By Roger McCleery
GLOBAL MOTORSPORT OVERVIEW
South African
youngsters do
South Africa proud
Jordan Pepper (18) won the 2014 International Volkswagen Scirocco Cup in the middle of
August at the famous Nurburgring against 20 competitors from nine other countries, like
Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, the USA and of course Germany.
P
epper, whose father Ian was a top
saloon and F3000, GTi and Formula
Vee single seater racer and sister,
Tasmin, with a long history of motor racing
successes were both at the Ring to wish
Jordan well and support him. A 2nd place
on the Saturday and a win on Sunday gave
him enough points to top the championship
without even having to go to the final race
at Hockenheim in October.
There to present a trophy on the podium
was the 2013 winner of the Volkswagen
Scirocco Cup, South African schoolboy,
Kelvin van der Linde (18) over in Germany
racing and testing his Audi R8 for the next
round of the GT Masters Championship
where he currently lies 3rd.
A Johannesburg matric student, Kelvin, and
his German team-mate, Rene Rast in their
Audi R8 scored their 10th Top Ten finish in
the highly competitive GT3 sports car race
in the ADAC GT Masters Championship in
the Slovak Republic.
Kelvin is the youngest ever European
Volkswagen Scirocco Cup Champion
and the South African Guild of Motoring
Journalists Bridgestone Motor Sportsman
of the Year in 2013. He is one of our drivers
with great prospects for the future in
International motorsport and has certainly
been noticed.
Another South African young man doing
well is Jeffrey Kruger competing in the
2014 European Volkswagen Castrol Cup
Championship run at circuits all over the
Continent. He has been competing against
25 other young drivers from the Czech
Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden
and Russia. He currently lies 3rd in the
championship.
The top ten drivers generally all finish
within a second of each other.
Well done to the Volkswagen Group
for backing championships using their
products all over Europe and to our three
young South Africans making their mark
at an early age and looking good for the
future.
Porsche South Africa and their CEO,
Toby Venter, are to be congratulated for
buying the Kyalami Formula 1 Grand