Alert Engine Parts GTi Challenge Ready For New Season at Killarney
12 February 2022 ushers in a new era for the Alert Engine Parts Western Province GTi Challenge. A brand new series sponsor, a reshuffled field through the classes, and the biggest field in many a year at Killarney’s Power Series races will celebrate motorsport bouncing back after a couple of challenging seasons through the lockdown.
New title sponsor, Alert Engine Parts has recognized the GTi Challenge’s extreme action and popularity as the perfect spectacle. It will grow its brand to a focused, enthusiastic and energetic audience. The Alert Engine Parts GTi Challenge will have a certain yellow hue about it as the new sponsor’s corporate identity tops extreme action for the first time over three spectacular class battles ready to rage through the season as stalwarts face up to new competitors across the grid.
Up to ten previous generations, Polo Cup Vivos will join battle upfront in Class A. Reigning class champion Jurie Swart’s Alpine Autohaus, Marco Busi’s Automan and Jason Coetzee’s machines can expect attention from young guns, Charl Visser’s Charl Electric, Kai van Zijl’s Angri and Nathan Victor’s Polos. They first have to deal with Alert Engine Parts GTi Challenge stalwarts, Colin Nicholas Meder’s ITT car, Dillon Joubert in his TAC World Polo, Jano van der Westhuizen, and Mario Roux’s Automar Polo Cup Vivos.
This year’s biggest Alert Engine Parts GTi Challenge action can however be expected in Class B. Multiple champion Eden Thompson may have had a clean, hard battle on track last year, but he can expect a different prospect in his Somerset Refrigeration Polo in 2022. Regular rivals, Ian Kapp in a brand new Hydracor Polo 6, Grant Cloete’s Upstream Connect and Byron Mitchell’s Dolphin Engineering Golfs, dad Marc Thompson’s Somerset Polo Classic, and Wayne Field’s Jetta will be back. But there’s far more Class B competition this year.
Class C champion Kyle Wiltshire moves up in a Polo Classic and C runner-up Tate Bishop takes over the ex-Giordano Lupini Jetta, now in Angri colors. Add former champions, Brett Roach, Jacques Geldenhuys, Zaki Hendricks and Aldrin van Zijl all returning in a quartet of Polos. And two more fiercely competitive Polos, Shane Williams and Johno Kirsten’s hands. Plus newcomers, Kyle Visser and Brent van der Schyff’s Polos, Steven Vermaak in a Jetta, and Daniel Sandenbergh’s Golf 1. Should B mad!
Class C’s all-Golf 1 GTi battle will deliver its regular fireworks. Chase Herholdt should start as favorite in his blue NDT car, but he will have old rivals Alfie van Zyl, Schalk Geldenhuys, and Matthew Rowe to deal with. Daniel Munna, Raaziegh Harris, and Ryan Van Eden will also be back, while Tammy Kirsten, Jade Lynch, and Seth van den Abeele are all set to join that intense Brat Pack action at the back.
The action goes down over two spectacular heats at Killarney International Raceway Saturday 12 February before a full season of racing through to November. Killarney’s Power Series is once again open to spectators — log on to wpmc.co.za for ticket details. The action will also be live-streamed via Killarney’s social media platforms. Alert Engine Parts joins the GTi Challenge alongside the series’ existing loyal partners, www.cheapercars.co.za, TAC Steel, Powder Coating World, Upstream Connect, Hydracor, and Motorsport Media.
