aturday’s G&H Transport Extreme Supercar races proved to be one of the highlights of Zwartkops Passion for Speed International raceday when none other than Leeroy Poulter turned the class on its head by qualifying local distributors Daytona’s McLaren 650S GT3 on pole position before storming off to race 1 victory.
But it was not to be Poulter’s day as a race 2 spin allowed African Endurance champion Simon Murray through to take the second race and overall honours aboard his Aeronautica Militare Lamborghini Gallardo from Franco Scribante’s Ferrari F430 Challenge, Dawie Olivier’s best touring car G&H Baby BMW and Poulter, who fought back after his earlier off.
Zwartkops dawned damp and cloudy, but that deterred neither an enthusiastic crowd nor great racing, with Poulter cantering off to that easy race 1 win over Scribante and sportscar convert Murray on his maiden run in the Lamborghini. Poulter left Scribante and Murray to squabble for second after Jason Campos, who had diced with them, hit trouble with the Campos BMW M3 GT.
Dawie Olivier drove home fourth and first touring car home in the Baby Beemer, ahead of BMW 335i duo Darren Winterboer (Barons) and Paul Hill (Kalex), Deon du Plessis’ BPT KTM, BMW M3 duo Desmond Bloem (The Custom Shop) and Ricky Giannoccoro (G&H). Jimmy Giannoccoro rounded off the top ten in the G&H Ferrari F430 Challenge after Franco di Matteo hit trouble with his wild Alfa Romeo GT.
Race 2 however proved far more interesting as the race progressed – Poulter pushed hard up front, dropping to a record 1:01.8 lap time on the fourth tour as he controlled the race up front, but Leeroy pushed a little too hard and spun the McLaren on the next lap to drop down the field as he lost 40 seconds finding his way back on track.
That left Scribante, Murray and Campos in a furious tussle for the lead, but Campos slid wide to leave the Lamborghini and the Ferrari to fight it out, with Murray eventually edging out a four-second advantage to beat Scribante home to the race and overall wins. Olivier ended up third in race 2 from Winterboer and the recovered Poulter fifth, followed by Oliver Dalais’ Marlboro Crane Bailey GT, Ricky Giannoccaro’s M3, du Plessis in the KTM, Jimmy Giannoccaro’s Ferrari and Dino Scribante’s Porsche.
A delighted Murray took overall honours from Franco Scribante, tin-top winner Olivier, Poulter and Winterboer. In the classes, Murray took GT3 honours; Olivier beat Winterboer, Hill, Dalais, Gianni Giannoccaro (BMW) and Greg Parton (KTM) to the Class A win and Ricky Giannoccaro beat du Plessis Desmond Bloem (BMW M3) and di Matteo to Class C honours.
Jimmy Giannoccaro took his Ferrari to Class D honours over Dino Scribante, Ferrari trio Mark du Toit, Luca Fioravanti and Andre van der Merwe and Kurt Bakewell’s BMW 328i and Ryan Quan-Chai (BMW Z4) beat Jerome Sornicle’s Ferrari and Marius Wait (Z4) to Class E victory.
The G&H Extreme Supercars return to action on Tuesday 21 March’s Zwartkops public holiday races.