Despite a cold track and gloomy skies, round four of the Execuline Shelby Can-Am championship produced racing of the highest order. 

Qualifying on Friday resulted in a four-way fight for pole position and eventually it went to Rui Campos (Hugo Boss) ahead of Jennifer Murray (Execuline) whose engine had been rebuilt after a dyno test showed it didn’t have all its horses. Guy Botterill (Fragram Tools) and Alan Eve (Hugo Boss) owned row two with Chris Hart (Hi-Q Plettenberg Bay) and Sean Greve (Vulcania Reinforcing) completing the first six. 

The opening race was a thriller as Campos, Murray and Botterill fought from beginning to end. The lap charts show Campos as having led most of the laps, but they don’t show how often Murray got alongside in the long braking zone at the end of the back straight. On the last lap the trio were side by side but Botterill’s youth saw him wait longest before nailing the middle pedal and he held on to win by .039 sec from Campos as Murray was half a second adrift. 

Sean Greve scored maximum points for a spectacular pirouette through the fastest corner when his left rear suspension broke halfway through the tricky double apex Malmsbury Sweep. “Our exit speed at that corner is just over 180 km/h …it was quite lively,” he said afterwards. 

As usual, the second race was combined with the Altech Porsche Challenge to produce a huge 34 car field. The spectacle of Shelby Can-Am sportscars sharing the track with a trio of Maranello Challenge Ferrari F360s, Toby Venter’s indecently fast Porsche GT3 and a brace of surprisingly rapid and nimble Lotus Elise variants made the race a spectator’s favourite.  

Venter claimed the overall win with Campos taking third overall and winning the Execuline Shelby Can-Am class narrowly ahead of Hart.  

Murray’s race turned out to be brief. She was bundled off the track at turn one then a driveshaft broke as she rejoined the track.  Richard Wood also retired in the commotion and then Tomas Reib (InterTrans) spun and Hanno Pengilly retired at mid distance after his rear wing collapsed.  

Overcoming his first race scare, Greve did a superb job to take third place from Eve while Brian Algar (Firedart) was fifth after missing most of Friday’s running including qualifying due to matric dance commitments (not his!). Colin Frost (Strocam) scored a well deserved and morale boosting sixth place after going through a rough patch.