Vos brothers take first KZN circuit race in 40 years as Alfa Romeo returns with Index of Performance victoy
Racing brothers Duncan and Graham Vos made history when they overcame an early dogfight to drive their Juno-Jaguar SS V6 to victory in the African Endurance Series one-hour race as evening fell on at Dezzi Raceway near Port Shepstone on Saturday. The enduro closed off the first circuit race meeting in Kwazulu Natal on in over 40 years.
Johannesburg’s Ecurie Zoo Vos duo beat Colin Ellison’s stunning Chevron and Sun Moodley’s Porsche 911 GT3, with Jeff Gable and his Birkin 7 another lap down, but just three seconds clear of Peter Jenkins in another glorious Chevron B19.
The Dezzi one-hour, which is the second of six races in the 2015 African Endurance series, also saw a most successful debut for the new Alfa Romeo team as John McLachlan drove a trouble free race to win the all-important Index of Performance prize as he brought the company’s new race GT home a fine seventh overall and first saloon car home, just over a minute behind the battling Gable and Jenkins and well clear of the next tin-top finisher.
McLachlan and his Alfa were chased home by the unrelated Mike McLoughlin’s Backdraft Cobra, which in turn ended 18 seconds clear of the Harper/Thorne Harper Type 5, itself a similar margin in front of the Pickering/Theron Porsche 910, with Albert Jacobs next home in his Birkin 7. Fred de Kock’s Nissan 370Z was the second saloon car home, while JP Bredenhann’s Mini fought Terence Ehlers’ Golf off to be the third tin-top home.
The opening laps saw frenetic wheel-to-wheel action between the Jaguar-powered Juno with Duncan Vos at the wheel and the Tiga piloted by Dino Scribante. The lead swopped several times before the duelling frontrunners caught up with the tail end of the field and became immersed in the traffic.
Vos was in second place at the time and managed to get himself boxed in, dropping 12 seconds to the Tiga in one lap. “I really thought that was it,” Vos explained. “With all those cars it seemed like and impossible chase to make up that time — all I could hope was that he would mix it with more traffic and get held up.”
Then the safety car came out Shortly before mid distance while a stranded Alfa Giulietta was moved out of the way and the resultant rush to the pits gave Vos his chance – the Juno team doing a superb stop to put Graham into the driver’s seat and to get the out well ahead of the Tiga. The race between the pair then fell away as the Tiga returned to the pits with what seemed to be engine issues, while Graham Vos kept up the pace and stayed ahead for the remainder of the race.
Scribante however set a blistering 1 minute 17.335 second lap record before his problems. Others to suffer trouble along the way were Stefan Puschavez’ Porsche and Mickey Schmidt’s winged Corolla.
“I am very happy with the way our inaugural race day went,” a delighted track owner and developer, Des Gutzeit said on Saturday evening. “We estimate that around 5 000 paying spectators came through the gates and while we did have some teething problems, we were able to accommodate and feed them quite comfortably. “We have already identified things that need to be done as well as how we can improve the spectators areas and increase capacity to at least 8 000.”
The next African Endurance race is a 90 minute race at Kyalami on 9 May.