Back to Events Springbok Series Revival at Killarney
Sunday 12 February 2006.What a fantastic day it was! Previously called the International Historic Race Day, it was re-named the Springbok Series Revival in honour of the original Springbok Series that ran in the 60's and early 70's, in which many of the cars and marques represented at Killarney on Sunday originally competed!
The cars, as always, were immaculately turned out, and the racing, as ever (and despite the fact that a lot of the machinery is either very expensive or virtually irreplaceable!) was awesome, with the drivers really putting the cars through their paces, and racing to win! Evidence of this was in the very last race of the day, but more of that later…
Exotic machinery was there in abundance, as well as some very well known drivers from yesteryear, including the inimitable David Piper racing his green Porsche 917 and Sarel van der Merwe, who raced one of the Chevy Can-Ams as well as a bright red 1963 Ford Galaxie…!
The Galaxie proved to be for me the real surprise of the day. I don't know if it was the fact that Sarel was driving, or the fact that the car had obviously been well set-up; all I know is that it moved around the track, and was never out of the top three in any of its races! Mind you, the Can-Am was also consistently in the top three, so maybe it was Sarel after all…!!!
Amongst the pre-'78 Sports and GT machinery in evidence were Aston Martins, GT40's, Austin Healeys, Mustangs, a lone Corvette that did quite well, several Porsche 911's, a solitary Morgan, Capri Perana's, an Alfa T33, some Cobra's, a Tiga Mazda, the awesome Lola T70 (one of my favourites), and the absolutely stunning Porsche 956 driven by Franz Pretorius (drool, drool!). There was also a well-turned out field of historic single-seaters, including some early 60's Coopers and Lotus's, and Cape Town's Dickon Daggitt in his 1952 Cooper-Bristol.
Not to be outdone, the locals put in a strong showing, with plenty of classic motorcycles in action, lots of Lotus 7's putting their best foot forward, and a large field of Classic Touring and Fine Cars, including our own Nerina Napoli, who put in a fine performance and came 4th overall in the Fine Cars category in her Alfa GT Junior 1750, lovingly prepared by hubby Mike! Unfortunately Mike's own car, a 1974 Alfasud ti, blew a valve in practice and was unable to be fixed in time for the racing. Hard luck Mike - it's no fun having to watch the racing from the sidelines…
Another club member who suffered misfortune was Ashley Ellis, whose beautifully prepared Mk.1 Escort, which looked really good in practice on Saturday morning, also suffered irreparable mechanical failure, and consequently also missed the racing. Our condolences, Ashley!
Anyway, not to be outdone, our club members did us proud, and turned out in force to join in the fun and spectacle of the day. All in all we had 8 cars present (the most of any single club), and 7 of them went out on the track during the lunchtime classic car parade! Well, it was supposed to be a parade, but what happens in reality is this - the cars start off quite slowly and sedately, but by lap two some of the (ahem!) less stately drivers speed up the pace a little bit, and by lap three things are proceeding quite nicely…!
Well our very own chairman, Gerhard Vorster, had quite a problem keeping his beautiful yellow TR8 under control! The car seemed to develop a will of its own, and by lap three all poor Gerhard could do was let the car do what it was meant to do, and off he went, chasing down every other car in sight! In fact, so ill-mannered was the TR that it even decided (of its own accord, naturally - Gerhard is far too restrained for such a display…) to race parade around the track for one extra lap on its own, I suppose just in case there was someone in the crowd who hadn't noticed this glorious machine yet…!
And glorious it was; the sound of that V8 growling down the back straight under full (there it goes again! Now my computer is misbehaving…) throttle was stunning in its beauty, and almost made me want to own one…!
Anyway, in terms of racing, probably the very best race of the day (as is usually the case) was the last race, suitably dubbed the "all-comers" race. Essentially, all of the visiting (and local) V8 and upwards sports/GT cars (yes, there was an upwards, in the form of a locally designed and built Indy car look-alike powered by a jaguar V12 engine!) entered for this race, including the aforementioned Porsche 956, driven by Franz Pretorius.
All I can say is - wow! What a race! And wow! What a car! The Porsche just flew around the track, Franz really putting the car through its paces, and breaking the Killarney lap record in the process, putting in the first-ever sub 1 minute 10 second lap, clocking 1 minute 9 seconds!!! Not too shabby for a car that is/was over 20 years old…!!!
It was an absolute joy to watch this beautiful-looking car just flowing through the corners and powering out down the straights - sheer poetry in motion (if you're a petrol head, you'll know what I mean!)! In fact, the whole day just turned out to be a glorious celebration of cars and racing from an era when it was real, and not computerised/over-analysed like modern racing tends to be… (entirely my personal opinion!)
If you haven't done so already, make a date in your next year's diary for the second weekend in February - come and watch the Springbok Series Revival, experience it for yourself, and join us out on the track at lunchtime for some fun as well!