This past weekend (10-11 May) saw Victron Energy South Africa’s brand ambassadors feature prominently on various podiums in this year’s third Regional Extreme Festival held at Red Star Raceway outside Delmas in Mpumalanga.
This weekend, the group’s efforts were headed up by DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants competitor Tjaden Tromp. The youngest driver at the event, competing with the TC Racing team, won the Rookie Class, finished second in the Formula Vee South Africa Association order, and seventh overall on the accumulated race time sheets. After qualifying eighth, Tromp took his best race result, with a seventh place in the first race before finishing 11th in the second. This was only his second outing in the series.
Teammate Chloe Stuart, the youngest female competitor at the event and only a few months older than Tromp, suffered an engine failure in the first race. This was after she significantly improved her single-lap tap by 5.5 seconds in 24 hours. Although she has one event more to her name than Tromp, this was the first outing in the series at the circuit for both drivers.
The DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants Championship also enjoys the use of the durable Victron Energy Blue Smart IP65 chargers provided by National Energy Solutions, an authorised Victron Energy distributor.
Lendl Jansen took the honours for the day after winning both Brandon Hills and Peter Hills races. This sees Jansen atop the 2024 points table after the third of eight rounds, with 103 points. Peter Hills is 22 points adrift, with Brandon Hills third on 76 points.
In the fourth round of the BMW ///M Performance Parts Race Series, father-and-son authorised Victron Energy installer- and distributor pair Craig and Nicholas Herbst from GreenHouse had their fair share of work on the weekend.
Nicholas kept the gap to the series points leader to eight points with his second place in Class D for the day. This was after finishing the first race as runner-up before taking fourth place in the second. Herbst also remains at the top of the Class D points table. Between his races, he also took his now-regular spot in the second commentary seat, having recently also been announced as one of the co-presenters of the BMW Car Club Gauteng’s monthly magazine show, BMW Club TV.
For Craig, the weekend was hard-working one after he set Friday’s fastest Class D practice time. A flywheel failure saw the team working against the clock to get his car ready for Saturday’s business end of the weekend. While he missed Saturday morning’s qualifying session, he worked his way through the pack to finish sixth after passing 12 competitors in eight laps. Unfortunately, the right-hand front wheel speed sensor failed, resulting in his brakes locking, which caused significant tyre damage and prevented Craig from continuing. With this category’s overall results based on points rather than time, he finished the day in ninth place with his three points from the first race.
The next outing for all these drivers will be at Zwartkops Raceway in June.
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 2 – Tjaden Tromp on the DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants podium 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 3 – Chloe Stuart & Tjaden Tromp 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 4 – Tjaden Tromp 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 5 – Chloe Stuart 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 6 – DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants podium 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 7 – DOE Formula Vee Partnered with CIM Lubricants 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 8 – Nicholas & Craig Herbst 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 9 – Nicholas Herbst 
Victron Energy – 20240511 – 10 – Craig Herbst
Issued by Brandsponential on behalf of Victron Energy South Africa
Photography by: James Thomson, Willie Pretorius and Lawrence Paiken
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