Pro Tour racing will come to the Phakisa circuit in the Free State again this weekend with a supercar double bill - not only will fans be treated to R60 million worth of racing machinery from Ferrari, Porsche, Noble, KTM X-Bow and other exotic marques in the Round 7 of the nine-round Pro Tour Motor Racing Road Show, but both GT Challenge races will also be combined with their GT Classic siblings and in a popular format - 30 minutes plus one lap.
The mini-endurance format brings a new dimension to sprint racing; teams will have to give serious thought to fuel consumption, heat build-up, brakes, and most of all, their tyres.
GT CHALLENGE
In the overall points standings, category chairman Kris Budnik in his BMW M3 still leads after a successful Kyalami outing in July. Budnik has consistently built up an almost unassailable advantage of 15 points over Andrew Culbert's Porsche 997 GT3 Cup and the similar car Sun Moodley.
Crowd favourite Nicky Dicks, will be out in his Porsche GT3 Cup car, while mechanical work on his Ferrari F430 is being completed. Dicks is lying fourth in the overall standings, followed by watersport junkie Charl Arangies from Vereeniging in a Ford-powered Noble and Christo Lotter in a Porsche 996 GT3 Cup.
A royal battle can be expected in Class GTC1 between Vernon Bricknell in his Porsche GT3 (he's leading the class championship by a single point from Arangies in his blisteringly quick Noble) and the Porsche 993 GT3 Cup of Rod Cole Edwards, who's only four points further adrift despite missing the previous meeting.
Culbert heads up the Class GTC2 log, three points ahead of Moodley, with Dicks third and counting on his back-up Porsche to score him some valuable points.
In Class GTC3, Budnik is followed by Lotter and Arangies. Young Preyen Moodley, in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, is settling in nicely after only starting to compete regularly towards the end of last year, and is only five points behind the top three.
Also lending spice to proceedings at Phakisa will be Jonathan Shenkman in his Ferrari, alongside Chris Wischart, who is steadily improving the performance of his brutal Dodge Viper, as well as two KTM X-Bows, to be driven by Greg Parton and Deon Du Plessis.
GT CLASSICS
Stefan Puschavez is leading this championship in his Porsche RSR, followed by George Avvakoumides in a Porsche 911 - but the latter is just 2 points ahead of the flying Porsche 911 of Willem van der Westhuizen, with Andrie Bester only five points further down, flowed by Andreas Letnik, Jacques Viljoen and Harry Arangies.
GTC5 class leader Donovan Symes will not be on track at Phakisa, as his very quick Porsche 935 replica has to be totally rebuilt after a huge shunt at Zwartkops.
Puschavez has a considerable points lead in Class GTC6, but that could change now that Markus Minihold has recovered from his shoulder surgery.
Harry Arangies still temporarily leads Class GTC7, while van der Westhuizen leads Class GTC8 by a fair margin and Jacques Viljoen tops Class GTC9 in his immaculately prepared and presented Porsche 911 Carrera.