to win from Ferro, a recovered Bertholdt and Miguel Dias.

Meanwhile, 16-year old Christopher Tait again won Class C, to consolidate his overall championship lead.

Supercars

Championship leader Julian Familiaris (Chevrolet Corvette) took the first Mobil 1 V8 Supercar race ahead of Warren Lombard (Ford Mustang), Thomas Reib (Chevrolet Lumina) and Terry Wilford (Ford Mustang).

Wilford won race two ahead of Familiaris, Reib and Lombard.

Single-seaters

Lendl Jansen (Rhema) took the first DOE Formula Vee race from Brandon Hills (Rhema), Theodore Vermaak (Forza) and Peter Hills (Rhema).

Janson, Brandon Hills and Vermaak filled the race two podium as well, this time followed by Marcel Blignaut (Forza).

‘Mustang’ Masters

Barry Ingle won the first Pirelli V8 Masters race from Fabio Tafani, Ken Finnerand and Mark Voget (Mustang).

Ingle and Tafani finished first and second in race two as well, followed by Voget and Carl Nel.

Top of the hill next

The next event at Zwartkops will be the 2 000 metre Top of the Hill Challenge, to take place on 4 and 5 October.

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