A well prepared dirt-oval track combined with a perfect windless winters evening laid down the foundation for some excellent high speed entertainment at PE Ovaltrack Raceway last Saturday.
Piet Scheepers made a dominant return to oval track action in the Hot Rod class where he immediately stamped his authority on proceedings winning all three heats as well as the final. Regional Championship leader Tiaan Oliphant, along with the very quick Jaco Aylward, could just not quite match the pace of the legendary Scheepers, yet they had the appreciative crowd cheering at their high speed antics out on the circuit.
In the Heavy Metal class JP Coetzee, the championship leader at the half way stage, unfortunately withdrew before the event started, so this allowed Pierre van der Berg (SA2) to storm to the front of the championship after a strong performance, claiming two heat wins and the final along the way.
In the 1600 Stock Saloon class Keegan Ellard was the star of the night and got the better of championship leader Daniel Renison providing some really entertaining racing, with Deon Kretzmann putting his bad luck behind him, and returning to form to take third place overall.
Malcolm Els who was a late starter in the championship owned the 2.1 Modified class on the night, bagging two heat wins and the final to jump up the standings to end fifth overall in the title hunt with another two rounds still to go. Rimon Landman has a 16 point lead over Damon Miles with Branden McPherson a mere one point behind in third place. Relative newcomer Johan Knoesen (pictured) in his very well prepared BMW had a really impressive evening putting in a great performance of consistency in the 2.1 Modified class to be voted the Driver-of-the-Day.
The American Saloon class had an impressive field of nine V8 powered beasts to thrill the crowd and lady-driver Rozanne Jansen claimed her first race win since joining the class, putting in a gutsy performance under immense pressure from the charging pack behind her and she now moves up into second place in the championship standings behind leader Rohan van Vuuren. Pieta Victor was the class act of the night, playing the waiting game throughout the heats to come out with guns blazing in the final to win comfortably in the end and move up to fourth in the championship.
The biggest class of the night was the super-competitive 1660 Modified class with eighteen starters and it was Francois Engelbrecht that stormed to victory in fairly dominant fashion after three heats of intense action that saw South African champion Marthinus Muller finishing fourth overall and maintain his lead of the championship, with Percy Noah in second just seventeen points adrift.
The results of all of the classes were as follows –
Junior Hot Rods
-1st Justin Fourie
-2nd Quade de Lange
-3rd Ciska Bernardo
1600 Saloons
-1st Keegan Ellard
-2nd Daniel Renison
-3rd Deon Kretzmann
1660 Modified Saloons
-1st Francois Engelbrecht
-2nd Percy Noah
-3rd Jason Drake
Hot Rods
-1st Piet Scheepers
-2nd Jaco Aylward
-3rd Tiaan Oliphant
2.1 Modifieds
-1st Malcolm Els
-2nd Ramon Landman
-3rd Johan Knoesen
Heavy Metals
-1st Pierre van der Berg
-2nd Johannes Tolmie
-3rd Jaco Pitout
V8 American Saloons
-1st Pieter Victor
-2nd Ruzanne Jansen
-3rd Juan Roesstorff