adminMzingaye Sibanda Sports Reporter
THE Bulawayo Motoring Club will stage their first leg of the national championships and the John Love Trophy at the Victoria Falls Road Circuit in Bulawayo tomorrow. This will be the second national event, after the one held in Harare last month. The John Love Memorial race is a commemorative event used to honour one of the best motor racing drivers to emerge from Bulawayo who dominated races in Zimbabwe and South Africa from the 1960s.
Love won the South Africa F1 Championships six times and also competed in the World Grand Prix where he achieved his first podium finish before suffering a broken arm in an accident at Alba which thwarted his dream of being a full time F1 driver.
Love also owned the Jaguar dealership in Bulawayo and his own stock car racing team in the 1980s. The legendary Zimbabwean racing enthusiast passed on in April 2005.
Tomorrow’s event will see many Bulawayo and Harare competitors taking part.
Veteran drivers like Darren Winterboer in his trusted Toyota Corolla, Philip Minnaar Jr in his BMW and Angelo Tevares in his Subaru will be among the star attractions.
BMC will also be hoping to see the likes of Darren Pragji in his Datsun, Julian van Vuuren racing the Honda, Zane Shah in his Conquest and Stuart Young competing in the sports car open class.
Harare challengers are likely to bring the likes of Ian Howden in his Corolla, Kevin Steenkemp in his Sierra, Kevin Allmark in his Ford, Lorraine Randall in her Mini and Christy Laing in her Starlet.
Superbike national series continues after the first round in Harare and is supported by Autoworld Bulawayo.
Riders like Phil Archenoul on his fire breathing Suzuki GSX, Fuzzy Walker on his Kawasaki ZX10 who, after missing the first round in Harare, will be chasing every point he can to catch up with his closest rival Ian Gutherless also riding a Kawasaki ZX10.
Also Dave Marsberg on his Suzuki GSX, Tim Schultz on his Yamaha R1 and his wife Bianca Schultz on her Yamaha R6 and son Mathew Schultz will be aiming to score top points.
Uli Meiners is the reigning national champion.
BMC vice chairman Shah said the weekend event promises to be a blast and encouraged people to come in numbers and witness a great battle in motor sports.
“This is promising to be a great season for the superbike riders with some new riders coming in to challenge the old hands.
“After highlighting just a few of the competitors all looks set for a fun action-packed race day, hope people will come in numbers, let’s ‘Race Legal’,” said Shah.
Supporting Bulawayo motor sport are Toyota Zimbabwe, Young Racing, Colourworld, Auto Quip, Anderson Motors and Barons Motor Spares.
Online Reporter