GTC heads to Aldo Scribante with a point to prove

All eyes will be on multiple SA Production Car champion Michael Stephen, his Engen Audi and the Sasol Global Touring Cars when that fledgling championship rolls into Port Elizabeth for its second round at the Aldo Scribante racetrack on Saturday.

GTC raised as many smiles from fans as it did frowns from critics in its first race, with some perhaps cruelly deeming the racing a procession following the teams’ mad rush to ready the six cars for that debut meeting. Now SA’s top race teams have had enough time to tinker, fettle and settle into their new kit and the racing should start becoming a little more serious too.

Stephen, teammate Simon Moss and the Engen Audi team’s A3 GTCs will be under a different kind of pressure on Saturday. Not only did Michael dominate that first meeting up at Zwartkops, but all of the above will be racing in their backyard and the local Port Elizabeth community is expecting more of the same from its race heroes this weekend.

Not if the BMWs or Volkswagens have anything to do with it, that is — they will all be out to beat the Audis at all costs. Volkswagen’s Jetta GTC racers impressed with a couple of second places at Zwartkops, but multiple champion Graeme Nathan and former Polo Cup star Matthew Hodges will be keen to go one better in front of that carmaker’s home crowd and with VW’s African base up the road in Uitenhage, the team should also expect strong support and home pressure to win.

More good news is that no less than four new BMW 228 GTCs are expected to appear in Port Elizabeth this weekend – the familiar Sasol duo of Hennie Groenewald and Gennaro Bonafede plus two new cars — one in the hands of another former Production Car Champion, Johan Fourie in his EPS Courier Services machine, while saloon racing stalwart Michael Van Rooyen will debut his pretty Rustenburg Steel Construction version, but will these Gauteng infiltrators be enough to overcome the Bays finest…? 

The top class cars will be backed up by a field of 225kW front-wheel drive GTC Production racers waging war close behind as Daniel Rowe and Mandla Mdakane’s Volkswagen Motorsport Golf GTis take on Charl Smalberger’s VW Genuine Parts Golf GTi and Shaun Duminy (SMD Ford Focus STi).

While the gently modified GTC Production cars are not too far removed from similar standard models sitting on the the showroom floor, the gruff, popping, bursting and fire-breathing turbocharged GTC cars are purpose-built racers conceived and built from the ground up to promote the closest of racing at speeds of up to 280km/h, while the tight and twisty Aldo Scribante offers a good prospect of GTC dicing and racing of the highest order. That may just be the place to be on Saturday…

This article was written by Michele Lupini on motorsportmedia.co.za