SOUTH AFRICA 2005 – FEBRUARY 2005
International Sports Prototypes
Your correspondent entered Butch for the International Sports Prototypes Series held in South Africa in February each year. Details of what these illustrious racing drivers have got up to in the past can be found at their website: http://www.racecar.co.uk/isp/
International Sports Prototypes is a professionally run series featuring sports cars that must have raced during the legendary Le Mans period - the years 1963 - 1970. International Sports Prototypes encapsulates all the magic, drama and excitement of those days.
The series is run by such names as Richard Attwood, Stirling Moss, Reine Wisell, David Piper and Mike Knight. Other drivers who have appeared at International Sports Prototypes events include Didier Pironi, Rene Arnoux, Derek Bell and Jacques Laffite.
The cars that star in this series are very fast, even by today’s standards, beautiful, often very rare and extremely valuable. They include the legendary Porsche 917, the 908, Ferrari 512, P4, P2, LM, Ford GT40, and the F3L, Alfa Romeo Typo 33/3, Matra 650 and the beautiful Lola T70. The 2 litre coupes comprise, in the main, the gorgeous Chevron B16's.
Special note can be made of three cars mentioned here - the Ferrari P4 is one of only three remaining in the world, and the only example racing, driven by David Piper.
The Ford F3L which was designed as the follow up car to the world beating GT40 is one of only three that remain, and is amongst the most dramatic looking of all Sports Prototypes. It is usually driven by Richard Attwood, as it was in its heyday.
Finally the Matra Ford MS650, the car that finished 4th at Le Mans in 1969 is the only example of that classic marque likely to be seen in competition anywhere in the world. It is driven by Mike Knight and David Piper.
In all the International Sports Prototypes grid has a combined value in excess of £4 million each time that it appears.
So we were in hallowed company. Unfortunately things didn’t go quite according to plan. First of all the Tsunami struck Asia in January and this meant that our cars were delayed at critical points during the course of their journey down to South Africa in favour of ships carrying relief supplies. Obviously this is a much more important use of ship carrying capacity—but it was a huge disappointment not to have our cars in the Country for the first event at Zwartkops north of Johannesburg. Luckily our South African hosts jumped to the rescue and that is why I found myself racing a 1970 Red Camaro seen in the accompanying pictures. Despite losing the gear knob early in the race (I cut my hand quite badly on up changes after this had happened) and leaning over to grab the fire extinguisher that had come adrift, in order to prevent it jamming the pedals we finished well and enjoyed the V8 soundtrack! Still we managed to finish both races although I badly wanted to show the owner of the Red Camaro, Butch. In fact the red Camaro owner, Peter du Toit also owns the racetrack!
At the following race meeting at Killarney near Capetown, we at least had our own cars. Practice was going well—until Butch’s gearbox developed a fault. We thought that it was fixable—but after taking the gearbox out (twice) and dismantling it and putting it back together the whole match eventually blew. So not a great race meeting. At least I managed to set up some business organising a JV with two operations locally. We have an office in Mauritius which I will have to visit on my next trip. I will leave you with some pleasant memories of racing the 70 at Zwartkops, front page news covering the Killarney meeting, and tasty South African Corvette, and a picture of Butch overhauling an M5 BMW with Table Mountain as a back ground.
I shall also leave you with a comment from the organisers: “The trip turned out to be the automotive equivalent of the film "The Perfect Storm" - whatever could go wrong went wrong. It was unremitting. In the twenty four years that we have been representing a group of drivers and cars and organising them to participate in race meetings in many countries throughout the world that spanned supporting Formula 1 GP's to being the star attraction ourselves, never before have we experienced a string of events that caused so much chaos to so many people. We apologise most sincerely for it and we were touched by the support that you were able to give us. If there was any mercy shown at all it was perhaps that this happened in South Africa - there are worse places to be during an English winter.”
I write this prior to leaving for South Africa 2006. Let us hope that we have a better series this year. Butch has benefited from a new gearbox, rebuilt engine by Kenny Coleman (EDA), a new whizzy power steering set-up from Flaming River and utilising a Citroen Saxo electric pump! The organisers fully expect the cars to arrive on time too! Timetable this year is Zwartkops 3-4 February and Killarney 11 and 12 February with practice the day preceding in each case.