By Miles Downard
Kyalami is a special place. It’s steeped in South African motorsport history, nay, the world’s having attracted international competitors while hosting the South African Grand Prix from 1967 to 1993, some of which formed part of the Formula 1 World Championship.
The more recent history has been unfortunately checkered, leading to a slow but steady demise of appealing competition at the circuit. I am happy to report however that that has all changed after the acquisition of the property by Toby Venter (the owner of the company responsible for Porsche distribution in SA). After extensive renovations the circuit played host this past weekend to one of the biggest race weekends in recent history.
We were lucky enough to attend events on Saturday and Sunday and witness the revival first hand. Parking lots were full and the atmosphere electric as over 400 competitors took part across various disciplines including old and new, and two and four wheeled machines.
Notable events included round 4 of the Sasol Global Touring Car (GTC) championship, G&H Transport Extreme Supercars (in which Toby Venter competes), two VW based series (Comsol VW Challenge and Engen Volkswagen Cup) and the all encompassing 111 series.
A new initiative from Volkswagen and the South Africa Guild of Motor Journalists aims to increase media hype around motorsport in general. The event saw 8 local journos fight it out in a 6 lap race in stock standard VW Polo 1.2 TSI’s. Some last corner drama for race leader Mark Jones saw the checkered flag go to Sean Nurse.
What was rather interesting was the live coverage of the event offered via Live Event Broadcasting and Pro Timing which meant that even if you couldn’t make it to the circuit you could still keep up to date with the action.
Having had a chat with members of Toby Venter’s team it was made quite clear that events such as this past weekend are here to stay – and in fact they’re after international race meetings as well. Their entire ethos revolves around rejuvenating the country’s interest in motor racing. Safe to say that the future of motorsport at Kyalami is in good hands and we at BizNews Motoring couldn’t be any happier.
