BMW Car Club Gauteng

Bridgestone Kyalami Track Day Results

Written by: Ryan Herd - 26th July 2010
Categories: Gallery

Bridgestone Kyalami Track Day -  25 July 2010

Results
Click here to view the FINAL RESULTS

Photos
Michael Broom collection
Paul Louw collection

Our second and final Kyalami track day for 2010 started off with pleasantly warm weather greeting the early bird entrants at scrutineering. Whereas the earlier event in March solely a BMW car club event, this time around we joined up with the Porsche Club to facilitate some friendly rivalry between these two great German Marques.

The day started as usual with a drivers briefing that explained to the novices what the track rules and flag colours were, and warned the regulars to keep it clean. It must have worked because there were precious few incidents on the day aside from the usual spin offs and off track forays.

As our club has grown so has the varied types of machinery that takes part at our track days, we are constantly striving to cater for the majority of our members in terms of classes and this time around we had 11 distinct classes just for this reason. Track cars, forced induction cars, non- BMW’s and various capacities were all taken into consideration and this allowed us to recognise people who may not have received a trophy for their efforts in the past. One of the many highlights of the day was the Afrox 335i race car of Anthony Taylor who got the fastest time of the day with a blistering 1:46.947. Rob Green’s supercharged V8 E92 M3 driven by Reghardt Roets achieved a time of 1.54:036 which we believe is a new record for a road legal production car. The Nissan SkylineR32 and R34’s of Des and Jade Gutzeit respectively once again obliterated all opposition in the open forced induction class taking first and second places, some new R35 Nissans were close behind and it will be interesting to see how these cars perform when they start to get modified for track use. Some other notable achievements were Andreas Trafoyer’s incredible 2:01.395 in a standard E92 M3, Joachim Kremnitzer’s 2:00.722 in a Birkin Seven and Don Salt’s 2:04.332 in a lightly modified street legal E36 M3.

The Porsche club arrived with some pretty menacing machinery, plenty of stripped out 911’s and 924 track cars. When the flag came out for the final lap Brian White in his 911 took the fastest time of the day with a very quick 2:00.817, Koos Durand in his 911 GT3 secured a very close second place with a time of 2:00.933. Mark ‘wallbanger’ Harvey was the fastest 924 on the day with a time of 2:06.404 and the turbo class was taken by Gordon Harvey in a 944 Turbo track car.

Around midday, spectators and competitors alike were treated to the extremely rare sight of the arrival of a very rare Mclaren F1 to the pit area. With only 103 cars built including road and track and only two in Africa, it is not every day that you can see one close up. This is a car that since its launch in the early 90’s has garnered a passionate following from car enthusiasts around the globe. The blank slate approach that the designers had allowed them to produce a no compromises machine that is all about legends, facts and figures, it is still one of the fastest cars ever produced with acceleration that will beat a Bugatti Veyron up to almost 300km/h, it has a top speed in excess of 380km/h and is still the only car with a centrally mounted driving position and 22 carrat gold foil lining the engine bay. A mint example sold for over R25 million in the UK recently. Of course the most important point is that it is powered by a unique 6.1 litre V12 627hp BMW engine.  To add to the excitement the owner decided to take it for a few hot laps around the circuit during lunchtime and the spectators were treated to the sound of the BMW V12 howling past the pitlane as the car raced by. This year celebrated the Mclaren F1’s 20^th anniversary, it remains the fastest non turbo/supercharged production car in the world.

Once again a very big thanks must go out to Bridgestone for their great support. They have really pulled out all the stops to support our track days and the hot lap car shod with Bridgestone rubber was a real highlight for the spectators.

With 111 entrants, hundreds of spectators, warm weather and some of the fastest cars in the country in attendance, the Bridgestone Kyalami Track day was a great event.  Our next big track day will be at the Bridgestone BMW CLUBFEST weekend at Phakisa on 24-26 September. Having experienced this event in 2009 all I can say is if you have any petrol coursing through your veins you should register now before all the spots are taken.  It will be awesome.

by John Tallodi