The growl of upcountry Nissan GT-Rs have taken the day once again at this, the 11th year of the much-anticipated Saldanha Drags.
For years, a good-natured rivalry has existed between the Cape dragsters and the Joburg crews. Such a tension is necessary, and serves to heighten the excitement, especially when it comes to what goes down on the tar.
This year, Cape Town petrolheads could only look on with a mix of admiration and envy as Joburger Graeme Steyn made a blistering 319.6km/* pass in his Alpha 12 GT-R as he crossed the 800m mark.
Bobby Nitro spoke to Graeme after the event. He says: “From an event point of view, it was absolutely amazing, wow, there were so many supporters.”
Graeme, who pilots his own car, sounds like a dyed-in-the-cloth dragster, commenting: “I’m always hoping to do more, it’s human nature.
“It’s taken us a year to get the car right, it has broken over and over at events and a big thanks to NxGen who have stuck with it and I think we have found the problem. And a huge thanks to my wife Simone who was by my side the whole event cheering me on.”
For those who don’t know, Saldanha is a top-end drags day, it’s not so much about acceleration off the line, rather the number that counts is the speed at which a driver is clocked as he or she hits the 800m line. Good thing the event is hosted at the airfield, stopping space is crucial.
Every year, Saldanha has seen bigger and better vehicles.
For years it remained a tussle between Cape heroes like Ralph Kumbier in his fire-breathing Can-Am, Shaheen “Suspect” Barmania’s Chevy Lumina (2013 top speed) and Zain Rylands in his twin turbo XR8 (the man with the most podiums so far), then Schalk held the record for two years with 284km/* in his Toyota.
Then last year, the game changed with the arrival of team NxGen’s bevy of GTRs.
These Joburg machines have had the benefit of Alpha performance packages.
The Alpha 12 package, for instance, claims to transform a GT-R into one of the fastest street legal cars to ever hit the highway.
With increased bore size (to 4.1 litres) and strategically strengthened engine to support the monstrous torque, the Alpha 12 GT-R has become untouchable at Saldanha.
Last November, Stelios Sissou broke through the 300km/* barrier and hit 323km/* in an Alpha 16 GT-R. Last weekend, Graeme Steyn was just off that record, with 319.6km/* , taking the King of Saldanha title.
Organiser Lawton van Oordt says: “And that car can go even faster.”
Graeme’s personal best at the ODI 1km run is 340km/* , by the way.
Lawton adds that it was a very successful event, with attendance of over 10 000 people. He says: “It was sold out, and the NxGen guys, I must admit are on another level. My top moment though, was when Shaheen Suspect’s car made a personal best of 293km/* , making his officially the fastest Cape vehicle, and interestingly the Lumina was piloted by Ralph Kumbier on that run.”
Shaheen is now inspired to upgrade the Chevy to break the 300 mark over the 1km at ODI, where he has teased out 299km/* before. He says: “Over the years we’ve invested in the power (1000kW) but have struggled to put it down on the ground. Now we’ve sorted out the American Outlaw back end, the car is going straight, bigger turbos are coming and we’re ready to turn the power up and catch those GT-Rs.”
One the competition, he says: “I’m glad for them, it’s them that is driving me to achieve, they raise the bar so we up our game.” That’s fighting talk that.
Shaheen adds: “Ralph is a very experienced driver, bit of a kamikaze guy, so I knew he could handle the power.”
Lawton says: “Another first has to be the first time ever that we had a tie for first place on two wheels. Jaleel Firfrey and Garion Slamet recorded 306.6km/* each, exactly.”
Lawton says that, besides the toilets, the event went smoothly. Apparently the only incident that required the medics was a bee sting!