All-new Engen Polo Cup Championship promises great excitment
The Engen Volkswagen Polo Cup series – one of South Africa’s longest surviving national circuit racing disciplines, will take on an entirely new look in 2018. With the first race of the season taking place at the Kyalami Circuit on March 24, racers and fans will be counting down the days.
The all-new Engen Polo Cup cars will be powered by the 2.0-litre turbocharged GTI engine, supplemented by Motec engine management to boost power output to 155kW along with 350Nm of torque. Power is sent to the 17-inch Dunlop semi-slicks in the front through a six-speed manual gearbox.
One of the highlights of the new Polo Cup cars is the ‘Push to Pass’ function which allows the car to temporarily increase its power output to 170kW once per lap, just to keep things interesting. Even though the cars are faster, the fundamentals of the tournament have not changed.
“Engen Polo Cup racing was created years ago to give talented young South African race car drivers a ladder of opportunity, with the best of them destined to move on to other, more premier formulas”, said Mike Rowe, Volkswagen’s Motorsport and VW Driving Academy Manager.
“That mission statement has not changed, and we feel that the 2018 crop of drivers will produce exactly the kind of fearsomely competitive racing that has become a hallmark of the formula,” Rowe added.
Some of the drivers to keep an eye on at Kyalami include Pepper Racing’s Tasmin Pepper (Electric Life Polo), Shaun La Reservee (Alpine Motors Polo), Jason Campos (Campos Transport Polo), Keegan Campos (Campos Transport Polo), Darren Oates (Payen Polo), Alton Bouw (Champion Ferodo Polo) and Clinton Bezuidenhout (Glyco Polo).
“Speculation about the probable podium chasers is rife, but the real answers will come on Friday when the contenders take to Kyalami for the first time,” Rowe said.
