DAY 1
GarethD_CARmag
Tuesday, 2 November
429 km / Cape Town to Oudtshoorn
As the roller door to the CAR garage screeched open and the fluorescent lights spattered into life, it all hit home. Neatly parked, fully fuelled and freshly liveried was a gathering of performance machinery representing 4 043 kW, 6 962 N.m of torque and a rand value north of R23 million … all destined for a 1 800 km round trip to Gqeberha and, for some, the toughest track test in the hands of none other than Deon Joubert.
Our first stint, weaving through industrial areas and wending along an arrow-straight section of the N1, loosened some of the cobwebs of our early start, but it was hardly the ideal environment to savour these cars. A taster of just such a place was rearing its mountainous mass over the horizon, just 50-odd kilometres outside Cape Town.
To most motorists, Dutoitskloof Pass is just that; something you’d rather pass over. It casts a looming shadow over the town of Paarl, its head wreathed in broken clouds and verdant slopes still brooding in the shadows of the retreating dark. The pass is a narrow, twisting, steeply elevated and often poorly sighted route over the mountain to Worcester, far easier accessed through the tunnel. It does not extend its arms in welcome but, to the motorcade of performance cars filing off the N1, the looming massif and its loop of challenging blacktop – bereft of dawdling hire cars and toll-dodging lorries at that hour – certainly looked enticing. So, it was rather fitting to see the tiny trio of our line-up darting
