Summarize

The National Extreme Festival came to a chaotic climax as it crowned South Africa’s 2024 racing champions at Zwartkops on Saturday. South African Touring Cars’ Rob Wolk, SunBet ZX10 Masters’ Clinton Seller and Toyota Gazoo trio Dawie van der Merwe,

Devon Scott and Sean Nurse all arrived in Pretoria with their titles already wrapped up. But it took a rough and tough day of racing to crown the rest of South Africa’s 2024 champions in a red flag rich day of racing drama.

At the end of the day however, Arnold Neveling had wrapped up the Extreme Supercars driven by Dunlop title with a pair of wins, Jonathan Mogotsi took the SATC SupaCup championship, and Jason Loosemore and Wayne Masters the respective Astron Energy Polo Cup and Masters titles. Jagger Robertson is the final Investchem Formula 1600 champion, and Judd Bertholdt Volkswagen Rookie Cup champion.

In a dramatic day of South African Touring Cars, Saood Variawa bounced back to take the first race win for Toyota, but late race drama saw his teammate Michael van Rooyen stuck in the gravel as Anthony Pretorius’ Corolla emerged second from Julian van der Watt’s Volkswagen, which moved up to second in the title chase, with Wolk fourth. It was even more dramatic in race 2, which took three attempts to finally start. First Wolk’s BMW and van der Watt went off and then a series of crashes saw the second start aborted too. Wolk was back in the third restart and went on to win from van Rooyen, who clinched second in the title chase with second in the final race from Pretorius.

SATC SupaCup delivered a thrilling championship finale. Second in the chase, Keegan Campos passed Tate Bishop late in the opening race to whittle down his title deficit, but third man Jonathan Mogotsi did enough to keep a handy six-point lead going into the final race. Campos was one of the crashed cars to cause the second red flag of the opening heat, but he was back on the grid for the restart. And led the race from lights to flag. All Jonathan Mogotsi had to do however, was follow Campos home to take the title as Bishop stole third from Sa’aad Variawa’s Toyota late in the race.

Arnold Neveling’s Audi R8 arrived in the lead of Extreme Supercars driven by Dunlop chase and then made it look easy as he sped to a double victory to wrap the title up. He trotted to the opening race win from Aldo and Silvio Scribante’s Lamborghinis, Charl Arangies’ Porsche, Chris Budnik’s Viper and Gianni Giannoccaro’s Nissan GT-R. And then he took race 2 from Jonathan du Toit’s Lamborghini, Arangies, Gianni, and Ricardo Giannoccaro’s McLaren and Silvio Scribante, to wrap up the title.

Jagger Robertson overcame pole man Karabo Malemela to deliver a lights to flag opening race win to clinch the final Investchem Formula 1600 championship. Title rival KC Ensor-Smith could only look on from third ahead of Alex Vos, Mikel Bezuidenhout and Renzo Ribeiro. Malemela then sped to a lights to flag maiden victory in the last-ever Investchem Formula 1600 race. Robertson and Vos ambushed Ensor-Smith for second and third, with Shrien Naidoo fifth from Bezuidenhout. Nick van Weely and Ian Schofield shared out the Formula Ford Kent wins, with Duncan Vos third. Investchem MSA4 takes over from Formula 1600 with a new breed of safer, halo-equipped VW turbo 3-cylinder powered cars from 2025. 

Clinton Seller celebrated his 2024 SunBet ZX10 Masters title with a double race win over AJ Venter, Damion Purificati, Hein McMahon, class B winner Graeme van Breda and David Enticott in both races. Judd Bertholdt dominated the opening Volkswagen Rookie Cup race from Uzair Khan, Dhivyen Naidoo and Josh Moore, before following Naidoo, Khan and Moore home in race 2 to clinch the title. Dawie van der Merwe took the opening GR86, Sean Nurse GR Corolla Media and Theo Brits GR Yaris wins. Before Dawie and Sean finished the season unbeaten, and Paul de Vos won the Yaris finale.

All of which concludes the 2024 South African Championship Extreme Festival. It starts all over again with a brand new season early in 2025. See you there!