Vodacom Sports Prototype contenders swept the floor in the historic two-hour

Springbok Series revival race held at AA Kyalami on Saturday.

Having started from pole position, newly crowned VSP champion Bernard

Tilanus and VSP Association chairman, Michael Fergusson drove a canny race

in their Micro Imaging sponsored 3.5-litre Nissan powered VSP to win

comfortably ahead of VSP racing stalwarts Richard Wood and Harry Roscoe.

The race started with a cracking pace as Tilanus and Alan Eve, co-driving

Colin Frost’s Strocam VSP, were locked in a no-holds-barred scrap with

former Formula GTI and Procar champion Marco da Cunha in the Witbank Auto

sponsored VSP, which he was sharing with younger brother Paulo.

It only took 10 minutes or so before the determined Da Cunha forced his way

to the front and Eve then took up the chase as Tilanus elected to cool it

for a while rather than maintain the fast pace. “It’s a two-hour race so

there’s no point in going balls to the wall from the start,” explained the

seasoned veteran afterwards.

Fergusson took over from Tilanus just after half distance, and despite being

hampered by a misfire, he maintained a steady pace to take the chequered

flag 1 minute 48 seconds clear. “We were helped by our pit stops coinciding

with the pace car periods, which enabled us to open a bit of a gap,” gloated

Fergusson at prize giving where he received the historic Rand Daily Mail

9-Hour trophy, which his father Tony won with Ian Fraser-Jones in 1958.

“When I heard the original trophy was going to the winners, I was determined

to win,” he added.

The Eve and Frost team lost time after not stopping when the pace car came

out, which allowed Richard Wood and Harry Roscoe to claim the runner-up

trophy ahead of the rapidly recovering Eve/Frost combination.

Durbanites, Tony Cooke and Cobus Grobelaar took an uneventful fourth, three

laps ahead of the Da Cunha car, which had dropped off the pace shortly after

half distance.

The coveted honour of being the first saloon car home went to Volkswagen Cup

regulars, Graeme Nathan and Richard Pinard who brought their Autozone backed

Polo home in sixth after a superb tussle with the SNR backed version driven

by Audi High Performance Driving instructors Reghard Roets and Jakes Jacobs

who were only four seconds behind at the flag.

Expected challenges from Porsches and the rumbling V8 Nationwide Airlines

SASCAR shared by Peter Lindenberg and Vernon Bricknell came to nought after

the latter slid off the track at Wesbank corner while holding fifth place.

The Porsche 993 RSR of Theo Du Toit was looking good for a strong finish,

but retired from the fray shortly before the end while the 911 RSR driven by

Andre Bezuidenhout ran into mechanical bother and was ruled out of

contention after a number of pit stops.

In a remarkable display of consistency, the important Index of Performance

award went to Peter Collings in a very standard Mini 1275 ahead of the

Roets/Jacobs Polo and the Datsun 1200GX driven spectacularly by Jan van der

Merwe and Cindy Evans who finished 11th overall to claim the trophy for the

first Classic Saloon home.

Results:

1. Bernard Tilanus Michael Fergusson (VSP) 59 laps

2. Harry Roscoe/Richard Wood (VSP) – 1:48:429 behind

3. Colin Frost/Alan Eve (VSP) 58 laps

4. Tony Cooke/Cobus Grobelaar (VSP) 56 laps

5. Marco/Paulo Da Cunha (VSP) 53 laps