Summarize

The 2025 Extreme Festival Presented by Coca-Cola racing season kicked off with some great racing at a grey Zwartkops Raceway on Saturday. The rain happily stayed away to allow for some memorable championship opening spats across the board.

It was an important day for the Dunlop V8 Supercars, which raced on its new title sponsor’s tyres for the first time. The rolling thunder did not disappoint when the lights went out. Pole man Warren Lombard made no mistakes to power his PepBoys Mustang to the win a lap earlier than expected. The red flags flew after veteran Steve Herbst and rookie Alan Ryan tangled. Another veteran, Ben Morgenrood took GTX honours in second in his Mustang from Thomas Reib’s Café 9 Lumina. Reib made quick work of the second reverse grid race start to leave Lombard to fend Morgenrood off for second. Antonie Marx’s Holden and rookie Wayne Spicer’s Wellness Jaguar shared GT2 wins.

16-year old Jayden Goosen’s Ferro Energia AA Certified Polo turned up the books to twice beat veteran Wayne Masters’ Performance Master version in the ATE VW Challenge. Judd Bertholdt could only look on from his Sizanani car as the leaders made off up front. In a day of the Challenge doubles, series champion Stuart Mack powered his AutoZone turbo litre Polo to both Class B wins over two-litre men, Anthony Lessing’s car and VaporWorx driver Francis Aldrich’s VW Polo in heat 1, and Aldrich and Chris Davison’s Generator Services Polo in race 2. A delighted Mitch Coetzee likewise won both Class C outings over impressive Ukwazi lad Adriaan de Beer. Kyle Petersen and Historic racing expert Stuart Konig shared the Class C third places.

Class A men Bob Neill’s Delmon Mining M3 and Leon Loubser’s similar Monaco Motors car shared out the BMW M Performance Parts Race Series wins with Fabio Fedetto’s M4 third both times. Neill’s second race win came after a little last corner argle-bargle. Nek Makris’ 335i took Class B from Renier Smith’s Fast M3 and Andreas Meier’s CEC 335i before Meier reversed the order over Smith and Makris in the second heat. Salvi Gualtieri did the double in his Savspeed 328i over Bio Pool man Oz Biagioni’s M3 and Reinhardt Miller’s Amtec 325i. Hein van der Merwe’s Savspeed 328i was second from Nishal Singh’s Autonische M3 in race 2.

The BMW M Performance D, E and F race saw Bernard de Gouveia’s M3 beat Paolo Cavalieri’s 330ci and Michael Grobler’s Pest Control 328i in the opening heat. Cavalieri  then took race 2 from Varish Ganpath’s Grobler 335i and De Gouveia. Claudio Jardim’s Mixbox 330i took the first Class E win from Wessel Mostert Mosco M3 and Eddie Rodrigues’ 330i before Rodrigues turned the tables to beat Karabo Malemela’s NGK Pablo Clark 330i. But a jump start penalty promoted Mostert to second from Tihan van Rooyen’s 125i. Shaun Dodd’s 130i took Class F from Justin Brown’s Grobler 328i and Caren Nienaber’s V-Tek 325i, but Dodd took a jumped start penalty to leave Brown to win from Dodd and Ferdi van Staden’s 330i.

The DOE Formula Vees with CIM Lubricants delivered their regular thrilling action sixty years after the class first raced in South Africa. Champion Lendl Jansen’s Bull Security Rhema led MXTwo Rhema duo MD Bester and Vaughn Hills home with half a second between them in the opening heat. It was even closer when Bester and Gert van den Berg’s DOE Rhema put one over Jansen, with them, Kyle Watt, Vaughn, and Peter Hills all within a second at the flag.

George Economides’ wild Wealth Avenue Golf Turbo fought Mark du Toit’s Trans Africa BMW Z4  off to take both Ferro Energia 111 GT Sports and Saloons race wins ahead of Marnus du Plessis’ Forklift Mining Primera each time. Wayne Robb’s Focus ST won Class A and Shaun Vermaak’s Hands-On BMW Class B, before Lucas Bezuidenhout’s Pretoria Noord Lexus took the second Class A win and Greg Lebotschy’s Shield Golf won Class B. Lenard Archer’s ACD Welkom Getz beat Tyron Pillay’s PAS VW Golf  and Keagan Nathan’s Polo to the opening SuperHatch win, before Pillay beat Melanie Spurr’s Origen Polo and Archer to the second race victory. 

The Regional series next joins the National Extreme Festival Presented by Coca-Cola for a blockbuster double header Extreme Festival at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit on the weekend of 11 and 12 April. See you at Kyalami!