The fourth round of the South African Endurance Series Championship is very much a make-or-break event for those chasing points but is equally important for all competitors who would like to leave with a Kyalami win under their belts.

The three rounds run so far have all produced last lap winners and losers and the expectation is Kyalami will be as closely fought as those previous events.

One team aiming for top honours on the day is the Adjust4Sleep/Rico Barlow Nova NP02 headed by Nick Adcock who will share driving duties with Michael Jensen and the super quick Charl Visser, who were able to take line honours last December for the Nine Hours of Kyalami.

It was bitter disappointment for the team at the last round in Gqeberha at Aldo Scribante when the gearbox on the Coyote-engined racer failed and they were unable to make the start line.

“We ended up sending the gearbox to Century Racing in Johannesburg and they weaved some magic to do a complete rebuild and sent it back to us here in Cape Town. I am confident it will not pose any problems at Kyalami and we most certainly looking to get a good finish.” – said team principle Rico Barlow.

The drama-filled round at Aldo Scribante saw the winners across the line, the Into Africa Racing Lamborghini Huracan of Xolile Letlaka and Stuart White get demoted to second with a penalty for a yellow flag infringement – making them doubly determined to erase that disappointment and get across the finish line at Kyalami in first place.

Paul Hill and Bradley Liebenberg in the Promigen Audi, who inherited the win in Gqeberha, are just as keen to get across the finish line in front and take the flag in an outright victory – but they know it is going to be a long four hours of racing with the likes of the BBR Racing trio of Henk Lategan, Hein Lategan and Verissimo Tavares just as pumped to get to the flag first.

Consistency in endurance racing pays off and the Championship log leaders are the Pple Group trio of Phillip Meyer, Mark Harvey & Dean Wolson (Backdraft Roadster) who are sitting on a 100 points after three rounds having racked up good results in each event so far.

They are five points ahead of the Hill/Liebenberg pairing with the BBR Racing team not far back on 91 points and Into Africa just one point adrift of that in fourth.

Within the SA Endurance Series is the Backdraft Roadster Championship for the identical cars of the previous Class E and this is being led by the Pple Group with Pesty Racing in the form of father and son combination, Harm and Barend Pretorius, second in the Class and being chased by the Tradecore Racing trio of Jean-Paul Briner, CJ Blackman and Anthony Hoare.

Class B, which features both GT4 cars and modified versions of the Backdraft cars is currently led by Lonika Maartens who has had different co-drivers at each meeting, and she is followed by one of those in the form of Fabienne Lanz with Antony Pretorius in third place. Pretorius started the season in a Backdraft but is now running the Fast Development Audi R8 GT4 with Ryan Naicker. With Maartens not making the entry list for this event, the championship is now wide open for Lanz to take full advantage of.

Karah Hill and Jurie Swart top the Class C log in their Kalex VW Polo, while another father and son duo of David and Roberto Franco rule the roost in Class D in their VW Supa Polo. With a race win at the last outing, the Korridas team from Mozambique come to Kyalami on a high with full intention to rake in maximum points.

However, all drivers will have to drop one race from their scoresheets at the end of the season and it cannot be one in which they did not make the start line – not only making every point vital but likely to throw the proverbial spanner into the works when the final tally is done. The rules dictate that the organisers start to account for the drop round in the score sheets after round 4. So the exit from Kyalami will give everyone a glance into the future of the championship.

Just to add more spice a number of cars not seen so far this season will be on track, including the Harp Motorsports Ginetta G57 of Craig Jarvis and Sean Moore, a second Into Africa Lamborghini Huracan for Axel Jeffries and Austrian co-driver Philipp Baron making a debuet in the series and the Spheremotorsport Toyota Altezza in the hands of Marco da Cunha and Sergio Alvares.

Regular contenders Mike McLoughlin and Steve Clark will again be aboard the blisteringly quick Backdraft Carbon Car, while MJR Motorsport will be back with its Audi R8 LMS GT3 after quite a torrid time at Aldo Scribante that even involved ending up backwards on the banking for a while.

Samlin Racing (Nathan Hammond/Sam Hammond) missed the last round and are looking for a points haul in their Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo Evo 2 and one to watch will be the Stradale Motorsport entry for Arnold Neveling and Charl Arangies in the new Porche 911 GT3 Cup MR Gen II car that ran in the 1 hour dash in Gqeberha.

Porsche will also be represented by G&H Racing with Jimmy and Riccardo Giannoccaro and Ant Blunden aboard the Porsche 997 with Damian Hammond taking charge of the second Samlin Racing Lamborghini.

Other new names include Kia Le Mans Racing, a Class D KIA Picanto Turbo in the hands of Pedro Garcia, Andre Bettencourt and Cristian Bouche plus the Backdraft for Strong Racing (Stuart Miles and Leo Branders) and the similar car for Fire Boys (Robert Mordaunt and Mark Futcher).

At each round of the series there is a race-within-a-race in the form of a 1-hour dash and Andre Horne (Ligier JS49) will have his hands full in this with Mike Verrier and Anthoney Marx (Shelby CanAm) with Juan-Pierre Stander in another Ligier in the Rico Barlow Racing Ligier JS 53 Evo 2. Nicky Dicks rounds out the field with his Porsche.

The Kyalami feature race will start at 14:00 on August 03 and the sunset along with fading light towards the 18:00 finish will not make it easy for the drivers – so anything can, and probably will, happen.

There is a full programme of action for the day with this event featuring the Motorcycle Racing Series SA (MRSSA) contingent for the first time and, based on the races run so far this year, it will be a thrill per second for spectators.

MRSSA runs a number of classes, and the huge field has been split into two groups with each getting two heats on the day. The first group will comprise the 1000cc, 600cc, Masters and BOTTS (V4 and V-Twin machines) while the second will see the Novices and Classics strut their stuff.

According to the series, ‘The goal of the MRSSA Racing Series is to put the fun back into competitive racing, keeping it simple with minimal rules, whilst still racing in a safe environment. The motorcycle-only racing series is founded on the idea of catering for every kind of racer in an affordable manner’. 

That said, the racing so far this season has produced some extremely close action throughout the classes with Kyalami set to see this continue.

The second support race will be the Silver Cup Series with a huge entry of 44 cars featuring a full spectrum of brand names from Alafa Romeo to Volkswagen. As a grassroots form of track racing the cars are categorised by engine capacity and tyre sizes are limited to keep it affordable.

Cars to watch out for will be Michael Kernick in the Sullivans Mom’s Insurance Nash MVW3, Devin Robertson in the Big Boss Auto Renault, Wayne Lebotschy aboard the Shield Racing VW Golf and Dewald Pretorius in the SPS Racing Mazfa.

Formula Super Vee is the regular support series for SAES, and they will be back in full force with vital championship points at stake as the season moves into the second half. Jeandre le Roux, Lushen Ramchander and Kyle Lawrence are the drivers to watch at the sharp end of the field.

However, with the cars being prepared to the same specifications anything can happen on the day and spectators can expect vigorous challenges coming from the likes of Blane de Meillon and Mark Tucker.