WESBANK V8 FINAL TO GROENEWALD
 26 October 2008		  


by
Roger McCleery

Three-times WesBank V8 Champion, Hennie Groenewald (Team Timken Holden), confirmed his position as the top saloon car driver in South Africa with a pair of wins on wet and dry roads in the WesBank V8 races at Kyalami on Saturday.   His 2008 score sheet reads 14 wins in 20 races and a total of 45 wins in his WesBank V8 career. 

Race 1 was Groenewald’s from pole position to finishing flag, although he was hassled all the way by Mark Auby (Jonnesway Tools Jaguar), .7 seconds behind at the flag.   Robert Briggs (Team Timken Jaguar) was 3rd after having it out with the rest of the Auby family – 16-year-old Brandon (Masana  Petroleum Jaguar) and their father, Deon (Meta Forge Holden) – 3 Auby’s in the top 5 positions.   An entry of 23 V8 cars made it the biggest single class racing at Kyalami on Saturday. 

Like the Reef thunderstorms experienced in the 9-hour races, the heavens opened right on schedule at 5 o’clock to flood the track.   The drivers did a couple of laps to see if the track was raceable and they all said, despite spins in all the corners, – “Let’s race”. 

Newcomer Morne Jurgens (Mustang) former Formula GTI Champion, led the reverse grid race for  4 glorious laps with cars battling to find grip on the wet track.   Groenewald from the back of the grid went to the front on lap 5 of the shortened 7 lap race in a brilliant display of car control. 

Wet weather experience counted for Willie Hepburn (Project Orange Corvette)  pushing his way through to a close 3rd spot from the middle of the pack in his farewell V8 National Race.   This race took him to 3rd overall in the championship.   

Then came Mark Auby, racing father Des Gudzeit (Dezzi / Trysome Mustang) with Welkom’s Jaco Correia, (Omega Motor Spares Corvette) 6th in both the race and championship after a bad start to the season. 

Brian Cook, Chairman of WesBank V8 Racing for 25 years and his team, Peter Moloney and Peter Frost, also bade goodbye to WesBank V8 racing. 

RESULTS

RACE 1

  1. Groenewald; 2. M. Auby; 3. Briggs; 4. B. Auby; 5. D Auby; 6. R. du Plessis

RACE 2

  1. Groenewald; 2. M. Jurgens; 3. W. Hepburn; 4. M. Auby; 5. D. Gudzeit
  1. J. Correia

FINAL POINTS POSITIONS

  1. Groenewald (256); 2. Mark Auby (165); 3. Willie Hepburn (144);

4.   Robert Briggs (143); 5. Richard Pinard (110); 6. Jaco Correia (94)