MOTORING NEWS - Michael Stephen claimed his second consecutive Sasol GTC Championship at the final round at Zwartkops Raceway last Saturday and his Engen Xtreme teammate Simon Moss broke through for his first win of the season.
Under leaden skies and in pouring rain, Stephen scored his third pole position of the season.
Challenging conditions saw him drive a risk-free first race to finish in fifth place, which scored enough points over his rival for the title, Gennaro Bonafede (Sasol BMW GTC), to win the championship.
It was a double delight for the Audi team. Moss had struggled all year to get the chequered flag first, but pushed through with confidence in the trying conditions to seal his first Sasol GTC victory in the first 10-lap race.
He repeated this result in race two from the back of the inverted grid.
A masterful drive on the wet track saw Moss set fastest laps in both races and nearly deposing Bonafede from second place in the final championship standings. In the end, there were just three points between Bonafede and Moss on the final points standings for the year.
Champion Michael Stephen leads the pack in his Engen Audi.
Third place in both races went to the "Rustenburg Rocket" racer Michael van Rooyen after qualifying his RSC BMW GTC in an impressive fourth place, in his best weekend of the season.
However, an overboost issue saw him relegated to the back of the grid for race one.
Driving an exceptional pair of races, his two third-place results on Saturday meant that every GTC competitor in 2017 has stood on the podium during the course of the nine-round, eighteen-race premier race series.
Johan Fourie, a race winner at Kyalami earlier in November, brought his EPS Couriers BMW GTC home in second place in the opening race but set-up changes for race two made the BMW struggle, battling with grip on the still-wet circuit later in the afternoon.
The factory Volkswagen Jetta team showed great pace at Zwartkops with Daniel Rowe banking his best qualifying position on the front row, while teammate Mathew Hodges overcame a poor qualifying session to finish fourth and fifth in the two GTC races.
Rowe, meanwhile, went off the track in race one, ending in a disappointing seventh place, but recovered to a strong fourth-place finish in the second race.
Johan Fourie in action.
The Sasol GTC racing team did not end the year as they had hoped, with Bonafede languishing in sixth place after giving his all in a no-holds-barred race where he had to take several risks. In race two, he again ended sixth.
The Sasol BMW driven by Robert Wolk battled in the conditions with a misted window in the first race and went off track. In race two, having started from the front row of the grid, he went off at turn five with cold brakes.
GTC2 provided another spectacular pair of races, with Chris Shorter winning race one in his Champion Mini John Cooper Works, followed by his Mini teammate Brad Liebenberg in the Ferodo-backed Mini JCW.
Shorter sealed second place overall in Mini's first season of competition.
Newly crowned GTC2 champion Keagan Masters (Volkswagen Advanced Driving Golf GTi) ended the first race in third position but came through the pack to claim his eighth victory of the year, followed by Liebenberg and Shorter.
Trevor Bland (TB Racing VW Golf GTi), who held second place on the championship points, was in the wars in the brat-pack race and was involved in a race-ending incident in race two, leaving him third in the final standings - a fine effort from the privateer.
At the glittering Sasol GTC Awards ceremony evening, Mohammed Carrim, Sasol Energy vice-president for marketing and sales said, "We are very proud to end this year on a high with the Sasol GTC Championship Awards ceremony.
"We congratulate Michael Stephen and his team on their victory. As a sponsor we thank all the GTC teams for their endurance and contribution to another successful season.
"I am happy to confirm that our Sasol GTC Championship sponsorship, which is referred to as a 'laboratory on wheels' sponsorship, is delivering in terms of our ability to conduct research on the performance of our products, while the championship as a whole provides us with a fantastic platform to showcase our products."
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