No last chance saloon for the mean machines at city track

Round two of the Dunlop Eastern Cape Regional and Border Club Historic saloon car racing championships was battled out at the East London Grand Prix track this past Saturday.

Competitors from the Border and Algoa Motorsport clubs joined forces to produce a 22-car field for this regional event.

Following another top round of racing Chris Radloff now leads the overall Border championship log on 56 points, while he is closely followed by Quentin Lessing and Brendan Smith, on 54 and 53 points respectively.

“It is a very competitive championship at the moment and the top guys are just a few points apart,” said Historic chairman Johan van der Westhuizen.

The scene was set for some exciting racing when Chris Blom in the Ford Capri Perana V8, Brett Franklin in the Ford Granada Perana V8, and Derek Boy from Queenstown in the Willie Hepburn-built Chevy Canam V8, posted qualifying lap times within one second apart between first and third.

Heat one thus started at a hectic pace with the three V8 cars producing highly competitive racing upfront.

In the end the race was won by Boy after Franklin had to retire with mechanical problems on lap three, and Blom started to slow down on the seventh lap with differential failure.

Behind them in Class C, Chris Radloff in the Toyota Corona Coupe and Gary Schultz in the Ford Escort BDA were locked in a fierce battle, with Radloff beating Schultz by just 0.7 seconds. Rob Rowe in the BMW 2002Ti took third spot.

Class D was won by an out-of-town competitor, Port Elizabeth’s Ryno Burger (Alfa GT). He was followed closely by Quentin Lessing (Escort), and PE racer Shaun Rudloph (Escort), in third place.

Class E was won by Graham Lessing (Cortina Mk2), while class S was claimed by Jason Greyling (Anglia 2l) from PE.

Heat two then saw Boy taking an easy victory to snap up the overall victory on the day. However, competition in Class C was even more fierce than in heat one as Radloff, starting from position six on the grid, had to fight tooth and nail to work his way to the front. He beat Tiny Botha, who finished as runner-up, with Schultz then taking third spot.

Class D then saw an extremely close race as once again Lessing and Burger battled it out, with Lessing this time taking the honours, winning by just 0.1 of a second, while Rudolph once again took third spot.

Graham Lessing in class E, and PE’s Greyling in class S both claimed the win in heat two to seal overall victory in their respective classes.

The next round of the Eastern Cape Regional Championship will take place at Aldo Scribante in Port Elizabeth on May 14, while the next round of the Border Club Championship will take place on June 18.

“It was exciting; it was competitive and it was a great day of racing,” said Van Der Westhuizen. “The top guys are racing classic V8 cars and these are quite spectacular to watch.”