What Extreme Festival 2023 Round 5 Report
Where Killarney International Raceway
When Saturday 9 September 2023
Community South Africa National
Local heroes to the fore in Cape Town Extreme Festival
Killarney International Raceway’s Extreme Festival thrilled an enthusiastic Cape Town crowd with an epic day of national championship circuit racing on Saturday. It proved all the better as home stars not only starred and won races, but clinched championships too.
Biggest news was local youngster Troy Dolinschek thrilling his home crowd by wrapping up the 2023 Investchem Formula 1600 championship with a dominant double victory. Troy clinched it with that first race win over Gerard Geldenhuys, Jason Coetzee, Nicholas van Weely, Andrew Schofield, and Alex Vos. Dolinschek then took another lights to flag race 2 win over Cape compatriot Coetzee, who benefited a Geldenhuys penalty to clinch second in the title. Vos was third from Schofield, Siyabonga Mankonkwana, and Antwan Geldenhuys.
Another local ace, Andrew Rackstraw delivered an epic opening Global Touring Cars win in his Volkswagen Golf ahead of title contender Robert Wolk’s BMW and Corolla duo Nathi Msimanga and Julian van der Watt, as championship leader Saood Variawa’s Corolla hit turbo trouble. Another Cape home hero, van der Watt then led the second race all the way, only to slow on the final lap to hand teammate Robert Wolk the win and championship lead. Msimanga held Rackstraw off for third while Josh Le Roux’s Audi made Variawa fight for fifth.
With championship leader Keegan Campos elsewhere getting married, GTC SupaCup was left to his title rivals Bradley Liebenberg and Jonathan Mogotsi to share out the wins ahead of Arnold Neveling and local rookie Tate Bishop in each race. Another local man Danie van Niekerk meanwhile ended fifth overall to take Maters honours and wrap up the 2023 Masters title in the process.
Dawie van der Merwe took two of the day’s three CompCare Polo Cup races to keep that title alive open into the final round. He held local lad Nathan Victor, Farhaan Basha, Anthony Pretorius, championship leader, local lad Charl Visser and Jason Loosemore to the first race win. Pretorius then took the second race win from pole position over Visser, Basha, Loosemore, van der Merwe and Giordano Lupini, before van der Merwe overcame first turn chaos to lead Visser, Basha, Cape lads Victor and Lupini, and Bryce Pillay home in the final.
Bloemfontein world GT star Stuart White returned home to play interference in the G+H Extreme Supercars and put his Aston Martin on pole position in an incredible 1 minute seven second lap from Franco Scribante’s Porsche and Jonathan du Toit’s Lamborghini. White made no mistakes to romp off to a 9 second victory from title rivals du Toit, GT3 winner Arangies and Letlaka. There was little difference in the second and third race results as Marius Jackson and Joseph Ellerine’s Audis wrapped up Classes C and D overall, and Giacomo Giannoccaro took Class D in his Lamborghini
Sa’aad Variawa raced to a dominant opening Gazoo Toyota Yaris League victory from Nikki Vostanis, Karah Hill, Ryan Naicker, Bjorn Bertholdt and Taariq Adam. Setshaba Mashigo had to work for once for his GT86 Media League win over Brendon Staniforth With Chad Luckhoff, Denis Droppa, Toyota SA PR Riaan Esterhuysen, CEO Andrew Kirby, and Mark Jones in chase. The same top 4 topped the second Yaris race as Adam beat Bertholdt to fifth, while Luckhoff, Staniforth, Esterhuysen, Droppa, Kirby and Jones chased Mashigo home in the 86s.
With one or two champions already confirmed for 2023, the rest must now wait until the 2023 Extreme Festival National Finals to wrap it up. That goes down at the at Zwartkops Raceway Saturday 14 October.
Issued on behalf of Extreme Festival
Photography by: Abri de Bruyn
MSA Publishes media releases from a host of different sources on our website as a service to the sport. It is not practically possible to vet/approve every release that is published. Some news items and articles are written by correspondents and do not necessarily represent MSA’s views.