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Inland Historic Tour starts year on a high at Red Star
Opening round of this year's series delivered close action and a few spills at the Delmas track.
Nicky Dicks (Porsche 911 RSR) won both the Evapco HRSA races, with Andre’ van der Merwe (Porsche 911 RSR and Jannie van Rooyen (Volkswagen Scirocco) taking turns in the respective second places. Picture: Dave Ledbitter.
The 2024 Historic Inland Tour brought large fields and wide variety to the Red Star Raceway near Delmas on Saturday, when the venue hosted the series’ first event of the year.
The organisers used both the circuit’s long and short versions, creating great diversity throughout the day.
Saloon and sports cars
Heading up the show were races for Evapco HRSA cars. In the opening long circuit heat Andre’ van der Merwe led throughout in his Porsche 911 RSR, until he suffered a puncture with one lap to go, and stopped.
Nicky Dicks (Porsche 911 RSR) then took over and won. In the official results, he was closely followed by Jannie van Rooyen (Volkswagen Scirocco), Andre’ ten Napel (Volkswagen Scirocco), Stuart Konig (Volkswagen Scirocco) and Gavin Lundin (Datsun 1200 GX).
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Dicks won race two as well from the pole position, again with the van Rooyen Scirocco all over him.
The Sciroccos of ten Napel, Stuart Konig, Jonathan Konig and the Datsun of Lundin filled out the top six places.
The first SPS Silver Cup race went to Karel Stols (Mazda RX-7), leading home Giulio Airaga (Opel Tigra Spaceframe), Marnus du Plessis (Opel Tigra Spaceframe) and Anton Bitzer (Mazda RX-7).
Airaga won race two from Du Plessis, Bitzer and Walter Menin (Volkswagen Golf).
Pieter Zeelie (Speads) won both the Clubmans races, chased to the line by Adriaan le Roux (Caterham) and Kobus Brits (Pragma).
Single-seaters
(Johannes Gerber (Van Diemen) won the first Formula Monoposto heat from Neville van den Berg (Omega), Paul Schultz (Formula Volkswagen) and Allen Meyer (Formula Vee).
Their short circuit races went to Kennedy Torres (Concord), followed by Alden Morrow (Formula M), Michael Kernick (Tasman) and Hayden Archer (Rhema).
The exciting new Liqui Moly Super Vee category brought nine 1600 cc Formula Vee chassis to the party, with a number more currently under construction.
Lushen Ramchander (Super Vee) took race one from Jeandre le Roux (Super Vee), Kyle Lawrence (Super Vee) and Mark Tucker (Super Vee).
Lotus and Legends
In both of the Lotus Challenge races David Jermy (Lotus) won from Mackie Adlem (Tylon), Jeff Gable (Birkin) and Sean Hewitt (Birkin).
The first two Liqui Moly INEX Legends races ran around the short circuit.
Races one and two went to Tyler Robinson followed by Jayden Goosen while Tornin Roos and Richard van Heerde filled the respective third and fourth places.
Next-up
The next round of the Inland Historic series will be at the Zwartkops Raceway near Pretoria on Saturday, 20 April.
NOW READ: Historic Tour hits the right nostalgia note at Zwartkops
