Mixed fortunes for East London drivers at Simola

The 14th edition of the Simola Hillclimb delivered the goods on so many levels with adrenaline-fueled action and drama keeping the record crowds entertained during the four day long Speed Festival in Knysna. Unfortunately for the Border Towing Team of Martin van Zummeren and sons Wade and Jody it will be a weekend that will want to forget. For Jody there was early drama during final testing in East London when a connecting-rod on his Nissan R32 engine failed and damaged the engine block, then Martin’s crowd-pleasing Nissan R34 suffered a broken keyway on the crankshaft after a handful of practice runs up the 1.9 kilometre Simola Hill. The Border Towing crew worked tirelessly to manufacture a replacement keyway to ensure that the car could still qualify early on Sunday, but once fitted it became evident that the engine’s crankshaft was unfortunately bent, leading to the Nissan’s retirement from the event. The crew then focused their attention on the remaining R32 of Wade’s, but disaster struck early on Sunday when during the first warm-up session of the day, as he powered his way up the hill, the back-end stepped out at high speed due to the cold track and tyre temperatures and Wade mounted the embankment on the side of the road damaging the car, leading to an early retirement.

Picture: Winged Warrior: Darron Gudmanz powers his Nissan GTR R32 up the hill at Simola
Picture credit: Darryl Kukard

The highly anticipated showdown amongst all of the fancied Nissan GTR’s in the B5 class for all-wheel drive cars with more than 5-cylinders quickly started to fade as Reghard Roets retired with differential failure and Franco Scribante’s gearbox let go in spectacular fashion during the final qualifying session. Darron Gudmanz performed consistently throughout the weekend to bring his Sovereign Foods/Simola Golf & Country Estate backed Nissan GTR R32 in third overall in class B5 as well as qualify for the final top-ten ‘King of the Hill Shootout’. A misfire in the engine unfortunately saw him limp across the line in ninth place overall in the final shootout for modified saloons.

Owen Bridger entered his very quick Mayfair Gearbox backed Honda Civic Type-R in the newly introduced class B10 for road registered cars and set the early pace amongst the other more powerful cars in the his class, but as the event progressed so the pace picked up with Bridger ultimately having to settle for fourth place overall.

The ultimate King of the Hill award for the fastest time of the weekend was won by Robert Wolk driving a 4 -litre Nissan powered Pilbeam MP58 single seater in a time of 37.133 seconds.

The class winners were as follows:

Road Cars and Supercars 

A1: Thomas Falkiner – Suzuki Swift Sport:                            53.784 sec

A2: Nico Nel – BMW M135i X-Drive:                                       56.928 sec

A3: Farhaad Ebrahim – Toyota Supra:                                  45.264 sec

A4: JP van der Walt – Porsche 911 Turbo S:                        43.513 sec

A5: Dayaan Padayachey – Porsche Cayman GTS:              49.322 sec

A6: Gordon Nicholson – Audi R8 V10 Plus:                           47.003 sec

A7: James Temple – Shelby Mustang Super Snake:            47.833 sec

A8: Clint Weston – Mercedes-AMG GT63 E-Performance:  44.134 sec

Modified Saloon Cars

B1: Shuaib Dhansay – Ford Fiesta:                                       57.850 sec

B2: Daniel Rowe – Volkswagen Polo SupaCup:                   44.058 sec

B4: Dawie Joubert – Lotus Exige (Ferrari V8):                      38.966 sec

B5: Aldo Scribante – Audi S4:                                                41.413 sec

B6: Paul Munro – BMW M3:                                                   46.874 sec

B7: Pieter Joubert – Lotus Exige (Mercedes-AMG V8):        43.373 sec

B9: Arnold du Plessis – Nissan Patrol Black Hawk):             54.457 sec

B10: Steve Clark – Nissan R34 GT-R:                                  43.544 sec

Single Seater, Sports Car and Sports Prototypes

C2: Ian Schofield – Mygale SJ Formula Ford:                       42.048 sec

C3: Robert Wolk – Pillbeam MP58 (Infinity Indycar V8):  37.133 sec

C4: Josef Kotze – Birkin S3 (Toyota):                                    54.411 sec

C6: Rui Campos – Shelby CanAm (Ford V8):                       41.826 sec

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