first outing at Simola
SUPERB
Team Effi ciency / aBr has an amazing debut experience at what is rapidly becoming South Africaʻs best motorsport weekend.
The Garden Route is renowned for its incredible driving roads. The mountain passes that connect coastal towns to the Karoo, and beyond, offer some of the best enthusiast driving roads in the world.
But for all its amazing driving roads, the Garden Route lacks a race circuit. Necessity is the source of all true innovation, and that’ s how the Simola Hillclimb came into being 16 years ago. Experienced motorsport people based in Knysna recognised the potential of the serpentine, challenging road that connects the N2 to the Simola golf estate.
WHY SIMOLA MATTERS
Instead of trying to create a street circuit in town, with all the expense and inconvenience that entails for residents, the Simola Hillclimb stages in a small valley just north of the N2, which runs through Knysna. The 1.9km road features all the gradient and off-camber corners needed to make for a deeply challenging and rewarding time trial.
For motorsport enthusiasts who don’ t have the time in their busy schedules to run a full-season amateur competition car in a Gauteng race series, Simola is ideal. As a destination, it means the entire family can come along and have a valuable tourism experience, with everything Knysna and the surrounding areas have to offer. That’ s why Team Efficiency / aBr decided on the Simola Hillclimb to be its debut event for the brand’ s Alfa Romeo Giulia, piloted by Tony Casey.
A lifelong automotive enthusiast and former 250 superkart racer, Casey entrusted Alfa Romeo specialists Autopitstop with preparing the Team Efficiency / aBr Giulia. Technicians worked their magic, increasing the peak power of the 2.9-litre turbocharged V6 to 450 kW.
WORDS IN ACTION 38 MAY 2026