Some frighteningly fast corners in six-hour race

Mike Schmidt and Bruce Avern-Taplin from KZN's are the
underdogs in their 1,6 Corolla among 45 entries for the
2014 6-hour race at Phakisa in Welkom.

KwaZulu-Natal will have two entries in the South Africa's second six-hour race at the Phakisa race track in Welkom this weekend.

From Prospecton, Tony Martin of Backdraft Racing will be carrying the province’s hopes in the endurance race.

Martin said this year he really hopes to bring home some silverware with a 6-liter Chevy Bakcdraft production racer and two new-style cars with hugely modified aerodynamics.

The new-style cars (branding issues prevent us from calling these cars 'Cobras') are powered by the Backdraft’s latest development of the Lexus 4-liter V8 engine that makes almost 700 hp and will be driven by former SA champions Mike Mcgoughlin, Bernard Tilanus, Franco Scribante, and Martin, who is an international champion, having won the Daytona 24 Hours in 1984 with Sarel van der Merwe and Graham Duxbury in a March 83G-Porsche driving for Kreepy Krauly Racing.

In the Backdraft Chevy, Martin Weight and Dieter Ziesing will remind the fans what racing should sound like
and with anything possible in endurance racing, they have as good a chance for a podium place as any of the other 44 confirmed entries.

Duncan and Graham Vos comfortably won last year’s inaugural six-hour event in the Ecurie Zoo Pilbeam MP98 Cosworth. They covered 191-laps or 809 kilometres at an average speed of 134.4 km/h.

At this speed, the Midlands amateur racers, Mike Schmidt and Bruce Avern-Taplin, are the definite underdog in their 1,6 Toyota Corolla, but as Schmidt said, “anything can happen in endurance racing”.

“Last year’s race gave us a tremendous amount of information,” said Avern- Taplin. “We had a number of problems last year that were out of our control but we have also been able to analyse our approach to the race and make some changes in this respect, which I feel will help us improve our overall race performance”.
On the changes to the set up of the Corolla, Avern-Taplin said the motor has been completely rebuilt with some improvement made to the cylinder head to give them a little more power. He also added a front spoiler and rear wing. “The front spoiler besides looking really good will help to improve the overall aerodynamic performance and the built in brake ducts will certainly assist in keeping the front brakes cool”.
Schmidt said the six-hour race will start an hour later than last year, which will result in at least two hours of night racing. “Driving quickly and consistently at night is a real challenge and Phakisa has some frighteningly quick corners, which will certainly keep us focused, I believe that Bruce has given us a great car and we should be able to challenge for the overall index of performance win this year”.

The men from the Midlands will however have to push the Corolla 1600 to the max to challenge former SA F1 driver Eddie Keizan and Jaki Scheckter through the lines.

New Zealand sports car champion Dean McCarroll has also confirmed for Phakisa, and will share the Harp Motorsport Juno SS3 with Francis Carruthers and Johan Englebrecht.

Former Porsche Turbo Cup champion Toby Venter will also be on the grid driving a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup with Peter Wharton-Hood.

The race is open to all saloon and GT cars as well as sports prototype cars complying with MSA or FIA technical regulations. The entry fee per car with a maximum of three drivers is R3 500.

Each driver will be allowed to race two hours per stint and there must be a break of at least 15 minutes between the stints.

The organiser 

The enduro race is organised by Classic Car Events, led by well known motorsport adventurer Roger Pearce who believes there is room for a professional endurance event.

“It has always been my ambition to return endurance racing, run to International standards, back to South Africa. It was always popular with the public in days gone by and we see no reason why this cannot happen again.

“The current status of National Car Circuit racing in this country is in a shambles and we feel that a properly constituted series of endurance racing around the country would be welcomed by the public. We have a five year plan to bring this series to fruition.

“The six-hour event, in due process to become the traditional South African nine-hour, will be the premier event of the series and in due time we aim for it to become a round of the World Endurance Championship. This event will be supported by at least three other 3 Hour events during a season,” Pearce said in a statement.

Some history

Endurance racing played an important role in South African motorsport and the fondly remembered nine-hour race at Kyalami was a round of the Sports Car World Championship as far back as 1974.

Ironically, it was run as a six-hour race due to the fuel crisis. In 1983 and 1984 it was again part of the World Championship and known as the Castrol 6-hour. The series eventually morphed into the FIA Sportscar Championship and three rounds were also held at Kyalami in 1998/9 and 2000 with local ace Gary Formato winning twice.

For various reasons, mainly the prohibitive costs of hosting international events, there hadn’t been a proper endurance race until the inaugural Africa 6-hour race last year. It was hailed as a great success and the organizers have promised the 2014 event will be bigger and better.