ODI Raceway, Pretoria, 7 April 2010

ODI Raceway, Pretoria, 7 April 2010. Two Castrol Edge backed BMWs have broken the 20 year old Standing Start 1km record of 24.318 seconds for road going cars that was set by Peter Manelis in a Pontiac Trans-Am back in March 1990.

The cars, a 595 kW BMW E46 M3 Turbo and a 410 kW BMW E36 328i Turbo, piloted by Sav Gaultieri and Mark Jones respectively, ran average times of 20.889 seconds and 22.731 seconds to not only break the old record, but also post new records in class 9 and 8 of the SA Speed Record register.

Both cars ran faultlessly and the times achieved were backed up within the regulatory one hour window period, while Motorsport South Africa representatives kept a close eye on proceedings to ensure that everything was conducted as per the rule book.

The real relevance of this feat becomes clear when you come to know that both the cars, whilst being turbocharged by aftermarket BMW specialists, Savspeed Auto, ran in street legal form at only 1.2 bar boost and were shod with over the counter everyday Yokohama Advan Sport rubber.

What this means is that there were no stripped out interiors, plastic windows, NOS or special drag type slick tyres used on the day, and this was mainly done in the interest of seeing what these everyday cars could do against the clock and also set the bench mark for future challengers to compete with similar street cars and not out and out race cars.