Summarize

Cape Town youngster Troy Dolinschek kept out of trouble before putting on a brilliant display en route to stealing his maiden Investchem Formula 1600 victory in a wild day of racing in single seater heaven at East London’s Grand Prix Circuit Extreme Festival on Saturday. 

A sizeable Border crowd saw a dramatic day’s action that included red flags and hospital visit for one hapless youngster on a balmy winter's day at South Africa’s idyllic home of single seater racing. It was ops normal to start with, as Josh Le Roux and his turquoise Investchem RDSA Mygale topped the timing charts in qualifying.

All of eight hundredths of a second separated Le Roux from Antwan Geldenhuys’ Abacus Divisions Racing Mygale, with brother Gerard similar machine in third. Siyabonga Mankonkwane’s red Investchem Mygale surprised in fourth from Troy Dolinschek’s black Sujean Commercial Mygale in fifth from Ewan Holtzhausen’s colourful Total Plastics Mygale.

Alex Vos put his Investchem DV Building Supplies Mygale on the inside of row 4, alongside Andrew Schofield’s Investchem Fly Safair Mygale, Nicholas van Weely’s Magnificent Paints & Hardware van Diemen, Jason Coetzee in a Mint Wrapworks Mygale, Taya van der Laan’s Macrocomm Get It Framed Mygale and Shrien Naidoo in his Production X Mygale.  

Close racing seemed inevitable with the entire grid split by just over a second. Too close, perhaps? Race 1 started in hectic fashion with everyone vying for position into the flat-out Potter’s Pass and Rifle bends. Gerhard Geldenhuys ended up on the grass on the approach to the tight Copabana as Josh le Roux outbraked himself and went straight on.

This melee put Gerhard Geldenhuys into the lead at the end of the first lap, followed by Holtzhausen, Dolinschek, Antwan Geldenhuys, who had jumped the start and picked up a 30-second penalty, Vos, Mankonkwane, Schofield and van Weely. The jousting continued with the Geldenhuys brothers and Holtzhausen colliding in the complex as they almost made it to the midfield karting track.

That handed Dolinschek the advantage over Gerard Geldenhuys, Vos, Mankonkwane and Holtzhausen. The latter two then had a massive coming together under braking from well over 200 km/h into the Cocobana beach hairpin. Holtzhausen’s car was launched into a series of lurid and quite horrifying rollovers before the destroyed car came to rest on its side. 

Mankonkwana rushed to help free his stricken rival, who was checked out in the medical centre before being sent to hospital for observation overnight. Holtzhausen was released with slight fractures and bruising on Sunday morning.

The race resumed off another standing start, with the preceding moments clearly forgotten, as similar vigorous racing resumed. Vos spun out of contention for the win, causing the pursuing top pack scatter in avoidance as Gerard Geldenhuys moved into a lead he’d hold to the finish, despite the closest attention of his brother and Dolinschek.

Dolinschek snuck into second from Antwan, out braking him into Cocobana, while Schofield’s lonely race to fourth became third on Antwan’s start penalty. So, van Weely was classified fourth from Coetzee, a recovered Vos and Antwan demoted to seventh.

Le Roux made up for his first heat frustrations by grabbing the lead from the start and staying out front through to the finish of race 2. He was helped by a massive tussle going on behind him between Gerard Geldenhuys and Troy Dolinschek that saw several position changes over the 10 laps.

Vos seemed comfortable in fifth from Schofield, Coetzee and van Weely, but Antwan Geldenhuys started from the pit lane and was tearing up the track as he fought his way back into contention. Dolinschek then made a stunning move on the outside of Potters to unseat Geldenhuys for second as it became a four-way battle including Vos and Schofield. 

Geldenhuys then retook second place on lap nine, but Dolinschek was not done and went back to second at Cocobana on the final lap. Vos stayed in third ahead of Schofield and the recovering Antwan Geldenhuys with Coetzee not far behind, and van der Laan and Naidoo further back.

Troy Dolinschek took the overall win for the day by all of two points from Gerard Geldenhuys, while consistency paid off for both Andrew Schofield in third and Jason Coetzee in fourth. Alex Vos was classified fifth from Nicholas van Weely, Antwan Geldenhuys and Josh Le Roux.

All that means that Gerard Geldenhuys closed Le Roux’s title lead down to just a few points. Antwan, Vos and Dolinschek are now in a three-way tussle for third heading to Investchem Formula 1600’s penultimate 2022 round at Dolinschek’s home race at Killarney in Cape Town, 17 September.