Round three of the Shelby Can-Am championship took place at the revised

Kyalami circuit where the removal of the notorious chicane proved to be

worth around two and a half seconds per lap.

 

Qualifying belonged to Darryn Lobb (DK Woodcraft) who's lap of 1:45.181 was

almost three quarters of a second faster than Jean-Paul Bredenhann (Bigfoot

Express).  Alan Eve (Phakisa) and reigning champion Rui Campos (Hugo Boss)

occupied the second row with the top six being made up by Sean Greve

(Vulcania Reinforcing) and Zwartkops winner Thomas Reib (Coolstar

Beverages). 

 

Not so lucky was Brian Algar (Thuthuka Welding) who speared into the

barriers at turn two on his first lap which left his car looking somewhat

dog-eared.

 

The results will show that Lobb won the opening race, but what they won't

show, is that it was by the skin of his teeth as he only took the lead from

Bredenhann at the final corner.

 

Another steady drive from Eve saw him narrowly beat Greve to claim third

place as Reib was a lonely fifth ahead of Cape Town's Bertil Hoffman (IOU

Music) who was under pressure from Craig Shorter (Execuline). Algar put in a

dogged drive from the back of the grid to claim eighth.

 

Campos' hopes were dashed on lap two when he got caught out on the slippery

track exiting the second 'S' which spat him nose first into the wall on the

opposite side of the track. It was a heavy impact and fortunately he was

unhurt apart from a squeaky voice!

 

An indication as to just how slippery the track was came from Dave Beattie

(Dura) who retired with what he assumed was a puncture as the car was

sliding around so much. Colin Frost (Strocam) battled with a failing gearbox

as, unbeknown to him, his gearbox was leaking oil!

 

Race two, as is the norm on longer circuits, was combined with the Altech

Porsche brigade and behind runaway overall winner Toby Venter, the battle

for Shelby Can-Am honours was spectacular.

 

Lobb took the win a second or so clear of Bredenhann while the ever

consistent Greve was a distant third. Fourth went to Reib while Shorter had

another good race to fifth as Capetonian Greg Walker (Bizfone) was sixth.

The big surprise was Formula Vee racer Execuline's Alan Eustice who stood in

for an injured Hanno Pangilly (Azura Retreats) and claimed seventh in his

Can-Am debut.

 

It was a race filled with drama. First moment was the field was coming up to

complete lap five. Lobb was close behind Eve as they came past the pits and

got a bit too close which dispatched Eve into the wall. Initially Lobb was

blamed, but then there was talk that Eve might have missed a gear. Then on

lap 10 Hoffman also disappeared from the lap charts.

 

A lap later Algar and Campos came together at Nashua and both were out on

the spot while further round the lap Beattie crashed heavily at the esses. 

 

All in all it was an eventful day and Welkom's former MotoGP circuit,

Phakisa will host the next round of the championship on 20 June.