Father and son go racing

Leading production car driver Phillip Kekana has his sights set on the top rung of motorsport. But not just for himself, also his 12-year-old son, budding kart star Thapelo.

Leading production car driver Phillip Kekana has his sights set on the top rung of motorsport. But not just for himself, also his 12-year-old son, budding kart star Thapelo.

The Johannesburg racing star could become South Africa’s first black production car champion this season. Driving a Sasol DualFuel-backed Toyota Tazz 1600, he not only leads Class D of the SA Production Championship, but he has a chance of being the overall winner of the Junior series as well.

Phillip has few regrets in a life that has seen him rise to the top in motorsport, but he had to wait until he was in his thirties before his motor racing career took off. That is why Phillip wants to ensure that his son learns his skills from an early age.

“Thapelo is only 12, and this is the right time to learn to handle a racing machine. This is when there is no tomorrow, you don’t have to worry about earning a living, and you don’t know the true meaning of fear. This is when you go flat out because it feels good, and so you learn control. And once you learn that, it is always with you.”

But for Thapelo, the goal is to make it to motorsport big time – Formula One.

“Thapelo has always been car-crazy. He reads all the magazines, he watches all the races on television. When I watch with him I teach him the lines, I discuss with him why one driver is quicker than another,” Phillip said.

“Pogiso”, as Kekana is fondly known, has enrolled Thapelo in the Mercedes-Benz karting development programme for young racers. The two-year-old programme provides opportunities for youngsters who were previously denied the chance to enter motor racing.

For Phillip, this was very much the way things were. As a young, motorsport-mad kid growing up in Pietersburg he learned to drive in one of the hearses belonging to the family undertaking business.

“There was nothing else for me to drive, so that’s what I learned in. And I used to drive it flat out on dirt roads in the Pietersburg area, so I learned my car control, how to catch a slide, in a hearse. The people used to tell my parents I was crazy.”

When the family mortuary business moved to Alexandra, Philip was driving hearses full-time to make a living, and driving taxis after hours to make extra money for a career in motorsport.

“I used to drive the hearse past Kyalami on the way to a burial, and I think the mourners used to wonder why I was driving so fast. The reason was I had heard the cars practising for a race, and I wanted to get back in time so that I could park by the fence and watch them on my way back to Alexandra.”

Phillip saved money for a variety of advanced driving course, aimed at teaching road drivers and aspirant racers the finer points of car control. Derek Lotz was his instructor at the time, the mid-1990s, and he remembers Philip as a fast learner.

After that, Philip knew he had the speed, but as for the car, he would need sponsorship to run it, and so approached to help find the financial backing for his first racecar.

Sasol motorsport boss Pano Nicolopulos read about this enthusiast in and arranged backing for a Ford Laser for the production car series. Phillip learnt his race craft from the likes of Ben Morgenrood and Steve Wyndham. He has had a couple of big shunts along the way, but for the past few seasons with the Sasol Toyota squad he has been on a winning streak.

During the week Phillip freelances as a driving instructor at the Yokohama Driving Dynamics performance driving school, but his free weekends are often spent coaching Thapelo along the first steps of the motor racing ladder.

As one of 20 youngsters in the Mercedes-Benz karting programme, Thapelo knows he’s been given a unique opportunity. And development programme manager Winston Wentzel recently said Thapelo has real talent.

“We have about 20 youngsters in the programme and Thapelo has definitely got the basic feel you need to get on in such a competitive sport. We teach the youngsters how to work on the engines as well, so it’s not just an arrive-and-drive thing. They understand the dynamics of the machine,” Wentzel said.

As for Phillip, he finds these sessions probably more stressful than lining up on the grid in his Tazz.

“The thing is, these youngsters have no fear. And Thapelo is so aggressive. I tell Thapelo, he must learn to brake earlier, he is going too fast, but he just wants to go. He is motor racing crazy. All these youngsters, they watch all the racing on television, they want to be in Formula One already,” Phillip said.

Thapelo has no doubts where he wants his racing career to head for: “I want to race Formula One. My favourite driver was Mika Hakkinen, but now he’s retired, so I like Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard. For me the best part of karting is the speed. When I brake too late and spin off it’s quite scary. But this is what I want to do.”

By Stuart Johnstone