What Extreme Festival 2023 Round 1 Report
Where Killarney International Raceway
When Saturday 18 March 2023
Community South Africa National
Cape racers Rackstraw, Lupini, Dolinschek & Slamet win at home national
Saturday’s National Extreme Festival powered by the City of Cape Town not only delivered brilliant racing across the board, but three Province drivers and a rider thrilled their home crowd with victory in their respective classes.
Franschhoek driver Giordano Lupini made an unexpected appearance to totally dominate the CompCare Polo Cup weekend, while Capetonian Ronald Slamet dominated the SunBet ZX10 Masters motorcycles. Two more Cape Town lads, Andrew Rackstraw scored a maiden Global Touring Car win, while Troy Dolinschek came from behind to score an emphatic first race Investchem Formula 1600 victory.
Both Rackstraw and Dolinschek missed out on overall victories by less than a second, as Saood Variawa took GTC and Gerard Geldenhuys the Formula 1600 overall wins. Bradley Liebenberg dominated in GTC SupaCup, Franco Scribante the Extreme Supercars and Sa’aad Variawa in the Gazoo Yaris Cup, Mark Jones took the GR86 Media win.
The Global Touring Car races were almost all about championship leaser Saood Variawa and his Toyota Corolla, who almost scored a grand slam. Variawa took pole position, two fastest laps, and the opening race win over Robert Wolk and Nathi Msimanga’s similar cars. But it was Andrew Rackstraw who best thrilled his Cape Town home crowd when he edged Variawa and Msimanga for the thrilling second race and his maiden GTC win. Variawa took the day by all of nine tenths of a second from Rackstraw, Msimanga and Wolk.
Jozi lad Bradley Liebenberg took pole position before scoring double victories with the fastest lap of the day. He was chased all the way by championship leader Keegan Campos while the returning Arnold Neveling ended third after a weekend-long battle with Jonathan Mogotsi. It was wild behind the top four as local lad Tate Bishop fought an epic battle to defeat Tato Carello, Dominic and Calvin Dias, and JP van der Walt.
Giordano Lupini quite literally came, saw, and conquered in CompCare Polo Cup. Lupini decided to race on Monday, arrived unannounced and proceeded to deliver a grand slam of pole position, two race wins with the fastest lap in each, and overall victory. Championship leader Charl Visser was the only driver to trouble Lupini en route to second, after sharing the runner-up slots with Dawie van der Merwe. Jagger Robertson was best of the rest from Jason Loosemore, Farhaan Basha, Ethan Coetzee, Bryce Pillay, and debutant Razleigh Harris.
Early morning rain at Killarney shook the Investchem Formula 1600 day up when favourite Troy Dolinschek qualified a lowly eleventh. Dolinschek was was up to fifth by the end of lap 1 and into the lead by lap five to win over Gerard Geldenhuys and Nick van Weely. Race 2 proved a tougher task as Dolinschek found resistance through his fight back and ran out of laps to catch Geldenhuys and Jason Coetzee. Geldenhuys beat Dolinschek by less than a second overall, with van Weely third from Alex Vos, Shrien Naidoo, and Storm Lanfear. Ian Schofield beat Rick Morris and Ronald van Weely to Formula Ford Kent honours.
Had Franco Scribante tried for pole position, he’d likely have scored an G & H Transport Extreme Supercars grand slam. He left that to Jonathan du Toit, before breezing past the Lamborghini man and went on to an emphatic triple victory at great pace. Du Toit was second in all three races, while Charl Arangies’ Audi R8 and local GT3 man Marcel Angel’s Ferrari 488 shared out the third places as Angel took third for the day from teammate Jason Ibbotson, Gianni Giannoccaro’s Nissan GT-R GT3 and Paarl racer Dawie Joubert’s Porsche.
The Red Baron Ronald Slamet and Trevor Westman kept the home fans thrilled on two wheels as they delivered a Cape Town 1-2 over Graeme van Breda, David Enticott, Jayson Lamb and Klint Munton in the SunBet ZX10 Masters Cup. Slamet was another man to score a grand slam of pole position, wins and fastest laps
The Gazoo Toyota Yaris Cup proved a rather straightforward affair as Sa’aad Variawa rattled off a couple of wins from Karah Hill, Nikki Vostanis, Bjorn Bertholdt and Taariq Adam each time. The GR86 Media races however entertained as The Citizen’s Mark Jones took a double win, while online racer Setshaba Mashigo held Business Day scribe Dennis Droppa, Chad Luckhoff, Reuben van Niekerk and Brendon Staniforth off for second.
The Extreme Festival heads to Zwartkops outside Pretoria following an Easter pause on Saturday 20 May, where several novelties are expected to come into play across the top classes. Sounds like a fine Autumn’s Saturday outing, diarise it now!
Issued on behalf of Extreme Festival
Photography by: Abri de Bruyn
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