SALDANHA TOP END DRAGS EASTER 2015
Event date: 4 April 2015 | Words & photos: RaceMasteR J | Saldanha Airfield, Saldanha Bay

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Time flies when you’re having fun and before we knew it, it was time for yet another round of the Saldanha Top End Drags event hosted by West Coast Racing. Held twice a year, this was the Easter Special which is hosted at the Saldanha Bay airfield, about just over an hour’s drive out of Cape Town. This is the Cape Town version of Race Wars, for all you Fast and Furious fans out there. Try and say that in a Vin Diesel voice if you can.


The assortment of competitors participating is always strong, in numbers and in power figures. This event attracts the biggest and most powerful cars and bikes the mother city has to offer. Not surprisingly it attracted a few out of town racers as well! Our old friend Nazzy NOS GP was here to take part in his brutal E30 325is turbo. We know Nazzy from the old Ultimate Street Car days when it used to happen up at Wesbank Raceway in Joburg, good times!


But before the event could start it was time for the notorious parade lap where the guys got to show off their bad ass rides and get the crowds going in anticipation of what’s to come.


Some camera men decided to get a little too up close and personal with the cars.


While others stood their ground as Ready D and his team from D1S performed for the crowds.


You can’t mention Saldanha Drags without mentioning Suspect’s Lumina UTE and Zain’s XR8 TT. Sadly though Schalk’s 2JZ box Corolla wasn’t here this time, but maybe we’ll see him at the next one. These three are without a doubt the heavy hitters of the event.


But with time, others do tend to catch up. At the last event, the Zeeline Performance E30 BMW of Adiel Anthony looked promising but never quite made a spot on the podium. This time though, he did. Adiel managed to clock an extremely impressive speed of 262km/h but unfortunately for him, his day was cut short due to mechanical issues. I heard he was running well over 2bars of boost. Who knows, there might have been a few more kilometers in it later in the day.


Yet another impressive speed was done by quarter mile legend Michael Keyser in his Mazda RX7. Even though it’s not rotary powered, it’s still great to see this car in action. Michael clocked in at 253km/h. Impressive for a car that’s set up for 400m’s.


After watching a recent episode of Top Gear where they featured a new BMW M6 that destroyed a Bentley and Nissan GTR, I was keen to see what this one would do. This GTS Tuned M6 was probably one of the least modified cars on the day and ran a speed of 248km/h winning its class. Well done!


This has to be one of the best looking Skyline GTR’s around. It’s just perfect in every way, from the colour to the subtle kit and not forgetting those Nismo wheels! I feel like playing Gran Turismo now… keep an eye out for a feature with this Japanese legend coming soon.


Performance Solutions were here as well in their Toyota Supra demo car. The car looks ever so subtle with its clean lines and no crazy decals. But looks can be deceiving because there was a monster hiding under the bonnet. Seraaj pulled away and spun the 19” wheels all the way from 1st gear right into 4th. Traction was nonexistent but even so managed a speed of 254km/h. Seraaj is currently looking for bigger tyres as I type this. Can’t wait to see how he does at the next one. Performance Solutions were also kind enough to give away a good few prizes on the day to a few lucky people from BBS wheels, steering wheels and even suspension goodies. Awesome stuff guys!


This Nissan Skyline GTX was completely gangster! Because all it did was pop gun shots out the exhaust all day long.




Some say this is the fastest Ford ST in the land. With a speed of 247km/h can you do any better?


There were even some high class contenders this year too! A Jaguar F-Type, nice! It came in with a speed of 224km/h.


R35 GTR’s weren’t designed to do crazy straight line speeds but they’re great at taking corners though. The fastest one coming in at around 247km/h is not bad at all. What an all round machine these cars are!


Another Zeeline Performance car this time of B Van Wyk was a real sleeper. Unsuspectingly this car flew over the finish line with a remarkable speed of 258km/h. Well done guys, we didn’t expect that!


Suspect decided to do a shakedown run first. Pulling away super slowly and then gradually rolling on the power he crossed the traps effortlessly with a speed of over 230km/h. So it was looking promising. After doing another run the green monster crossed the line with a speed of 246km/h. A bit disappointing unfortunately.


No issues this year saw Zain take the title once again with a speed of 265km/h. Good enough to add yet another trophy to his collection making him the person with the most wins at Saldanha Top End Drags. With head wind speed’s clocking over 40km/h, it was probably the worst ever from all the years that we’ve been to this event.


It’s great to see the guys doing the same speeds if not better than their last ones with a massive head wind. I can only imagine what kind of record speeds would have been set if there wasn’t any wind at all.


And speaking about record speeds, the very first run of the day was a bombshell dropped out of nowhere. Garion Slamet ran his NOS’d Suzuki Hyabusa down the strip and shattered all previous records by 6km/h coming in with an all new bike record of 308km/h!


Well done to the SRD team, hard work has surely paid off for you guys! I don’t see that record being broken any time soon.


So to wrap things up we have in 3rd place, B Van Wyk in the E36 BMW, second goes to Adiel Anthony in his E30 BMW and finally Zain in the XR8 TT, not forgetting an all new record speed set by Garion Slamet on his bike doing a 308! Well done to these guys, and everyone else who participated for making this yet another successful event!

So that’s another Saldanha event done and dusted. Everything went really smooth from start to finish like a well oiled machine. Well done to the West Coast Racing team for putting their hearts and wallets into these events to keep Cape Town’s petrol heads happy. We look forward, as always, to the next one! See you track side!

To see the full list of results click here and don't forget to check out the massive gallery below!

Junaid Hamid
RaceMasteR J
twitter: @racewebmag