Will he or
won’t he? |
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Will Jaki Scheckter become a permanent driver in
the Shelby Can-Am championship? That’s the question on everyone’s lips after round four of the Shelby Can-Am championship at Phakisa, Welkom on Saturday. Having scored an emotional win in the second race in round two at Zwartkops, Scheckter underlined his talent when he scored another win at Phakisa. This time he accepted a last minute off to drive Hanno Pengilly’s car when the owner was forced to withdraw due to business commitments. Qualifying saw 2008 champion Rui Campos put the Hugo Boss supported car on pole position comfortably with Scheckter alongside in the Etana/Azzura Retreats example. Row two was headed by Brian Algar (Etana) and Guy Botterill (Yato Tools/Bigfoot Express) while the top six was completed by Alan Eve (Phakisa) and Thomas Reib (Jägermeiste), the latter just .007sec slower than Eve. A clean start saw Scheckter take the lead with Campos and Botterill line astern under his rear wing. The race quickly turned into a high-speed game of chess as the trio circulated almost as one until Scheckter took the chequered flag eight laps later. “It’s great to win again but it was a very hard race as Campos was pushing hard all the time…. He made me work hard,” remarked Scheckter who hadn’t raced for 13-years until Zwartkops in March. Botterill took third and gave his view of the race. “We were so evenly matched it would have been impossible to overtake without taking a big risk. I thought Campos might try get Scheckter somewhere, but he didn’t.” After a hard battle with Bertil Hoffman (GP Energy Drink) for the first half of the race, Eve claimed a fairly lonely fourth while a good scrap behind him saw Algar take fifth after a race-long battle with former champion Neil Lobb who was driving the Vulcania Reinforcing car usually raced by Sean Greve who sat this race out after recently undergoing a knee operation. Next was Reib as Hoffman claimed eighth. Race two, which has a partially inverted grid based on lap times from the first race, was filled with drama. Reib made the most of his start and took a lead he was to hold throughout the race as he went on to take a 1.5 second win ahead of Hoffman who’d held second throughout. It was Reib’s first win at another circuit besides Zwartkops and he was naturally delighted. After getting past Lobb on lap two, Scheckter went on to take third but things weren’t so cut and dried behind him. Lobb found himself under attack from Campos but on lap six it got a bit too close and Campos found himself parked in the gravel trap as Lobb was considerably delayed. Not surprisingly each blamed the other. That left a hard charging Botteril to take fourth after starting from the fourth row. Algar was a couple of seconds back in fifth but well clear of sixth placed Eve who was chased home by a recovering Lobb as newcomer John van Wyk rounded off the top eight. Round five of the championship takes place on 26 June at Zwartkops near Pretoria. |