Sunday 7 September at WesBank Raceway saw tactical and furious racing with protests aplenty at the second round of the SASCAR national championships taking place on a warm spring day, with birthday boy Peter Lindenberg taking his first pole position for several years and overall win of the second round of the 2003/4 championship. Aside of taking over the lead of the 2003/4 challenge series on 397 championship points and winning both races, Lindenberg also had the quickest pit stops at 58 seconds. –
– Johan Fourie (#4 MD Transport), who clocked the fastest race lap time (23.883 seconds) took a race second and a third and finished second in qualifying, will no doubt want to sharpen his pencil to regain the championship (he has 394 points), which sees fellow Capetonian Kosie Swanepoel third on 371 points, with Jimmy Auby jumping to fourth place (162 points) ahead of his dad Deon Auby (296 points championship points). –
– The mornings qualifying saw a surprise with Peter Lindenberg (#2 Mack Trucks) waiting until his last lap to grab pole position from Johan Fourie (#4 MD Transport ) who only ran 13 qualifying laps in order to save his tyres. Perennial challenger Kosie Swanepoel (#3 Kosie Swanepoel Racing) qualified third. –
– With 350hp as opposed to 500hp engines, Jimmy Auby (#J20 The Glen Mica) and Marc Auby (# J46 Amalgamated Panelbeaters) claiming fourth and fifth place respectively on the grid ahead of Queenstown’s Patrick Seddon. –
– The first race of the day got off to a great start with Sowetan Sunday World Motoring Editor Keith Allen getting the race going with the words all the drivers were itching to hear, “gentleman start your engines”.-
– The race was filled with thrills and spills and it was again Fourie and Lindenberg who went hammer and tongs with the V8 master Fourie stealing first place early in the race with a great overtaking move on the Ford corner. A number of time penalties were handed out to the drivers with Fourie ( #4 MD Transport) receiving a 30 second penalty for ignoring the yellow flag and bypassing the pace car, Rob Beaumont ( #69 Tyco Trucking International) received a 30 second penalty plus the longest pit stop time for not taking the mandatory pit stop and young Marc Auby also received a 30 second penalty for his pit crew going over the wall before he had entered the pit area. –
– The WesBank corner seemed to be a hoodoo corner for newcomer Kurt Bakewell (#7 Sovereign Steel) who, together with Tommy Wotherspoon, had a number of spins on that particular corner throughout the race but fortunately never made contact with the wall. –
– Fourie protested the outcome, and managed to succeed to get his penalty rescinded, but Linenberg’s fast pit stop still put him ahead on overall race time. –
– After the penalties had all been handed out and tallied up by Clerk of the Course Wally Pappas, it was Lindenberg who claimed his first win of the season with Fourie in second with Kosie Swanepoel third and a great result for the junior Marc Auby who finished fourth in his 350hp junior SASCAR. –
– Aside of a spin by Lindenberg, the second race was both exciting and incident and pace car free, with lots of changes to the race leaders Lindenberg, Fourie and Swanepoel who ran like a runaway train, one upon the other. Kosie finished second behind Lindenberg with Fourie third, while Tommy Wotherspoon improved to finish fourth ahead of Jimmy Auby. –
– The Junior drivers in the SASCAR Series have done exceedingly well, holding their own in the race despite their smaller engines. The junior hero was undoubtedly Marc Auby, the older son of Deon, who at one stage was lying third in the first race, and who finished fourth overall for the day. –
– “I had problems with my brakes, and overshot my pit bay area, nearly hitting the pace car in the process. Thereafter I had to pump my brake pedal throughout the last race”, said Fourie who is looking forward to the challenge of the next race. “The last race was great for me. For over 50 laps we diced, which is something I have not done a lot of in motorsport recently”, he added. –
– The drivers were going all out with the added incentive of the one million rand prize kitty adding some weight to the accelerator. The sponsors of the series are Carnival City, Nationwide airlines, The House of Bonne Cuisine, Hand-e and Goodyear. –
– The SASCAR field were joined for the first time by the 2 litre Hotrods, who plan to join SASCAR as a support class, which make a change for the drivers used to a 400 metre oval to make the move to a 1,000m oval. The race was won by Rudy Myburg, who took both 12 lap races with AJ Horn Bert second, Flip van der Merwe third and lady driver Cindy Evans fourth. –
– The third round of the SASCAR Summer Series will take place on 25 October at the Grand Prix circuit in East London, and the next SASCAR race at the WesBank Raceway will take place on 2 November. –
– RESULTS OF ROUND 2 OF THE SASCAR NATIONAL CHALLENGE: –
– Race 1 (75 LAPS) –
– 1st Peter Lindenberg (#2 Team Mack Trucks) Ford-
– 2nd Johan Fourie (#4 MD Transport/Novel Ford Paarl) Ford-
– 3RD Kosie Swanepoel (#3 Kosie Swanepoel Racing) Ford-
– 4th Marc Auby (#Amalgamet Panelbeaters) –
– 5th Jimmy Auby (# J20 The Glen Mica) Ford-
– 6th Deon Auby (#96 Tyco Trucking) Ford-
– 7TH Patrick Seddon (#22 Contact Refrigeration & Air Conditioning) Ford-
– 8th Tommy Wotherspoon (#9 Sandblasting Unlimited) –
– 9th Kurt Bakewell (#7 Sovereign Steel) –
– 10th Ross Lazarus (#J10 Valvoline / Lindenberg Racing) –
– 11th Deon Anthony #10 Cargo Brakes) Ford-
– 12th Rob Beaumont (#69 Tyco Trucking International) –
– Race 2 (75 LAPS) –
– 1st Peter Lindenberg (#2 Team Mack Trucks) Ford-
– 2nd Kosie Swanepoel (#3 Kosie Swanepoel Racing) Ford-
– 3rd Johan Fourie (#4 MD Transport/Novel Ford Paarl) Ford-
– 4th Tommy Wotherspoon (#9 Sandblasting Unlimited) –
– 5th Jimmy Auby (# J20 The Glen Mica) Ford-
– 6th Rob Beaumont (#69 Tyco Trucking International) –
– 7th Kurt Bakewell (#7 Sovereign Steel) –
– 8th Patrick Seddon (#22 Contact Refrigeration & Air Conditioning) Ford-
– 9th Ross Lazarus (#J10 Valvoline / Lindenberg Racing) –
– 10th Deon Auby (#96 Tyco Trucking) Ford-
– 11th Deon Anthony #10 Cargo Brakes) Ford-
– OVERALL RESULTS FOR ROUND 2 – 7 SEPT/WESBANK RACEWAY –
– 1st Peter Lindenberg (#2 Team Mack Trucks) Ford (205 points) –
– 2nd Johan Fourie (#4 MD Transport/Novel Ford Paarl) Ford (189 points) –
– 3rd Kosie Swanepoel (#3 Kosie Swanepoel Racing) Ford (188 points) –
– 4th Jimmy Auby (# J20 The Glenn Mica) Ford (162 points) –
– 5th Tommy Wotherspoon (#9 Sandblasting Unlimited) (150 points) –
– 6th Patrick Seddon (#22 Contact Refrigeration & Air Conditioning) (135 points) –
– 7th Deon Auby (#96 Tyco Trucking) Ford (131 points) –
– 8th Kurt Bakewell (#7 Sovereign Steel) (130 points) –
– 9th Rob Beaumont (#69 Tyco Trucking International) (120 points) –
– 10th Ross Lazarus (#J10 Valvoline / Lindenberg Racing) (115 points) –
– 11th Deon Anthony #10 Cargo Brakes) Ford (100 points) –
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