Multiple motor sport and powerboat racing champion, Peter Lindenberg, became the third South African to win the Castrol Tourist Trophy Race when he took the chequered flag at the end of the 45-minute event at Zwartkops Raceway, near Pretoria, on Saturday (January 31, 2009). He also set the fastest lap of the race.
Lindenberg, driving an immaculate yellow Ford GT 40 replica built by Jimmy Price’s team of specialists in Port Elizabeth, led a Ford GT 40 1-2-3 in this feature event at the very popular, annual Golden Age of Motor Racing meeting.
Second place was filled by the local pairing of Peter and Greg Bailey, with Peter having won the Castrol SA TT race in 2004. The third-placed GT 40 was shared by another South African pairing in Craig Shorter and Rui Campos. All three locally-built GT 40’s are replicas of the 1965 Ford GT 40 which preceded the 1966 model that ended Ferrari domination when it won the Le Mans 24-hour race.
This was the fourth time that a Ford GT 40 has triumphed in the Castrol Tourist Trophy at Zwartkops, with the other winners having been a Chevrolet Camaro, Morgan +8, Chevron B8 and the Lola T70 that won last year.
The 2009 Castrol TT drew a field of 26 cars, all of which were pre-1966 models and there was plenty of variety, going from exotic Ferraris and McLarens to more mundane glass fibre-bodied GSM Dart sports cars that were built in Cape Town for several years in the 1960’s.
Another local driver, John Bird, in a bright yellow Jaguar X140, took the honours on Index of Performance, ahead of the President of Motorsport SA, Roger Pearce, in his MGB (also yellow in colour!). Third place was filled by another MGB, this one driven by Nick Parrott.
Overall race winner, Peter Lindenberg, placed 15th on Index of Performance out of the 19 cars that finished the mini-endurance race, which included a pit stop and in some cases a driver change.