09 Mar RACE REVIEW – EXTREME FESTIVAL – CARS RACE REPORT 5 MARCH 2022

FANS THE REAL WINNERS AT KILLARNEY EXTREME FESTIVAL

Killarney International Raceway’s loyal fans were the real winners at the Extreme Festival powered by the City of Cape Town at Killarney on Saturday 5 March, as they enjoyed national championship racing at the home of motorsport in the Western Cape – live, loud and up close – for the first time since September 2019.

The headline GTC category fielded a record entry of nine GTC and sixteen SupaCup cars, and delivered the biggest drama of the day when a major pile-up in the Kink on lap two of their first race took out four Supa Cup cars – fortunately without injury to any of the drivers – and brought out the red flags.

Defending champion Robert Wolk (Chemical Logistics Corolla) led from the restart to the flag, chased all the way by Daniel Rowe in the works Volkswagen Golf 8 and Bradley Liebenberg’s HYPE Engineering/Sparco/Universal Motorsport S3. Keagan Masters (Motui/Perfect Circle Polo) led home the SupaCup contingent in eighth overall, after a race-long battle with Jeffrey Kruger (Universal Motorsport Polo) and 2021 Polo Cup champion Leyton Fourie, making an impressive debut in the premier league.

Julian van der Watt (Auto Zone Focus RS) gave the Ford fans something to cheer about as he grabbed the lead on lap one of Race 2 and held off the combined attentions of Wolk, Rowe and talented local GTC rookie Andrew Rackstraw (Investchem Logistics/RDSA A3) to take the win by less than a quarter of a second.

The SupaCup shootout was even fiercer, as Kruger, Fourie, Masters, Keegan and Jason Campos (Campos Transport/Turn 1 Insurance Brokers Polos), and local star Danie van Niekerk (also out for the first time in the Upstream/Titan Stunts/GSW/GWBS/Wingfield Motors Polo) finished in that order, all six covered by less than 1.5 seconds.

Local heroes thrilled the crowd with three hard-fought wins in the one-make CompCare Polo Cup races, two of them for fifteen-year-old rookie Tate Bishop (Angri Racing Academy/GAP Polo), and one for Jurie ‘Umpie’ Swart (Bullion/IT Polo). Race 1 was a cracker, as Swart and team-mate Giordano Lupini fought all the way for second with Dawie van der Merwe (Universal Motorsport Polo); they finished in that order with all four covered by less than a second.

Swart pulled a superb start in Race 2 and led all the way, while Bishop was pushed down from an early second to finish fourth behind Van der Merwe and yet another local, Charl Visser in the second Universal Motorsport Polo.

That left former karting champion Bishop with something to prove; he took Race 3 by the scruff of its neck and romped home to win by two seconds from Swart, Lupini and Visser, giving the delighted fans a 1-2-3-4 local whitewash.

Stradale Info Africa team principal Charl Arangies threw a curve ball into the G&H Transport Extreme Supercar line-up by entering his Audi R8 LMS GT3, in a field dominated by Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches, and then pitching up with a Nissan GT-R – the only car in the field that wasn’t built in Europe.

He added injury to insult by qualifying fourth and chasing Jonathan du Toit’s Lamborghini Huracan GT23 all the way to the line in Race 1 after Franco Scribante’s all-conquering Porsche 997 (out for the first time in anger after a year-long rebuild following a huge crash in practice at Killarney in March 2021) didn’t come out for the race.

Whatever it was, the Scribante crew got it fixed for Race 2; Scribante blitzed the Du Toit Lambo on lap four and pulled away to win by more than two seconds, with Arangies a distant third after local hero Dayne Angel spun the Autohaus Angel Ferrari 488 GT3 in Hoals Hoek and beached it in the kitty litter. Race 3 was a Scribante benefit as the grey Porsche snarled to 1.6-second win from Du Toit, Angel and Arangies.

The Investchem F1600 and FF1600 races produced two superbly close battles as Abacus Division Mygale team-mates Gerard and Antwan Geldenhuys finished 0.635sec apart in Race 1, with the rest of the top six covered by less than seven seconds.

Race 2 was even closer, with Josh le Roux (Investchem/RDSA/New Heights/Steelform Art Formula 1600) head home Antwan Geldenhuys, local driver Troy Dolinschek (RBR Racing/Industrial Abrasives Mygale), Ewan Holtzhausen (Total Plastics/Bee Tee Projects/Tovani Advertising Mygale SJ), Gerard Geldenhuys, Andrew Schofield (Investchem/SaFair Mygale SJ), Delon Thompson (A&L Material Handling Mygale SJ) and Alex Vos (DV Building Supplies/Investchem Mygale SJ) finishing in that order within seven seconds. In an effort to promote their new entry level one-make series, Toyota Gazoo Racing had provided six identical Yaris GR hatchbacks for two invitation Media Challenge races – at least three of whom had serious racing experience! Thus both races were won by Ashley Oldfield (Cars.co.za) from Deon Joubert (Car magazine) and Thomas Falkiner (TimesLIVE).