Local heroes shine at Killarney’s extreme festival
Dave Abrahams
Local heroes won in several categories and featured strongly in others despite difficult conditions at the national championship Extreme Festival powered by the City of Cape Town and presented by Smile 90.4 FM at Killarney on Saturday 18 March.
Capetonian Andrew Rackstraw (Sparco/RDSA Golf GTi) showed his mettle with a strong aualifying performance in the headline Global Touring Cars/SupaCup category, and chased home hotshot youngster Saood Variawa in a works Toyota, defending champion Robert Wolk (Chemical Logistics Corolla) and Nathi Msimanga in the second factory Corolla, finishing just two seconds adrift of the leader after a race-long four-way battle. Sadly, Josh le Roux’s Investchem/Vitro Frameless S3 went out on lap two and Michael van Rooyen in the third works Toyota 2 only lasted four laps.
Both were back for Race 2, however, for a front-row seat for the dice of the race as Rackstraw, Variawa and Msimanga fought it out over 12 epic laps to finish in that order, covered by little more than three seconds. Defending champion Wolk got a very poor start and languished in midfield for most of the race before putting in a late charge to finish a strong fourth ahead of Van Rooyen and Le Roux.
Bradley Liebenberg, Keegan Campos, Jonathan Mogotsi and Arnold Neveling put in two strong drives in the SupaCup category, with Liebenberg narrowly edging out Campos in both races (this after Campos completely lost it going into the first turn in Race 2 and pulled off a miracle save to stay in the race) with Mogotsi and Liebenberg taking a third and a fourth each.
Local karting hero Tate Bishop was a close fifth in class in Race 1 but was unable to maintain the pace in Race 2, averaging about half a second a lap slower than in the morning to finish seventh in class and 13th overall.
Franco Scribante, in his military green Porsche 997 nicknamed ‘The General’, took command of all three G&H Transport Extreme Supercar races, to record three emphatic wins on the day.
Reputed to have more than 720kW on tap, the wide-bodied coupe misbehaved ferociously in the corners but was uncatchable on the straights, powering away from the Lamborghini Huracan of early leader Jonathan du Toit and top qualifier Charl Arangies’ Audi R8 LMS GT3 in the first two outings. Arangies did not come out for Race 3, allowing local Ferrari 488 GT3 pilot Marcel Angel to snatch a face-saving podium spot in the last race of the day.
Late entry Giordano Lupini from Somerset West came, saw and nailed it in two epic CompCare Polo Cup confrontations with fellow Kapenaar Charl Visser – although visitor Danie van der Merwe added some up-country spice by splitting the two local heroes in Race 1.
Van der Merwe started strongly in Race 2 but lost pace in the latter part of the race to finish seventh, while Jagger Robertson moved up the rankings to come home a solid third.
Capetonians dominated the Sunbet ZX-10 Masters Cup races, scoring a 1-2-3 (Ronald Slamet, Trevor Westman and David Enticott) in Race 1, as former multiple regional champion simply walked away from the field, at one point leading by more than four seconds from a three-way fight for second between Westman, defending champion Graeme van Breda and Enticott. Westman put in a late charge to close to within a second of Slamet at the end, but it was too little, too late, as Slamet took an easy win – and Enticott blitzed the champion on the very last lap to make it an all-Capetonian podium.