Summarize

Michael van Rooyen took a major step towards the 2025 South African Touring Cars championship with an impressive overall victory at Zwartkops Raceway’s mid-season Extreme Festival presented by Coca-Cola on Saturday. Champion Jonathan Mogotsi  meanwhile drove his way back into SATC SupaCup title contention with a double win in Pretoria.

Van Rooyen, who has raced the entire season so far, has come under recent attack from late starters, Keegan Campos and Saood Variawa. The Rustenburg Rocker however took no prisoners on Saturday, following pole man Campos home in second in race 1, before benefiting great Gazoo Toyota teamwork on Variawa’s behalf, to race to victory in the reverse grid second race. Mogotsi meantime, dominated to a pole position and double SupaCup race win grand slam to slash his title deficit to Cape charger Tate Bishop.

Keegan Campos opened the betting with a dominant pole position in his Campos Transport FAST CLR BMW 128 tc, four tenths of a second clear of Michael van Rooyen‘s Toyota Gazoo Racing Corolla TC. Julian van der Watt lined up third in his Chemical Logistics Racing WCT Volkswagen Golf GTI TC, ahead of impressive Andrew Schofield in the second Chemical Logistics Fly Safair FAST CLR BMW 128 tc. Toyota Gazoo Racing Corolla duo TC Nathi Msimanga and Saood Variawa followed from Jagger Robertson in the other Chemical Logistics Racing Sparco WCT VW Golf GTI TC, and Siyabonga Mankonkwana’s Investchem Chemical Logistics Corolla TC.

Jonathan Mogotsi’s VW Genuine Parts version led SupaPolo quintet, Volkswagen teammate Jason Loosemore’s Astron Energy version, championship leader Tate Bishop’s Angri Racing LTR car, Charl Michael Visser’s Charl Engineering version and Cash Cat 99 rookie Muhammad Wally on the SupaCup grid. Dawie van der Merwe was sixth in the sole Toyota Gazoo Racing SupaStarlet from Zimbabwean Dylan Pragji‘s Stylin Auto car, AZNetworks LTR lad Niko Zafiris, Nicolas Vostanis’ Campos Transport car, Kalex lass Karah Hill, Platinum Mile man Dean Venter, Master Andre Bezuidenhout’s Weltevreden entry and Graphix Supply Team Red son, David and dad Roberto Franco.

Keegan Campos’ BMW 128 took control early on and drove off to a dominant opening race win, but Michael van Rooyen consolidated his title advantage with second from Julian van der Watt’s Golf. There was an interesting tussle behind them, finally resolved in Nathi Msimanga’s favour, ahead of Jagger Robertson’s Golf and Saood Variawa’s Corolla, which nicked sixth from Schofield’s BMW on the final tour. Siyabonga Mankonkwana maintained a watching brief in eighth.

Jonathan Mogotsi meantime reinvigorated the SATC SupaCup championship with a compelling opening heat victory off pole position. Rookie teammate Jason Loosemore made it a factory 1-2 to aid Jonathan’s title effort over leader Tate Bishop, Charl Visser, rookie Muhammad Wally and Dawie van der Merwe in the sole Toyota SupaStarlet. Behind them, Karah Hill made an excellent start to jump up to seventh and hung on to beat Dylan Pragji, Niko Zafiris and David Franco after Dean Venter stopped, Nicolas Vostanis and Rob Franco, who edged Andre Bezuidenhout to the Masters win.

The first attempt to start the reverse grid second race came to nil when BMW duo Campos and Schofield danced into the turn 1 kitty litter. The red flags flew to stop the race while the Beemers were extracted, patched up and rushed back to action. Variawa then played a teammate’s masterclass to engineer van Rooyen into the lead for the win to consolidate his title advantage. Behind them an entertaining battle played out before van der Watt escaped to third. He left Msimanga to fend off Campos, who recovered to pass Robertson for sixth ahead of Schofield after Mankonkwana finally exited after his second visit to the sand trap. That caused the race to end behind the safety car.

Behind them, Volkswagen Motorsport duo Mogotsi and Loosemore once again held sway at the front early in the SupaCup second heat action before Bishop forced his way past Loosemore to pressurise Mogotsi. Jonathan was however unflustered and went on to win from Tate, Jason, Visser, Vostanis and van der Merwe. Further back, Karah Hill followed from Dylan Pragji, Muhammad Wally, David Franco and Dean Venter, who came from the back to beat Zafiris. Bezuidenhout meantime turned the Masters tables on Roberto Franco.

The upshot of all of that was Michael van Rooyen taking the day overall from Keegan Campos, Julian van der Watt, Nathi Msimanga, Saood Variawa, Jagger Robertson and Andrew Schofield. Jonathan Mogotsi took the SupaCup day in style from Volkswagen Motorsport teammate Jason Loosemore, Tate Bishop, Charl Michael Visser, Muhammad Wally, Dawie van der Merwe and Karah Hill. And Rob Franco pipped Andre Bezuidenhout to Masters honours.

South African Touring Cars and SupaCup head to the epic high speed beachside East London Grand Prix Circuit next, for round 5 of the Extreme Festival powered by Coca-Cola on Saturday 19 July.