LICHTENBURG, South Africa – Red-Lined Motoring Adventures pushed through the dusty weekend to the finish line of the Lichtenburg 400, delivering a day of firsts for the team in the South African Cross Country Series.
Richard Leeke III, alongside navigator Zaheer Bodhanya, finished third in the FIA class on his maiden race aboard a brand new Nismo V8-powered Red-Lined VK-56 Nissan Navara. "What an incredible weekend!" said Leeke. "That was my best-ever cross country result and all I can say is that I was overwhelmed by the Red-Lined Nissan Navara — the brand new race car's build was only completed last week and we did a 87km shake-down before it was locked, loaded and shipped to Lichtenburg and it never missed a beat."
"What a tribute to an incredible team — special thanks to Terence Marsh for this wonderful opportunity and to Zaheer for an excellent job — man, it was dusty out there but this car just made it so easy!" said Leeke.
Ernest Roberts and Henry Kohne overcame a couple of punctures to power their Navara to 9th in class. "To say today was dusty out there is an absolute understatement," said Roberts. "Visibility was near zero so often, which made the going most difficult and unfortunately we picked up two punctures while trying to pick our way through the murk and lost a bit of time swapping wheels. Otherwise our JCP Roofing Red-Lined Navara VK-56 ran like a dream — what a car, what an adventure!"
Circuit endurance racing convert Kishoor Pitamber, with navigator Andre Vermeulen, made a dream Cross Country debut to finish his first-ever race on the dirt. "Now that was an adventure!" said Pitamber. "Racing out there in the dry sand and dust, often with little or no visibility is completely different to driving my Ferrari on track, but we pulled it off and brought it home. That was an epic adventure and will go down as one of the highlights of my racing career — now I can’t wait for the next race!"
"The Lichtenburg 400 was another great race for Red-Lined Motoring Adventures," said team principal Terence Marsh. "Our three team cars all finished, with Richard and Zaheer driving a brilliant race to end on the FIA podium in a brand new car, Ernest and Henry brought it home in the points and Kishoor and Andre made a bit of history to finish the race without any real preparation."
"Also, both King Price entries we look after for Clint Weston and Riaan Greyling, and Schalk Burger and Elvene Vonk also brought it home for another 100% finish," said Marsh. "Well done to all of them and to our incredible team for pulling off yet another brilliant adventure so well."
Contact
Karen Van Wyk
Red-Lined Motoring Adventure Marketing
karen@redlined.co.za
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