Summarize

The 2017 Mopar South African Endurance Championship is ready for a significant step up amid great new plans for the series as entries stream in for the season-opening Mopar Goldfields 6 Hour at the Phakisa Freeway in Welkom Saturday 25 February.

2017 is expected to be a watershed year for the SA Endurance championship, which will not only run alongside the new South African GT Challenge in a bumper weekend, but the Mopar series will step up a significant gear as it runs as a South African National Championship for the first time this year, along with new cars and competitors, live streaming of the entire race day and a new Super Pole qualifying shootout, among the changes.

“We are looking forward to our best year yet,” SAEC boss Roger Pearce pointed out. “We have a good entry so far, but we are still waiting for some pretty impressive new machinery to join the line-up before entries close on Thursday, which we will confirm closer to the time. But we have both our most recent champions racing new cars this year as they chase to become the first Mopar South African Endurance Champion.

“More good news is that the entire race day will be live streamed in each of the Mopar SA Endurance race meetings this year, starting with Phakisa and we will be able to tell you where to tune in when we confirm entries later in the week. “We also have a Super Pole qualifying format where the top ten car will fight it out and of course, we race together with the new SA GT Challenge, in what is set to become among SA’s most exciting sporting attractions going forward.”

Perhaps the most exciting news is the arrival of a few new cars, with an Aqila coupe sports racer making its race debut in the capable hands of regular SA Endurance winners Francia Carruthers and Johan Engelbrecht. The dramatic Chevrolet V8-powered machine is similar to the yellow car in the picture and will certainly bring extra excitement to the front of the SA Endurance grid.

There will also be an international flavour with British driver Nigel Greensall lining up in one of the Nash prototypes, while the tin-top Alfa Romeo team is understood to be readying a new Giulietta for its regular line-up among many other exciting developments in the lead up to the new season.

The Phakisa meeting will see two SA GT Challenge races— a 12-lapper and then a 45-minute race at midday, before the 6-hour starts at 13h00 with seamless action right through to sunset. Sounds like a pretty good reason for a trip to the Free State!