Ahead of the return of the Kyalami race, Stuart Johnston looks back on what made it so special over the years
A Ford Mirage leads a Ferrari P3 and a P4 through Kyalami’s Crowthorne bend in 1968. Picture: GARY KEGEL
But alas, in those days the Ford GT still ran spoke wheels, and cruelly those spokes on the left front wheel had started breaking up. Sutcliffe was forced to slow to a crawl, and with four minutes to go, the Ferrari P2 driven by Richard Attwood and David Piper roared past into the lead to record yet another Ferrari victory. The Ford finished second.
I was a Kyalami addict from that day on and the next year, 1967, I was on hand to see Ford score its first victory, when Jacky Ickx won in the so-called Ford Mirage, essentially a GT40 with a larger 5.7l V8 and slightly altered roofline, run in the famous JW Automotive Gulf blue and orange colours for the first time. Ickx would go on to score a memorable Le Mans victory in a GT40 in 1969, when he and Hans Hermann passed each other a number of times for the lead on the final lap.
While Volvos made a huge impression in the early Nine Hours, it was the great Renault R8 Gordini that had the biggest impact of perhaps any car in the Nine Hour’s history, in 1969. Those French racing blue Gordinis were already crowd favourites, giant killers with a 1,300cc engine that could see off big 3.0During the 1969 race, my mates and I were camped in a tent for the main race and next to us were two enthusiasts with their girlfriends and their road-going Renault Gordinis.
Behind the Gordini, in case you think this might have been a fluke, were a Chevron B8, a Chevron B16, a Porsche 906 and a Porsche 908. All full-on racers with Le Mans-like credentials.
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