WILL HOLIDAY-TOWN EVENT GO ANNUAL?

+ Click to Enlarge NOT OVER THE HILL: Sarel van der Merwe blasts up the Knysna Hill Climb in his Mustang - and finished up the overall winner.

November 2, 2009

The Western Cape town of Knysna hosted its first known motorsport hill-climb at the weekend with more than 6000 spectators and 47 race entries.

The organisers now hope it will become an annual event.

Saturday was practice and then the elimination cycle which left 21 drivers for the finals on Sunday on a 1.85km route to the Simola golf estate overlooking the Knysna lagoon and The Heads.

The battle for outright victory was fought between motorsport legend Sarel van der Merwe in an immaculate V8 Masters Ford Mustang and a highly modified Subaru WRX superbly driven by Anton Cronje.

The two were separated by fractions of a second throughout the qualifying runs, with Cronje marginally ahead.

In the final, however, Supervan displayed his immense talent to beat Cronje by just over half a second to take the first Knysna 'King of the Hill' title. He covered the course in 43.0sec with a top speed of more than 230km/h.

Cronje’s Subaru was disadvantaged with a cracked exhaust manifold but, despite losing the overall fastest time, he won his class.

Third-fastest overall went to Capetonian Fanie Theron in an Owen Ashley V8 Master Mustang with Cronje's class rival Thouca Mechanicos fourth in an AMG Mercedes C55.

Proving that dynamite does indeed come in small packages, John Amm was a crowd favourite aboard a fifth-placed Rotax 250cc Superkart – not bad for a projectile that could almost fit in the boot of the winning car!

Former rally champion Enzo Kuun rounded off the top six in an Audi R8 which attracted attention wherever it was parked. Both won their respective classes.

Lourens van Litsenborgh (Honda V-Tec) won Class D as Johan Zulch (BMW 325i) romped to the Class E win. Knysna’s Francis Cussens took his Toyota-powered Birkin 7 to the Class G win ahead of Botswana’s Dave Alexander in a Harper Motorsport MGA.

An epic battle for Class H honours saw Chris Carolin (Mazda Capella) edge out a Golf driven by Nico van Rensburg by 0.2 sec.

Paul Bestbier won Class L in a Fiat Uno turbo while Matteo Casale showed what a diesel can do as he won Class M in a Polo Tdi. Ian Oberholzer won Class A in a little Datsun 1200 and Class B went to a Marcos driven by Classic Car stalwart Peter Gale.