Warning! This is not a race report.
They say time flies, and I can testify. I remember my time flying up the Simola hill in a Renault Megane RS Cup like it was yesterday but in fact that was 2012, some six years ago. Since then, I'd been on two separate occasions to spectate, then last year to be a part of the Nissan media team, covering the conquest of the slew of GT-Rs (R32, R33, R34 and R35) that would take on the course.
It played out like great cinema, culminating with a win for Wilhelm Baard's 'Harumagedon' R35, its 'Japenglish' nickname, a play on Armageddon which describes well the noise it makes, the hell it brings and so on.
But that was last year, this is 2018 and there would be no great rivalry with Desmond Gutzeit and his R32 monster. Instead there would be fresh challenge for Wilhelm from Charl and Dawie in their Lotus Elise/Exige racers, Franco Scribante in his ominous Porsche 911 GT3 and so many more. Edrich Zwiers (who would go on to best his 2017 time by over a second) would have a similarly liveried but quite differently-tuned ‘Motul’ GT-R to battle contenders from Subarus, Porsches, BMW M cars and of course the beautiful Jaguar cars. Also piloting a Nissan GT-R in stock production class would be Reghard Roets who'd battle legends such as Dawie Olivier in the title sponsor’s car, the Jaguar F-Type SVR. It wouldn’t be the only Jaguar on the hill, with the new E-Pace hybrid being driven in anger for the first time on the hill, as well as a contingent of their saloons, and of course an array of classic Jaguar metal.
And then there was a very special Nissan that would compete in a class of its own, the Nissan Leaf RC (Race Car). Low slung and futuristic, it would by no means be the quickest thing on the hill, but in many ways it was the most important. Consider the stage set.
Why I will never miss the hillclimb
Like I said in the beginning, this isn’t meant to be a race report, you can find the results over here.
Instead, I want to tell you why I booked my accommodation for this event several months ago already.
I love it it - the drama, the smells, the smoke, the people. Just walking through the pits and touching the cars, alive with intent, machines that would soon be piloted for less than a glorious minute with the purpose of exiting the other end as quickly as their engines will carry them.
It’s a hell of a sport - I call it the purest distillation because there are no distractions - with a lot of time to prepare mentally and almost no time to recall any corrections you had planned from the lap before. You race for mere seconds, and wait for an hour before the chance to do it again.
There’s a palpable tension as a result in the air, like electricity bouncing between man and machine, resonating through the garages and it’s this energy that permeates the spectator experience. Plus, where else can you get this close to this evocative a line-up of cars including open-wheel formula racers anywhere else in the country? I refer also to V8 Supercar racers from Jaguar and Ford and the concourse condition classic cars of Friday. And all in the scenic coastal town of Knysna.
Eat your heart out Hollywood
Disclaimer, I was paid to make videos of Nissans look good on that mountain, an easy job all things considered. I say this to hopefully remove bias and for transparency sake, but as a happy result of this it gives me a unique perspective of the final result.
It was tense, first with the stock R35 GT-R of Reghard Roets being inspected for potential illegal modifications (it had not been), and then with Wilhelm Baard’s heavily tuned GT-R in Modified Saloons struggling with braking, then catching fire and ultimately when it counted on his final run, managing to beat incredibly stiff competition from all including the aforementioned Lotus Exige/Elise sports cars (the Scribante Porsche 911 GT3 suffered a fatal mechanical failure earlier) despite pranging into a tyre so hard it removed most of the aero at the front of the car.
Incredible. Nail-biting. Loaded with tension right till the end. And then it was over, as the sun set champagne was sprayed, trophies were lifted into the air, and hugs were handed out with great abandon.
I will never, ever miss this race.
To see some of the action as it unfolded for the Nissan drivers, feel free to watch these videos below, in no particular order.
Wilhelm Baard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94qUdAUTAvw
Edrich Zwiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODenCbqi7_k
Regard Roets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbRUAK7YRpI
Janus Van Rensburg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAlhGRzdcpE
