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SIMOLA KING OF THE HILL - “My personal experience”                                                  Enver Deedat

 

Zelda and I were so excited when a friend of ours offered us two VIP tickets to attend the Jaguar Simola King of the Hill event held on the 3rd – 6th May 2018 and since this was our first time, there was no way that we were going to miss out on this opportunity. I also found out that a few of the regular Porsche Club-Cape members were going to attend, so it was going to be one big party.

Classic Car Friday :

When we arrived in Knysna on Friday, 4th May at approximately 10:30am, we were welcomed by an array of classic racing cars all displayed as if these beauties were entering a show and shine event . There was such a buzz of excitement  in the air with pit crews and racing drivers, so many familiar faces getting ready for what was the become classic car Friday “King of the Hill”, four qualifying stages and the classic cars finals shootout later that afternoon.

After spending some time in the pit area looking at the amazing machinery we proceeded to our VIP marquee where our friend Douglas Oberwortman  welcomed us with champaign and some canapés. Douglas had also managed to negotiate the rights to supply the Jaguar Simola Hillclimb event for the next 3 years with his award winning Arbikie Highland Estate range of Gins and Vodkas and obviously being a VIP guest everything was “on the house” per say…food, dessert, ice-cream, beers, shooters, drinks etc…and the main thing was that our marquee was beautifully positioned overlooking the commentary area with live timing, TV and the start area with a clear view of the pit lane garages. We had the perfect spot. I was in “motoring heaven” and  compared  this event to my past experiences at a few F1 races. What can I say….the whole set up was simply world class and I was blown away!

At the end of the day’s racing, Franco Scribante posted the fastest time of 42.491s in his 1970 Chevron B19 and Ian Scholfield set the second best time of 45.433s in his March B77. Now these are pretty quick times considering that the hillclimb with its twisty “esses” is only 1,9kms and a very scary short run off area at the finish. (***trust me as I will explain later…)

The next two days saw the big guns come out to play. There were plenty of Nissan GTR’s with nic-names such as Godzilla and Armagendon and these racing machines with 1300 horsepower made loud popping sounds which was similar to Cape Towns “Noon Gun”. There were Ford Mustang’s which Peter Lindenberg  and his daughter Page Lindenberg piloted, Lotus’s with brothers Dawie and Charl Joubert raced, McLarens, Mitsubishi WRX’s, Jaguars, Ferraris and even a SUV Range Rover SVR which was very impressive. There were so many vehicles for everyone’s taste and enjoyment and obviously being a Porsche fan, we had some local talent such as Sun Moodley with his Bigfoot Express Porsche Cup car, Manoj Maharaj in a very quick white GT3RS, Aldo Scribante in his Porsche GT2 which he purpose built…but the main personality name that was on everyone’s lips was Andre Bezuidenhout, who brought his Gould GR55 single seater powered by a 3.8L V8 McLaren engine. I was told that this car was purposed built for hill climb events so we all waited with baited breath to see if he could beat his very own record which he set last year in his 1989 Dallara F189 Formula 1 car.

Other entertained during lunch breaks were stuntman Terry Grant who holds a few Guiness Book World records in his own right. He brought his Jaguar F-pace SUV and drove it all the way up the 1,9km hill “on two wheels” not only once, but three times to prove that it was no fluke!

On the Sunday afternoon, it was to be the final top ten shootout and thereafter the podium presenations…

Here are a few results :

1st : Andre Bezuidenhout **35.528s – Gould GR55 McLaren 3.8L V8 (**new lap record)

2nd : Robert Wolk               37.691s – Ferrari A1 V8

3rd : Wilhelm Baard           39.463s -  Nissan GTR 950kw

4th : Charl Joubert              39.519s – Lotus Exige

5th : Dawie Joubert            40.012s – Lotus 2.4 Exige 560kw

Legendary driver at the age of 78 in his Chevrolet V8 powered Opel Record, Willie Hepburn received a prize for the most enthusiastic driver of the King of the Hill with the most “gees”.

*** The event was concluded at approximately 6:30pm on Sunday. The amazing thing was that the +-17000( seventeen thousand ) fans all stayed until the end to watch the podium presentations. The next day I decided to revisit the hillclimb site and race track and whist the events management and their staff were co-ordinating the breaking down their marquees and pit area, I had the perfect opportunity to do a few hillclimb runs myself in my loan Range Rover Sport V6 Diesal nogal and set a blistering lap time of 62secs….pity that I was not in one of my sports cars.

 

 

 

 

 


03/05/2018