Penta Motor Group & the Emerald Speed Festival 28 February - 1 March 2020
In December 2019, The Penta Motor Group acquired a purposed built Nissan GT-R race car which was supported by Nissan SA in previous years.
Although the car was still fully street legal and featuring the GT-R standard Instrument Panel and interior elements it had the abilities to be a pure bred race car.
However, no one had actually seen this car perform or knew it’s capabilities but there was something special about it…we decided to approach Reghard Roets to be our driver of choice since he was already synonymous with GT-R being a three time King of the Hill champion at the Simola Hillclimb in Knysna.
The latest & newest event on the SA sporting calendar would be our proving grounds, Reghard received an open entry from the Emerald Speed Festival organisers and this would be the ideal opportunity to introduce the underdog and probably one of the most talented drivers SA has to offer.
Our tuning partner NXGEN prepared the vehicle enabling it to run at prime performance, the car was initially built by FAST Developments (Fast Freddie) which was an amazing platform to work from.
Friday the 28th of February would be the first day these two would meet…a relatively unknown car with super experienced driver could have gone either way at this point. Reghard couldn’t really find his feet between Friday and Saturday due to various factors like launch control issues, rain, etc. However, both car and driver came to the party on Sunday morning fully prepared to cause what would be the biggest upset the SA Motorsport fraternity has seen this year.
To set the scene, here is some cold hard facts:
- Reghard drove the car for the very first time on Friday, day one of the Emerald Speed festival
- This GT3 GT-R is still a street legal road going car with some standard GT-R interior features
- NO tyre warmers were used except the Michelin Hillclimb Super Soft slick tyres
Reghard alongside Franco Scribante in his GT-R called the “Sheriff” and Pieter Zeelie in his MR2 dominated from session 1 on Sunday trading places between 1st, 2nd and 3rd which lined them up for the most important run…the “Master of the Mile” which would be the ultimate prize for these contenders.
After quite a long time waiting since the last and 3rd session, the final list was drawn and the top 10 competitors would start from the slowest to fastest leaving Reghard till 2nd last to complete his final run for the day. The anticipation was suicidal since the car experience some power loss in the three previous runs although he still posted some of the quickest times. To everyone’s surprise Reghard posted a 33.869s on the 1.6km track which was the quickest time of the weekend and no other competitor could come close which at the end gave him the title: “Master of the Mile”.
In conclusion…the Penta Motor Group took a calculated risk which paid diffident beyond our expectation. Reghard gave us exactly what we wanted, the GT3 GT-R still has loads left in its abilities. We will be at Simola Hillclimb, bigger, better, faster and louder as only the Pentonians can do. Watch this space…
We also want to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors & partners whom help us achieve this amazing result:
- NXGEN Performance
- XPELTM South Africa
- OPUS Camper South Africa
- EZAIR Air conditioning
- EFC (Electronic Fitment Centre)
- PentaSure
- Motul South Africa
- 24/7 Race Fuels
- Race Day TV
- Ink Monkey
- Wat Swaai Jy
