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Historics Hit Cape Town
7 Feb 2010
Killarney serves up a brilliant Cape weekend's international Springbok Series historic racing action |
Cape Town's Killarney, racetrack played host to both some gorgeous cars as well as some fantastic racing over the weekend. Some from the Zwartkops race meeting and some new, but all very impressive, and 6 and 7 February were two ex citing days at the track.
Sadly the crowd was a little thinner than anticiapted - a sign of the times, perhaps, but those that made the effort to be there were certainly rewarded by a great day's racing and some glorious machinery at full tilt...
Killarney bore witness to cars such as Irvine Laidlaw's incredible 1972 Kyalami 9-hour winning Ferrari 312PB, the Lola T292 of Wolfgang Konig-Spohn, a gang of Porsche 917s, some GT40s, Ford Capris, Chevelles, even a V8 TVR, and many, many more.
Among the drivers and riders present on the day were old rivals Sarel van der Merwe and Ian Scheckter, Willie Hepburn, Robbie Smith and Tony Marin, and eight times world motorcycle champion - the 71-year-old Phil Read along with SA counterparts Dave Petersen, Les van Breda and many others.
Another star of the show was Irvine Laidlaw’s 1957 Aston Martin DBR2/1, one of only two such cars in existence - definitely an experience to witness this priceless car in action and hear it thundering down the back straight at full tilt.
But the racing at Killarney was just as impressive as the cars – in the first race of the day saw the pre-1972 single seaters racing each other. Top honours belonged to Alan Ballie in his Cooper T71, closely followed by Marcus Mussa driving a Formula Ford Merlyn. The pre-1984 sports and GT class cars were up against one another next and Franz Pretorius took the chquered flag in his ex-Le Mans Porsche 956, followed by Peter Little and Colin Howard's Sevens.
When the classic touring cars were put on tack, the racing got really exciting. Willie Hepburn put the Sunoco Camaro on pole and duly romped off, only to be sidelined by a broken gearbox. That left Anton Rollino’s Chevrolet Can Am crossed the finish line in a time hair’s breadth ahead of Peter Lindenberg’s Ford Capri, 0.199s later! Killarney played host to some close-cut races and the crowds no doubt loved every second of it.
Another of Irvine Laidlaw’s stars of the show took top honouirs in the next race, which he won in his Ferrari 312PB in a time of 12m28.429s. Steve Humble's Mallock and Jonathan du Toit in the Chevron B8 were second and third respectively although it wasn't quite as close-run as some preceding races.
That was more than made up for in the next race though. Stephen David won a race that was closely fought throughout, taking the chequered flag no more than 0.208s ahead of Charles Arton's BMW 530M. The top eight drivers in this race were separated by no more than 15 seconds!
Tony Martin claimed a win in the ten-lap pre-’66 tourist trophy sports cars class in the Backdraft Cobra, while the last four-wheeled race of the day belonged to racing legend, Sarel van der Merwe in the monster Chevelle SS.
other weekend highlights were Dave Petersen aboard his 1985 grand prix Suzuki and Les van Breda on a similar machine he once raced, while the weekend saw the race debut of Robbie Smith's immaculate white Ford Capri Perana, which lapeed at impressive pace. Now if it only had a place to race locally...
- images: Patrick Vermaak
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