What Historic and Inland Tour Report
Where Zwartkops Raceway, Pretoria
When Saturday 9 August 2025
Community Gauteng Regional
Ladies race leads the way at entertaining meeting
Huge grids of cars in most of the ten categories racing on the day, splendid late winter sunshine and something a little bit different made for the perfect way to celebrate Woman’s Day at Zwartkops Raceway’s Historic and Inland Tour on Saturday. The regular Historics-rich Inland Tour action would entertain as always, but it was the PABAR Pink Challenge that proved talk of P-Town on the day.
The unique Pabar Pink Challenge saw seventeen of among South Africa’s leading lady racers come together to compete in a variety of single seater racecars including Super Vees, Formula Fords and Vees and similar machinery. Bianca Ferreira wasted little time to put it on pole position from Monique Wallendorf and Roxana van Weely, but Bianca got the drop to lead the way. Monique was having none of that however, as she stormed ahead at two-thirds distance to take the win from Bianca, Roxana, Chloe Morrow, Lezette Vermaak, Megan Archer, and Carla Morrow.
The rest of the program proved equally entertaining as always. Franco di Matteo emerged victorious in the opening Le Mans Sports, GT and Trans-Am race as he held Daytona Cobra duo, Jonathan du Toit and James Temple off. Andre van der Merwe’s Porsche 911 RSR was fourth from Warren Lombard’s Cobra and George Avvakoumides in another Porsche. Du Toit then turned the tables on di Matteo to take the second race ahead of Temple, Lombard, and Avvakoumides.
34 cars on the grid and some great racing characterised the Evapco HRSA and Zwartkops Historic Sprint races, where Peter Bailey’s pink Porsche returned to do battle with Seef Fourie Jr.’s monster Mercury Cougar with Ben Morgenrood’s Mustang in Pursuit in the opening heat. Morgenrood however turned the tables to beat Fourie in race 2 with Clive Wilmot’s Escort third. Werner Kotze emerged the Class C winner, while Johan Gouws’ Scirocco took Class E, Gavin Lundin’s Datsun D, Nico Bezuidenhout won Class F and Riaan de Ru’s Ford prefect took Class H.
Carel Pienaar was the star of the Marlboro Crane Hire Little Giants as he powered his Lotus Cortina to a compelling win over Nick Christofides, Terence Botes, and Ish Baloyi’s Dart. Jono Needham’s similar Cortina turned the tables in race 2 from Alan Poulter’s Volvo and Deon Schwabsky with Pienaar fourth.
Andrew Horne made light work of the opening Historic Single Seaters race with a four second victory over Paul Gerber and Paul Richardson’s Dulon with two Zwartkops stalwarts, Ben van der Westhuizen and Patrick Dunseith in chase. Horne hit trouble in race 2, leaving Gerber to the win from van der Westhuizen, Richardson and Alan Kernick in his Tempest.
Sticking with the single seaters, Allen Meyer made best of his Formula VW to defeat SuperVee man Peter Hills, Formula M man Aidan Morrow and Theodore Vermaak in another SuperVee to the regular Monoposto class victory. Meyer then did the double as Vermaak put one over Hillas and Morrow in heat 2.
Devin Robertson took the opening of three Liqui Moly INEX Legends races from Gavin Botha, Sebastian Venkov, Cyril Jacobs Tyler Posthumus, Richard van Heerde and Tjaden Tromp. Botha beat Robertson, Venkov, Christian Padayachee and Posthumus in race 2, before Robertson was back on top to take the final from Botha, van Heerde Posthumus and Tromp.
The Lotus Challenge also raced three times on Saturday as Mackie Adlem returned to take the opening heat from David Jermy, Jeff Gable, and JP Nortje, as Sean Hepburn beat Andrew Futon to Locost honours. Nortje gained revenge over Gable, Clive Wilmot, and Josef Kotze in race 2 as Hepburn took Locost again from Nick Hodgson. But Adlem hit back to take the final from Gable, Nortje and Kotze as Wes Maxwell and Hodgson kept Hepburn third in Locost.
In contemporary tin-top class action, an impressive 28-car Clubmans race saw Adrian Dalton’s Golf win both from Class C winner Dirk Lawrence, Kobus Brits, and top D man Rodney Kruis’ Ballade. Shaun Dood took the Class E trophy, Garren Jacobs Class G and Kajaan Mohun H, while Johan Coetzer Sr. took the Midvaal Historics and Trofeo win from Deon Schwabsky and Henry Fourie.
Not to be outdone, Dalton did the double-double with two SPS Silver Cup wins from A+ winner Giulio Araga’s frame as Jared Roussouw and B winner Faudo Sidique’s Civic shared the third places. Jonathan Visser won Class A, Carel Malherbe D and Kenny Darroch C.
Zwartkops’ main circuit takes a little breather for a month before another rush when the Historic and Inland Tour returns on 20 September, a week before the South African Endurance Series 5 Hour and then the National Extreme Festival finale on 19 October.
Issued on behalf of Zwartkops Raceway
Photography by: Colin Windell
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