Hot weather, great spectacle and lots of close racing boded well for this year’s inland circuit racing on Saturday, when the Zwartkops Raceway near Pretoria hosted round one of the Regional Extreme Festival.
111 Sports & GTs
Heading up proceedings were two races for Digit FMS 111 GT and Class X cars.
The first GT heat went to Lenard Archer (ACD Welkom BMW 335i), leading home Jared Rossouw (AXON Sparx Volkswagen Polo), Marius Truter (Strategic Gear & Diff Volkswagen Polo) and Mark du Toit (TAR BMW Z4 M).
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Rossouw won race two ahead of Truter, Du Toit and Wouter Roos (Origen Oil Volkswagen Golf GTI).
Wayne Odendaal (959 MotoTech Volkswagen Golf) took the opening Class X race from Tihan van Rooyen (Vision Centre BMW 125i), Arthur Thorne (Volkswagen Polo) and JA Freckleton (VOKit Volkswagen Golf).
Odendaal and van Rooyen took the first two places again the next time out, followed by Thorne and Freckleton.
BMW///M Performance
The BMW///M Performance Parts contingent arrived with a massive number of entries, divided into separate categories for turbocharged and normally aspirated cars.
The opening Turbo Cup race went to Anton Pommersheim (Eagle Granite M3), followed by Sav Gualiteri (SavSpeed Auto 340i), Lenard Archer (ACD Welkom 335i) and Nishal Singh (Antonische M3).
Race two, run from a partially reversed grid, saw Pommersheim win again, followed past the flag by Gualiteri, Bob Neil (Delmon Mining M3) and Archer.
The first Normally Aspirated race was taken by Andre van Vuuren (Curvent International M3), leading home Olerato Sekudu (Rampage M3), Richard Gernholtz (NextRep M3) and Troy Cochran (Tyremart Boksburg M3).
Van Vuuren repeated the victory in race two, followed by Gerntholtz, Sekudu and Cochtran.
V8 Supercars
The first Dunlop V8 Supercar race was red-flagged after both Terry Wilford (Johnspeed Chevrolet Corvette) and Sam Dahl (ArcProTech Ford Falcon) went off the road and got stuck in sand traps.
After the restart, Tomas Reib (Café 9 Automotive Chevrolet Corvette) took the victory from Larry Wilford (Jet Bearings Holden Commodore) and Warren Lombard (Pepboys Automotive Ford Mustang).
Reib won race two as well, chased over the line by Dahl, Franco di Matteo (Di Matteo Fordw Mustang) and Larry Wilford.
ATE VW Challenge
Josh Moore (Worx BPW) won the first mostly Polo campaigned ATE VW Challenge race ahead of Anthony Lessing (Raless), Christopher Tait (King Price Extreme) and Francis Aldrich.
Moore won race two from Lessing as well, this time with Aldrich third and Stuart Mack (AutoZone), in fourth.
Formula Vee
Reigning champion Lendl Jansen (Bull Security Rhema 2) won the opening DOE CIM Fuel Formula Vee race from Gert van der Berg (DOE Parts Rhema 2), Brandon Hills (Mangaza MXTwo Rhema 2) and Jaco Schriks (Cube Coatings Rhema 2).
Race two was won by Hills, ahead of van der Berg, Jansen and Peter Hills.
SuperHatch
Arthur Thorne (Volkswagen Polo) took the first SuperHatch race ahead of Karel Stolts (Toyota Etios), Hendrik Venter (4Js Auto Opel Corsa) and Ishmael Baloyi (TAR Honda Civic).
Thorne won race two as well, followed by Stolts, Venter and Baloyi.
Next
The next event at the Zwartkops Raceway will be a round of the Inland Historic Championship on Saturday, 28 March.
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