Lap record is on the cards

This year’s Mopar South African Endurance Series will visit the Aldo Scribante circuit near Port Elizabeth on Saturday, with the Nelson Mandela Bay Four-Hour promising tough competition, and possibly a new overall circuit lap record.

The lap record could come from the Ginetta Corvette V8 of Gavin Cronje and Simon Murray, which set up the fastest ever official lap around Zwartkops in June this year.

The current overall Aldo Scribante lap record is held by veteran Tony Martin, who blasted around the 2.48km venue in 55.28 seconds aboard his Formula Atlantic Maurer-Mazda many years ago.

Lap record apart, the Ginetta should be considered the overall victory favourite at Scribante, where the all-new tarmac surface will not punish the incredibly powerful car in terms of tyre wear.

Others teams hoping to challenge for victory via a blend of pace and consistency include the Ligier JS53-Honda of Nick Adcock and Michael Jensen, the Chevron B26 Suzuki V8 of Franco Scribante and Andre Bezuidenhout, the Fantastic Dallara Renault of Stuart White and Stephen Young and the Comenius Ligier JS53 EVO Honda of Fritz Kleynhans and James Forbes.

GT class cars that could contest podium places include Marcel and Dayne Angel’s Ferrari 458 GT3, the similar Ferrari of Charl Arangies/ Kishoor Pitamber, the GT4 Ginetta of Sarel van der Merwe/ Greg Mills, plus the GT5 Backdraft Lexus Cobras of Tony Martin/Mike Mcloughlin, Brian Martin/Trevor Graham and Mike Schmidt/ Bruce Avern-Taplin.

Fighting for smaller sports car honours will be teams like Hennie Trollip/ Clinton Thorne (Lotus Seven Toyota Turbo), Eric Salomon/ Dave Sinclair (Lotus 23 ELF Toyota), plus the nimble Nash MVW3 Volkswagen of Dean/ Steve Venter.

Bradley Scorer and Theo Van Vuuren (Alfa Romeo Giulietta) must be the saloon car team to beat, with the two drivers also out to defend their slender Index of Performance championship lead over the Angel Ferrari, Adcock/ Jensen’s Ligier and the Martin/ Graham Backdraft.

Spectators can get into Scribante off Kyalami Road, Coega.

Tickets are R50 per person